There may be life off the ranch, but any Fremont County farmer or rancher will tell you – The #aglife is “the good life!” #Aglife is a County 10 series, brought to you by Wyoming Community Bank, that pulls the curtain back on farm and ranch life in Fremont County.
(Fremont County, WY) – It started as a joke, but it’s turned out to be anything but that. Chase Taylor, a 2020 Shoshoni High School graduate, grew up in the show ring.
“My dad was involved in showing pigs when he was young. I started showing pigs at four years old in the open show,” Chase said. “I grew up showing pigs. I didn’t play sports. We took the shows serious.”
Her seriousness with livestock showing prompted a family friend, Randall VonKrosigk, to give her a goat.
“Randall bought me a goat as a joke,” Chase said. “I wasn’t impressed with the goat.”
There was a generational connection between Chase and Randall. Chase’s father, Dustin Taylor, showed hogs.
“My dad, when he was raising pigs as a kid, sold all his sows to Wendell (Randall’s father) and Randall,” Chase said. “After that, we showed pigs from Von Krosigk’s for years.”
By junior high and then high school, Chase wasn’t as interested in showing hogs.
That’s when Randall’s little joke took a big turn.
“We took the goat along with pig shows, and she took grand or reserve at every show that year,” Chase said. “That first goat never sat lower than reserve. That was it, I was hooked.”
Chase comes from six generations of cattle ranchers. Her grandparents, Dan and Ginger Taylor, raised cattle on their place on Shetland Road, near Pavillion, and Chase now calls that home.
Dan is from Meeker, Colorado and Ginger grew up in Burlington and Meeteetse.
Chase’s dad, Dustin, was active in Tad McMillan’s FFA Chapter at Riverton High School and now ranches at Meeteetse. Dan spends time between Meeteetse and home while Ginger stays in their home next door to Chase.
Dustin grew up in Meeteetse and graduated from Riverton. Chase’s mom, Cherrie Wychgram grew up in Lander. They both studied together at the University of Wyoming and settled on Shetland Road.
“I grew up on a commercial cow/calf operation with my dad. We had cows and a feedlot when I was a kid, Chase said. “We never had anything except cattle. My dad’s been growing hay for as long as I can remember.”
That changed after that first doe, “Ozzie” arrived.
“We bought a couple of nannies; the first goat was a doe, so we kept her,” Chase said. “We showed competitively, county fair was probably the smallest show we went to all year. It became all about goats.”
Ozzie was the start of the operation.
Chase was active in both 4H and FFA. She started high school at Riverton.
“I started with that first goat. It was the start of the operation. I needed to have a project for FFA,” Chase said. “Casey Styvar was my Riverton ag teacher and he asked me what my goals were, I said Star State Farmer and maybe a state FFA officer. He asked me what I’d like to do, I said show goats.”
Styvar moved on to Central Wyoming College and a couple of agricultural teachers followed.
“We moved to the Shoshoni district and I had another awesome ag teacher, Damian Christianson,” Chase said.
Her herd began to grow.
“I sold the ones I wasn’t going to show and they did really well,” Chase said. “People began following me and started buying goats from me.”
She had her first online sale when she was a junior in high school.
“I made enough money to buy a new buck and a handful of does with the profits,” Chase said. “I fell in love with it really quick. It started doing so well that I thought this is what I’d do when I was an adult.”
She earned the Star State Farmer Award during COVID.
There are many ways to market livestock. The traditional cow/calf operation, farrowing, feeding and marketing hogs, and lambing and selling market lambs are the most common. Goats are a relatively new market item in Fremont County.
“I’m passionate about it and started selling to kids,” Chase said. “I started working for a traveling showmanship camp. I helped kids learn how to show. It took me across the country coast to coast.”
Chase keeps five bucks in a pen with seven wethers.
“We’ll run a wether with the bucks and it increases the fertility rate,” Chase said.
In an adjacent pen she keeps the nanny goats who just kidded a few months before to prepare them for May and breeding season.
“We feed nutritional feed in tubs after weaning and really hammer the feed to them,” Chase said.
The Taylor goats wear white tags, while her partner’s animals wear pink and blue.
In a separate building that was once her grandfather’s shop for Dan Taylor Trucking, she keeps the weanlings and the pregnant nanny goats.
“The weanlings are about to go on our online sale on February 27,” Chase said.
Separated by panels, the expecting nanny goats could go into labor at any moment.
“The gestation period on a goat is 145 to 155 days. We start watching them at 140 days, “Chase said. “We pull about 70% of the time.”
She keeps back all the females.
Her markets are Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado. Her goats have experienced great success, winning grand champion and reserve at many county fairs in all three states.
Another service Chase offers is custom purchasing.
“One of my families asked me to find a goat,” Chase said. “I found one in Illinois. It won the state fair.”
She often offers a free class in goat showmanship that includes not just show techniques but how to care for goats.
Inside the barn where she takes the weanlings and nannies each night, she had a boombox playing music.
“It calms them, especially at night,” Chase said.
Chase Taylor has discovered her marketing niche.
“I knew then that I didn’t want a commercial business, but a show business,” Chase said. “Everything we do is for marketing and showing goats across the USA.
She now has two separate locations, almost 300 miles apart.
The main location is at her grandparents’ place.
Their farm is 180 acres on the corner of Shetland Road and the Missouri Valley Highway. 60 of those acres are irrigated alfalfa, and 60 more are pasture. She runs her yearlings on 1600 acres on top of Burma Hill near Riverton.
Chase is concerned with Coccidia, a disease found in birds that can transfer to goats. She’s solved the problem with a cadre of barn cats.
“They hunt birds well,” Chase said. “They’ll climb into the rafters and clear out nests.”
Ginger Taylor had a long career in banking in Riverton.
“Grandma is my accountant, bookkeeper and loan officer,” Chase said.
Chase moved onto her grandparents’ farm in 2021.
“I’ve been living out here for four years now, getting things fixed up and building for my goat operation,” Chase said.
Her other operation is just west of Newcastle.
“We opened a satellite farm in Newcastle last spring,” Chase said. “We purchased two competitive herds in their entirety.”
Ty and Briley Miller of Newcastle are her partners.
“Their kids are showing, through Hirchell LeClair,” Chase said. “Ty and Briley said we want to have a bigger part in this.”
The Miller’s take care of yearlings and two-year olds, then they are transported to Pavillion when they are breeding age.
“Hirchell and Kelli LeClair have been huge role models and influential people in my life. Hirchell has been raising show cattle since he was in high school and Kelli operates a very successful jewelry business. I have worked for each of them over the years,” Chase said. “They’ve taught me more than I would ever be able to relay. From learning how to clip cattle and goats under Hirchell’s wing to Kelli’s help in making business decisions, they have been some of my biggest cheerleaders. There’s no way I’d be where I am without them.”
The herd is currently 125 does, and five bucks.
“We collect semen from two of the bucks and sell it online,” Chase said. “This year on the ground we had just under 60 kids.”
Building any ag operation into a profitable venture takes time, and patience is a key factor.
“We’re in a growing stage. We’ve kept all of yearlings and two-year olds. We haven’t shown any does aside from two last year in Cheyenne,” Chase said. “We culled very hard two years ago.”
Nationally, the number of youth showing livestock has diminished over the last few decades. Cattle once dominated the show ring but now their numbers have greatly diminished. Part of that is due to the continued rise of industrial farming. Another component is the work required to feed, train and work with an animal that weighs over a thousand pounds.
Swine shows, which require very little work in comparison, have kept their numbers stable. Sheep shows are popular, but the sheep population nationwide is just a fraction of what it once was.
The opening came for goats in the 1990s.
It was unexpected but has now blossomed across the county.
“Everywhere except for Wyoming and Montana have exploded in show goats,” Chase said. “Wyoming is on the back burner of the stock show world.”
What are the benefits for youngsters to show livestock?
Discipline, goal setting, hard work and a tangible outcome are all life skills learned in the show ring. Mix in the competition, working with other young people, adults and learning how to read and react to the judge and you learn things that will carry you far in life.
In past years, a few 4H or FFA members showed sheep, hogs and cattle, or a combination of each. The youngest members sometimes started with rabbits or poultry.
Now the trend among many is to enter a goat.
“Everyone showing a steer, hog or lamb is adding a goat,” Chase said.
Goats can be hardheaded, difficult to handle and territorial on the farm or ranch. That’s where the work comes in. Training and working with goats, which are easier in some ways than cattle, but more challenging in others, is a great option for many youth who don’t have the space for larger animals. Premiums for placing high in shows are a lucrative proposition as well.
“Wyoming state fair is one of the only fairs that didn’t have a premium sale,” Chase said. “Now there is a premium if you win the market shows.”
Chase offers the full package for prospective goat show people. She has quality kids that can be purchased, she offers instruction in how to show and more importantly in how to care for goats.
Goats have the reputation of eating anything up to tin cans and living off scrub range that no other animal could survive on. Though it’s an exaggeration, goats are the most adaptable farm animals. They can survive on minimum range, but to compete at the show level, they need proper nutrition.
“We feed Crossfire, by Umbarger Show Feeds,” Chase said. “
The feed comes in pellets that is fed to nannies and bucks.
Chase was busy preparing for a drop in the winter weather to double-digits below zero, with kidding about to begin.
After high school, she attended Central Wyoming College for a while but didn’t continue.
“I got too busy with goats and shows,” Chase said. “I was making too much money and never finished.”
Finding your place in the world is a big part of growing up, and what began as a joke has materialized into a profitable passion for Chase Taylor.