Laid Back Ranch

Welcome to Laid Back Ranch, which is located in the small rodeo town of Arcadia, Florida since January of 2009. Our 5 acre ranch consists of several registered Nubian and Toggenburg/Nubian dairy goats, and a large flock of Production Red laying hens, a cross between New Hampshire and Rhode Island Red chickens, a couple dogs, and recently a pet piglet.

We offer a variety of homemade goats milk soap products, scented and unscented, and some of our home made soap products have Shea butter in them. We also have soap accessories and soy candles. Local customers can also buy raw goat’s milk, brown eggs, and once in a while goats for sale, of varying ages. We no longer are selling any of our goats for meat.

We started with dairy goats back in 2007 with two little goat kids. After raising them, and breeding the doe, we were hooked. To give a simple reason why we continued this venture, it was originally was for the tax break. Then, in 2010, kids were born, and now we’re hooked on the cuteness. We wanted registered goats to be sure of the bloodlines to avoid cross breeding, and for selling quality goats. We are also using the milk to make goat’s milk soap to help pay for the feed until we have more kids to sell.

We start having goat kids beginning each year in the Spring. The milking season begins at this time and so does the craziness. We will continue to milk the does until they begin to dry up in the fall, about 9 to 10 months after they have kidded. All of the babies are bottle-fed, making them “friendlier”, until they are weaned off the milk at 3 months old. They will be eating grain and hay regularly up to this point. Occasionally we have goats for sale. Just check back on our site to see if we have any available. We are not selling any of our goats for meat.

As for the soap making, this also starts up in late spring, after the milk production has started again, and the craziness has slowed down a little. This entails hand-making the goat milk soap batches weekly using the cold process soap method, with mixing each batch, which takes about an hour. The homemade bar soap batch is then set to rest for 24 to 48 hours, depending on the type of soap bar made. After that, the batch is cut into bars, or the shapes unmolded, depending on bar, and set to cure for 4 weeks to allow the soap to saponify. At that point, the goats milk soap is safe to use since the chemical process for the lye has completed. When the soap has completed curing, I then “cleanup” the soap bars of rough edges, wrap and label them. This process takes another hour for each batch. In addition to selling my goat’s milk soap and soap accessories online we also sell at the Punta Gorda Train Depot in Punta Gorda, Florida on the 3rd Saturday of each month from October through April.

We have a variety of soaps to choose from travel size soap or bath bar size. In our unscented lineup we have plain olive oil, unscented Shea butter, and oatmeal honey soap. In our scented line we have nearly 30 different scents to choose from, some of the most popular being Ocean Rain, Lavender, Sandalwood Vanilla, Tea Tree Oil, and English Rose. None of our soaps contain any chemical preservatives. Some do have colorants in them using FDA approved colorants for soaps.

We also have a few soap accessories to choose from such as Mesh Soap Savers – to put your little slivers of soap in, Wood Soap dishes to keep your soap bars out of the water between uses, and Organza gift bags, perfect for Mother’s Day gifts, Birthday gifts, Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers.