Creating her dream farm

MEDFORD, Wis. — Alicia Brost became interested in dairy farming as a high school student when she cared for dairy cows. Searching for a way to find her own niche in the industry, she dreamed of launching her own dairy farm, milking goats.

“I’ve always liked goats and wanted some when I was a kid,” Brost said. “I always thought I would love to milk goats. Then I was at a meetup with some other dairy women a couple of years ago, and there were people talking about milking goats. I started to seriously consider that it was something I could do.”

After high school, Brost attended Northcentral Technical College, graduating with degrees in dairy science, agribusiness and crop science. She milked cows on area dairy farms, but always knew she wanted more from the industry.

Brost shipped her first load of milk Feb. 19. She has more than 40 goats milking. With her husband, Zach, and their four children — Paislee, Evalynn, Kayson and Hazel-Ann — Brost lives on a small farmstead near Medford, in Taylor County. After hearing others talk about milking goats, she began to consider how she could use the old dairy barn that was standing empty on their property. From there, Goat Crazy Dairy began.

“I had the barn, and I knew I didn’t want to go back to milking cows on another farm after Hazel-Ann was born,” Brost said. “I started the whole process in August (2025), when I was about five months pregnant.”

Brost reached out to her insurance agent, who previously milked goats, and asked how she might acquire a milk market. He connected her with a milk hauler who helped her secure a market shipping to Saputo Inc. From there she began working with Farm Service Agency to secure loans to help renovate the barn and purchase goats.

Brost hopes to increase her current herd and be milking over 80 by early August. She plans to milk seasonally, extending the lactations of her goats to capitalize on the higher prices paid for winter milk.

“My ultimate goal is to get to at least 150, but that will probably take me a couple of years, because I’m planning to grow through internal expansion,” Brost said. “If that goes well, it would be nice to be able to get up to 200 or more. We’ve only got a couple of acres here, but there’s actually a lot of possibilities with just a couple of acres when it comes to goats.”

Brost has purchased grass hay locally and sourced alfalfa hay from Minnesota.

With only six months from the initial inquiries to the first load shipped, including a government shutdown and the birth of a baby in the mix, Brost said her goat project was stressful at times.

“We have been in a bit of a time crunch ever since getting approved for both the operating and construction loans, scrambling to get everything ready to go,” Brost said.

Much of the initial preparation work in the barn had been completed, Brost said. The barn had been gutted and gutters filled in prior.

Some of the work to get ready to milk goats included pouring the concrete they needed in the barn and pouring a slab for the parlor. Brost’s husband and his cousin built the parlor.

To bring in a bulk tank, they had to take a wall out of the milk house. Currently, Brost said the pens are makeshift with gates, but that gives them a chance to learn what they want. Brost is still waiting for the automatic waterers to get put in, which she said will be a big help with chores.

Brost sourced her herd from two farms near Thorp.

“I was able to get high-quality, healthy goats from two well-maintained closed herds,” Brost said. “I’m vigilant about biosecurity and the health of my goats.”

Brost’s goats started kidding before she was ready to begin shipping milk.

“It was kind of inconvenient, because I was milking them one at a time in a little aluminum milking stand with a portable vacuum pump,” Brost said. “We were feeding the milk to pigs and chickens for almost three weeks. I was a whole five or six weeks postpartum, doing all of this at midnight. We really buckled down and got ready for our inspection, and that went great.”

Outside of the short timeline, Brost said one of the biggest challenges she has faced has been a shortage of resources, particularly with goat health.

“The learning curve is pretty big,” Brost said. “There’s not a lot of information out there; nothing is labeled for goats, so it’s hard to figure out how to treat them. I’ve had several meetings with my vet, (who is) working on developing protocols that work for us.”

Brost said she is grateful the breeders she purchased from have been willing to serve as mentors, answering her numerous questions.

“I have a tendency to start thinking about the worst-case scenario right away,” Brost said. “There are so many things that can be detrimental to the herd, and I’ve had a lot of anxiety and fear of failing at this. I know eventually I’ll become more confident in my skills, but it’s kind of like having your first baby — only there are so many of them, it can be kind of overwhelming.”

Despite the hurdles she has had to overcome, Brost said she feels like she is doing what she was meant to do.

“I remember watching a random video of goats being milked in a rotary parlor when I was in high school,” Brost said. “I thought it was the coolest thing ever. … I’ve always felt like farming just needs to be a part of me, but milking cows for someone else just didn’t do it for me. If someone had told me when I watched the video that someday I’d have my own goat dairy, I’d have probably laughed, but deep down, I’d have known they might have been right.