From a Few Goats and a Card Table to Silly Goats Soap Company

What started as a simple move to the country became something we never could have planned.

Silly Goats Soap Company wasn’t born from a business plan.

It started with a desire to live a little simpler, become a little more self-sufficient, and know more about where the things we used every day came from.

Today, you’ll find us on our small family farm among the rolling hills of beautiful South-Central Kentucky. But our story started years ago in Upstate New York with a garden, a growing collection of farm animals, a few goats—and a whole lot of learning as we went.

We’re Chris and Sandy Shaefer, and this is the story of how a simple idea eventually became Silly Goats Soap Company.

Getting Back to the Basics

Sandy With The Silly Goats

Neither one of us set out with a grand plan to build a goat milk skincare company.

We simply wanted a life that was a little closer to the land.

Over the years that meant gardens, fruit trees, laying hens, cows, pigs and plenty of other farm animals. We learned to grow and preserve some of our own food, raise animals, hay, construct buildings and become more self-sufficient.

Our faith, family and animals have always been at the center of that life.

Eventually, we decided we wanted our own source of fresh milk. After researching different dairy goat breeds, we chose LaManchas.

They’re an American breed known for producing plenty of wonderfully sweet milk, and just as importantly to us, they’re known for their friendly, easygoing personalities.

We started our little herd.

And then we had milk.

So… What Do You Do With All That Goat Milk?

Once you start milking dairy goats, you learn something pretty quickly:

They make a LOT of milk.

We drank it. We put it in our coffee. Sandy made cheese and yogurt for the family.

And we still had milk.

At the same time, skincare was something very personal to us. Chris had dealt with psoriasis and extremely dry skin for many years, while Sandy had sensitive skin and struggled with many conventional soaps, as well as a our daughter Sarah who was just starting into her teen years and struggling with acne.

That led Chris to start researching goat milk soap.

The more we learned, the more interested we became. Making our own soap fit perfectly with the kind of life we were already trying to build—using what we produced here on the farm to make something useful for our own family.

So we decided to give it a try.

What started as a solution for ourselves quickly became something much bigger.

The Birth of Silly Goats Soap Company

First Farmers Market Booth in Central, NY

In those early days, we had just a handful of products and would set up wherever we could find a spot.

This photo was taken at our very first booth at the Canastota Farmers Market in New York in 2014.

Nothing fancy—just us, our handmade goat milk soap, a card table and the hope that people might like what we were making.

Turns out—they did.

As customers came back and told their friends, our little business began to grow.

Four fragrances became more soaps. Soap led to goat milk lotion. Then came more skincare, bath and body products and other things we believed our customers would enjoy.

Eventually, our kitchen wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

It was time for a real soap shop.

From the Kitchen to Our First Soap Shop

First Soap Shop in Central New York

On our farm in Central New York, with the help of friends, we built our first dedicated soap shop off the barn.

For the first time, we had a real production area, workspace and milk parlor designed around what our growing business needed.

It was a big step for us.

We had gone from making soap in the kitchen to running a real family business right from our farm.

But another change was coming.

After years in New York, we began feeling that it was time for a new chapter.

The winters weren’t getting any easier, and if we wanted to continue farming and running Silly Goats Soap Company for years to come, we knew we needed to make a change.

We prayed about it for a long time.

Then the right farm came along.

From New York to the Hills of Kentucky

In September 2019, we packed up our lives, our business and, of course, the Silly Goats and moved south to our new farm in South-Central Kentucky.

And when we say farm, we found just about exactly what we’d been hoping for.

Pastures. Hay fields. Woods. A pond. Room for the animals. Beautiful views of the rolling Kentucky hills.

And, thankfully, it was already a goat farm.

That part felt like somebody upstairs might have been paying attention. 😉

Looking Over Our Back Pastures

The farm was right.

The soap shop?

Well… that needed some work.

Building Our Kentucky Soap Shop

There was an old equipment run-in shed on the property that had been built and added onto over the years.

We looked at it and saw our future soap shop.

Apparently, we also saw several years’ worth of work. 😂

Where We Started

We gutted the building, removed old pens and storage areas, set posts, leveled floors, extended the roof, framed walls, installed windows and doors, ran electricity, insulated, hung drywall, painted, installed flooring and built out the production areas.

We added a milk room & birthing stalls for the goats, stainless steel work areas for production, an office and labeling area, storage and space for packing orders.

Building Our New Shop

And yes, we did most of it while still farming, milking goats, making products, filling orders and running the business out of the basement of our house.

We couldn’t build everything at once. We simply worked on it as we could afford to, doing a little at a time and getting help from some wonderful friends along the way.

Eventually, that old farm building became the Silly Goats Soap Shop we had imagined.

Ready for Business

Being able to walk out our back door, take care of the animals, milk the goats and then walk into our own shop and run our business is something we don’t take for granted.

Home Sweet Home

If You’re Interested See: Construction of our Silly Goats Soap Shop here at Silly Goats Farm in beautiful South Central, Kentucky!

Still Made Right Here on Our Farm

Chris and Sandy Shaefer outside the Silly Goats Soap Company shop in Kentucky

A lot has changed since those first four fragrances and that little card table.

One thing hasn’t.

We still make our products ourselves.

Our goat milk comes from our own herd of registered LaMancha dairy goats. We milk our goats here on the farm and store their milk so we can make our goat milk products throughout the year.

Our products are made in our shop here on the farm, in small batches, with the same attention to quality that we cared about when we were making soap for ourselves.

We’re not a giant skincare corporation pretending to be a little farm company.

We’re actually the people milking the goats, making the products, labeling the bottles, packing the boxes and sending your order out the door.

Chris Bottling Lotion

The Best Part of What We Do

Over the years, Silly Goats Soap Company has grown far beyond anything we imagined when we made those first batches of soap.

But the part that means the most to us isn’t how many products we’ve made or how many boxes we’ve shipped.

It’s hearing from you.

We hear from customers who simply love the way our soap feels on their skin. We hear from people searching for gentler options for dry or sensitive skin. We hear stories from longtime customers who have been ordering from us for years and from new customers who just discovered our little farm in Kentucky.

Those messages, reviews and stories matter more than you probably realize.

Farming is hard work.

Milking goats every day is hard work.

Running a small business is hard work.

And there are days when we’re tired and worn out.

Then one of those messages comes in.

And we remember exactly why we’re still doing this.

More Than a Soap Company

Silly Goats Soap Company has always been about more than soap.

It’s about building a life together.

It’s about faith and family.

It’s about taking care of the animals and land we’ve been blessed with.

It’s about making something with our own hands and being proud to put our family’s name behind it.

And it’s about doing our best to make products we’d be happy to use ourselves and share with the people we care about.

Looking back, farming, milking goats and making skincare products wasn’t exactly where we expected life to take us.

Funny how that works.

Sometimes the biggest blessings are the ones you never planned.

From Our Farm to Your Home

Whether you’ve been buying Silly Goats products since our New York craft-show days or you found us five minutes ago through a Google search, we’re glad you’re here.

When you order from Silly Goats Soap Company, you’re supporting a real family farm and a small American business.

And somewhere here in the hills of Kentucky, Chris or Sandy—and probably both of us—had a hand in getting that product from our farm to your home.

Thank you for allowing our family to do what we love.

Thank you for supporting our little farm.

And thank you for becoming part of the Silly Goats story.

God Bless,

Chris & Sandy Shaefer
Silly Goats Soap Company
South-Central Kentucky

Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll keep making goat goodies for you for many years to come. 🐐