--- title: City Goats: Barnyard Animals in Backyards | TIME description: Novella Carpenter raises dwarf goats and chickens at her home in Oakland, Calif. She’s written a book on urban animal farming canonical: https://time.com/video/N7iIZit1/ og:title: City Goats: Barnyard Animals in Backyards og:description: Novella Carpenter raises dwarf goats and chickens at her home in Oakland, Calif. She’s written a book on urban animal farming og:url: https://time.com/video/N7iIZit1/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/N7iIZit1/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: City Goats: Barnyard Animals in Backyards twitter:description: Novella Carpenter raises dwarf goats and chickens at her home in Oakland, Calif. She’s written a book on urban animal farming twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/N7iIZit1/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # City Goats: Barnyard Animals in Backyards > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: City Goats: Barnyard Animals in Backyards [Watch (HLS stream): City Goats: Barnyard Animals in Backyards](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/N7iIZit1.m3u8) (3:18)  _Published 2009-08-07. Novella Carpenter raises dwarf goats and chickens at her home in Oakland, Calif. She’s written a book on urban animal farming_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:12 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Goats Run Loose in a Town on Coronavirus Lockdown](/video/7d8A1mSp/) ### Goats Run Loose in a Town on Coronavirus Lockdown [A Significant Number of Goats Just Casually Took Over an Idaho Neighborhood](/video/1B8nydy1/) ### A Significant Number of Goats Just Casually Took Over an Idaho Neighborhood [How to Grill \(and Kill\) a Goat](/video/svQ50w7s/) ### How to Grill (and Kill) a Goat --- ## Transcript >> Well, it used to be that people regularly kept pigs or chickens in their backyards and it wasn't considered any problem. It's only recently that we've gotten into this thing where we have this whole dichotomy between a rural area and a city area. >> Here at Ghost Town farms, amid the traffic and grime of the inner city, Novella Carpenter raises chickens, rabbits and Nigerian dwarf goats in her Oakland apartment. >> The industrial food model is not-- it doesn't have animal's best interest in their minds, you know, it's just sort of the fastest production and then just be done with it. It's a kind of a horrible way for the animals to live. So that's one of the reasons why we chose to start raising meat animals is to actually have control of that and to reject that as something that is really disturbing. >> Carpenter has been farming in cities for more than 10 years; she recently published Farm City an anecdotal account of her experiences as an urban farmer. >> How did you get out? >> My pigs would escape sometimes, but the neighbors would all help. It was great, actually an animal escape brings the neighborhood together, so all my neighbors would help like round them back up, including the Buddhist monks which was totally hilarious because they were vegetarian. >> And while the monks may not indulge in her free range meat, there's still plenty of fresh produce to share. >> The gate to the garden is always open so people come and harvest food from the garden, but I think it's really important for people in my neighborhood to have access to fresh produce. It's kind of a food desert, there's not a grocery store nearby and so it's really hard for people to eat healthy food >> Carpenter believes that the recent economic downturn has led to a growing interest in urban farming. >> They like to get milk 'cause [ unk ]-- >> Often times, people start urban farming when there's a recession or depression of some sort because they're motivated to grow their own food to save money and what I've noticed is that then when that depression ends or recession ends then people are like " Oh, cool. I can just go back to buying food ." And so in some ways it is a trend, and it started because of an economic pressure, but having someone like Michelle Obama planting a vegetable garden in the White House lawn is huge. That really adds fraction to the idea of like, you know, you can grow your own food. Most urban dwellers may not be ready for a backyard animal menagerie. Still, Carpenter feels that cities could be doing more to motivate residents. >> I think the best thing any city can do that sort of wants to encourage urban farming is to actually setup a demonstration of urban farm in every city. So we would have this like, urban farm model that shows all the different things that you can grow, and kind of inspire people to do urban farming. That would be great for getting more urban farming happening The other day somebody came to look at the goats and they we're like " These goats are in the best shape, I never seen goats that look so good ." And I'm just like, I got so, like pumped up, and then I was like, ooh, I feel like my mom probably. You know, like, so proud-- yeah, my babies. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"City Goats: Barnyard Animals in Backyards","description":"Novella Carpenter raises dwarf goats and chickens at her home in Oakland, Calif. 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