Colestin Caprines Goat Milk Soap began in 1995 as a cottage industry here on our own ranchland in southern Oregon. Our dairy goat herd feeds freely on open range forage, supplemented with grain, grass and alfalfa hay, which provides them with a high-quality varied diet, and contributes in turn to the richness of their milk. We filter and use only the freshest of this milk for our products.

We began raising dairy goats in 1988, with one grade saanen-alpine (Castor) and one grade saanen-togg (Pollux), purchased at the Jackson County Fair in southern Oregon. We registered the goats and created our herd name, "Colestin Caprines," representing our local, small, rural community in the Colestin valley, down the southern side of Mt. Ashland, just south of the town of Ashland, Oregon. ("Caprines" is a generic term referring to goats, similar to "felines" for cats, "canines" for dogs, etc., and comes from the Latin for dairy goat, "capra hircus").

The area of Colestin has a unique history, going back into the 1800's, when miners abounded, and travelers arrived by stagecoach to stay at the Colestin Mineral Springs and Resort Hotel. Colestin was populated enough then that it was considered a town, and had its own post office. By the turn of the 20th century, as logging and ranching took hold and the railroad became the predominant mode of transportation, Colestin blended back into the map as just another early western memory.

Later Colestin residents have included Uncle Theo Avgeris, of a family from Greece, who kept several hundred goats here in the valley. Uncle Theo's goat's milk cheese became well enough known that some people in southern Oregon, upon the mention of Colestin, still ask about it today. The Colestin valley even has a mountainous, precipitously challenging back road named Goat Hill Road, after Uncle Theo's tenure as a goatkeeper in this area.

A more recent resident was Martin, "The Goat Man," a rustic hermit who tended a herd of nearly 200 goats earlier in his life elsewhere in Oregon. In addition to ourselves, the Colestin valley presently sports a number of other goatkeepers, who have likewise discovered that this rugged, mountainous terrain and its interspersed hills and valleys go very well together with goats. In fact, it could be argued that goats are partly responsible for keeping Colestin on the map!

Our own two foundation does went on to produce many more generations of goats: Colestin Caprines is now a 78-member herd (bucks included), that works to support itself with goat milk soap products, while lowering the area's annual fire danger fuel loads. We still sell our soap through local venues and local farmer's markets, and now ship our products across the country, and have international customers as well.

As for the two small white kid figures who once barely stood out against their surroundings on the hillsides, who started it all: after many productive seasons, Pollux died in 2000; Castor, after a stroke, in 2001. As a 12-year-old, Castor still received a linear appraisal score of 90. She left us with 9 daughters.