They’re Nigerian dwarf goats, and they’re adorable. They stay relatively small, even when they’re fully grown. They’re meant to be milk goats and have great temperament.
And, apparently, they’re perfect for student goat yoga at LSU. They climb all over yogis as they pose and stretch during class. Everyone gets a kick out of it.
“Goats are natural climbers and jumpers. They’re worse than cats. They’ll jump on a counter and knock everything off,” says Christine Rabalais, co-owner of Cajun Country Backyard Mobile Petting Zoo. She brings the goats to LSU for its goat yoga classes.
So what is goat yoga? It’s exactly like regular yoga except, well, with goats wandering about. The first class was held on a farm in Oregon in 2016, and similar classes quickly sprang up around the country. The goats bring attendees joy and laughter, which can be healing and help students de-stress.
And the organizers of the LSU classes say the classes are a great time for the goats, too. There are typically about 10 goats, including some babies, in the enclosure. Rabalais says her goats have been orphaned, and she’s taken them in as bottle babies. “They love affection and attention and love to be around people,” she says.
Its first two goat yoga classes last fall and this spring were hits, drawing 30 to 50 people. With another class coming up at the UREC on April 22, the goal is to keep adding more classes and growing attendance, exposing more Baton Rougeans to the exercise.
Rabalais opened a petting zoo and farm party business last May with her husband. She received a call last September from LSU’s fitness and wellness coordinator at the UREC Melissa Mapson, asking if she rented out her goats and explaining that she wanted to put on a goat yoga class at the university.
“Being a fitness coordinator, I get really excited to introduce any type of fitness programming,” Mapson says. “I try to make all the programs trendy and relatable and interesting for the students. I’m from New Jersey originally, and I know goat yoga was a huge thing up north. I was like, ‘This would be so fun.’”
A search for farms and petting zoos led her to Rabalais. For the class, Rabalais would have to make a temporary fencing area on the Parade Ground at LSU to hold the goats during class.
“We were able to make it work out,” she says. “It seems like everybody absolutely loves it.”
Rabalais has now had other community members contact her to bring goat yoga elsewhere in town in the future. She’s even signed up to get yoga instructor certification.
Being out in nature exercising with goats is special—and there’s one aspect of goat yoga that’s particularly sweet: “When the baby goats go by people,” she says, “they just kind of quit doing yoga and love on the baby goats.” lsuuniversityrec.com/fitness
This article was originally published in the April 2020 issue of 225 Magazine.
