LAST summer’s surprise hit is returning to a Wiltshire farm.
Goat Pilates, which sees a dozen participants contorting their bodies in a barn full of gambolling goat kids, will return to East Farm, Avebury, next month.
Farmer Laura Corbett said: “It’s back by popular demand. We sold out last year and the people who came out want to come again - and bring their friends down.”
The craze, known as Golates, of practising pilates in a room of small goats began in the USA and has since won plaudits worldwide.
At East Farm, visitors will stretch out yoga mats placed on the concrete floor of farmer Laura’s barn. The 90 minute lessons are an education in the misadventures of the cheeky Boer Goat kids, who treat the farm visitors as moving climbing frames.
According to Laura the Golates classes are as much fun for the goats as they are for the humans.
“I think they enjoy it,” she said. “The mums enjoy the rest without a shadow of a doubt and it’s a big playground for kids. The kids love it as much as the kids.
"For me, as a farmer, it’s helpful for the kids to have human contact. And it’s lovely for other people to visit the farm.”
The classes started last summer, after a chance conversation between Laura and pilates teacher Sarah Summers.
“I’ve been coming out to East Farm for a couple of years to do one-to-one sessions with Laura and her husband,” Sarah told the Advertiser last year. “Laura mentioned last year that she was going to keep goats. I said to Laura, ‘You do know there’s such a thing as goat Pilates and goat yoga?’”
The farmer watched a YouTube video of the US craze – and was left inspired.
“Laura said. ‘We are doing it, we are so doing it.’ That was it,” she added.
The classes are an interesting example of farm diversification, too.
Laura’s family have been at East Farm for three generations. Her grandfather began working the land on the fringes of Avebury 75-years-ago.
The family were dairy farmers, with a prize herd of black and white Holstein cows. But falling milk prices and restrictions placed on farmers in the wake of bovine TB outbreaks left Laura and her father with little choice but to sell the herd.
Now, the farm is mostly arable, growing crops. Laura has a herd of rare breed White Park cattle and started her herd of Boer Goats 18-months-ago. Today, the herd numbers 110 and Laura expects to finish the spring with 40 kids.
Goat Pilates sessions are available on May 11, 14, 19 and 25. Tickets are £16, plus a £1.36 booking fee.
To book, search Goat Pilates 2019 on Eventbrite.
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