July 22, 2010 - One goat led to another for Mark Burow, and those two goats started the now-thriving Wateroak Farm, in far southern Robertson County. Though he was one of the first half-dozen producers to obtain a license to sell Grade A raw milk from his farm, it took him about eight years to diversify to the point where he could make a living from the farm.
Today, Burow produces not only raw and pasteurized goat milk, but also a variety of cheeses, yogurts and ice creams. He delivers the dairy products to about 50 stores, primarily in Bryan, Austin and Houston. Even with the help of his wife Pam, and five part-time workers, the job is more than a full-time occupation for Mark and Pam.
"I never desired to be a dairyman, but I'm an entrepreneur and when I see an opportunity, I try to participate," he said. "After we moved out here, a woman gave me a pregnant female goat. She had a couple of babies, but I had absolutely no desire to milk a goat."
That first female goat died, which was the first in a series of hands-on learning experiences for Burow. From that, he learned that the intestinal parasites that plague sheep and goats thrive when the animals give birth, and that the mothers must be tended to as soon as possible after the birth.
The goats ended up doing an admirable job of clearing away the brush and excess vegetation that covered the farm when the Burows bought it. With three children, Burow started thinking about what kind of milk would be best for his own family, and how he wanted his children to grow up. That led to him milking the goats for the family's use. Eventually, all three children would make milking an integral part of their childhoods.
"I figured if I bought a cow for milk, well, cows kick. And if they kick you, they can break your leg. Goats don't kick, and if they did they still wouldn't break your leg. So I stayed with the goats," Mark said. "The kids learned a lot about responsibility; they learned about birthing an animal, raising it, and burying it. That's some of the big life lessons right there."
It didn't take long for the Burows to look around Wateroak and see 50 goats, with the does producing an average of more than two babies a week. Feed costs alone were through the roof and Burow decided the goats would have to start paying for their keep. Today, Wateroak has between 85 and 90 mature goats and about half of those are milked twice daily.
Burow sold mostly milk for the first several years, but began producing the value-added products like the cheeses, yogurts and ice cream four years ago. He started producing low-fat yogurt from the skim milk he once poured in the pasture, and then branched out to meet a growing consumer demand for chevre, ricotta and feta varieties of goat cheese.
Farm living and farm work are nothing new for Burow. Though he grew up in Houston, he grew up on 2.5 acres of swamp land that could be cleared with a machete one week and be thicker the next week than it was before it was cut.
"We turned the goats loose on it and they cleared it in no time. I saw what they can do first-hand there in the swamps of Houston. That's where I saw first-hand the miracle of the goat," he said.
Burow has made his living mostly by building, repairing and modeling houses, skills that came in handy when he built the buildings that house the dairy where the products are processed, packaged and stored for delivery. The farm has finally started to show a profit, but he worries that new regulations on cheese makers that went into effect on July 4 will drive him and many other small producers out of business. (See related story.)
"To meet the new standards, I would have to pay between $75,000 and $100,000," he said. "A big company producing on a mass scale can probably handle that, but I don't know many small producers who can.
"There is still plenty of demand out there for our products, and there about 60 of us producing the local, artisan cheeses that a lot of people want. The only way you survive is by producing a quality product and passing a safety inspection by the health department every month. The market will usually tell you if you're doing things the right way."
