Gabby's Goat Farm: Building a Business That Refuses to Be 'Halfway'

On a hot South Carolina day, Lori Patrick, owner of Gabby's Goat Farm, doesn’t describe entrepreneurship like a spark or a sudden leap. She describes it like work that compounds: buckets that need refilling, decisions that need refining, and the quiet discipline of showing up again and again even when the conditions aren’t kind.

The farm is more than a brand. It is a living operation with living needs, and every improvement has to survive the reality of daily care.

That same blend of grit and intention runs through her origin story, her business model, and how she defines success.

Lori Patrick moved from Ontario, Canada, to South Carolina in July 1999. Before goats were ever part of her life, she was a registered nurse who worked in McLeod's CCU, followed by years in different nursing roles. Family circumstances shaped the wavelength of the early years, and later, her career choices pivoted again. As motherhood became part of her timeline, so did the search for something even more sustainable and different.

Goat yoga arrived like an idea that looked fun at first and then turned into something serious. Patrick says she bought her first Nigerian dwarf goats as pets, not as a business infrastructure. Then a South Carolina mentor and farmer, Terri Gustin, who is also the owner of Critter Creek Farm, introduced her to goat yoga. 

The help of her yoga instructor Kelly Morehouse's contribution fed into her motivation to start and operate her business: Gabby's Goat Farm. "Kelly is a hard worker, who gives 110 percent. She usually arrives early to help me set up to unload the goats, and stays until we are all packed and can leave together," she explained, noting Morehouse, however, "wants everyone to have a great experience regardless if they do less yoga and are distracted by furry friends." Patrick described Morehouse as someone who has been influential, vital to the business, and keeping the laughter flowing in the goat yoga sessions.

Patrick is drawn to natural care for her goats and a natural health philosophy more broadly by offering natural cleaning products, natural dusters, body butter/lotions, beard oil, creams, lip balms, different kinds of soap, and even as far as golden yellow eggs from her chickens. Gabby's Goat Farm is drawn to approaches that keep not only her goats safe, but people, too. She addressed the regulations and constraints around raw milk and how those rules affect what she can offer. With her soap, it is made out of natural ingredients using raw goat milk derived from goats on the farm. Unlike shelved or powdered soap that uses distilled water, Gabby's Goat Farm creates soap using natural ingredients from goat milk. "What sets our products apart from others is that we are committed to creating something unique, with care and creativity," Patrick shared.

To learn more information, connect with them here or using this link: https://www.facebook.com/gabbysgoatfarm/