We Played with Baby Goats at This Hawaiʻi Island Dairy
At Honomū Goat Dairy, you can do more than just buy farmstead cheeses and soaps. You can play with baby goats, too.
It was the sign along ‘Akaka Falls Road that got me.
It read: “Free Goat Therapy.”
The visit I had planned to ‘Akaka Falls State Park, less than 3 more miles up the road, was going to have to wait.
Honomū Goat Dairy wasn’t here the last time I drove along this stretch of road along the rural Hāmākua Coast. Mary and Bill Henning opened the farm in 2016, churning out soaps, cheeses and caramel with milk from their herd of Nubian goats. The couple, who ran a goat dairy farm in Arizona before moving to Hawai‘i Island, started selling their goat milk products from a tent set up on the side of ‘Akaka Falls Road, trying to capture visitors heading to the waterfall. A few years later, they built a small farm stand on the 15-acre property and painted it a hard-to-miss bright yellow. It stands next to a fenced-in yard stocked with adorable baby goats.
This is where the goat therapy happens.
Honomū Goat Dairy on Hawaiʻi Island.
Photo: Nani Welch Keli‘iho‘omalu
“We don’t charge admission to play with the goats,” explains Bill Henning, 65, who spent 20 years as a dog handler for the U.S. Army. “The comment we hear the most from visitors is that this was the highlight of their vacation.”
I can attest. It’s already mine.
The dozen of baby goats, all a few months old, greet me at the gate, their little tails frantically wagging. For $1 you can buy a small bag of goat treats to feed them—something I don’t have time to do because I’m too busy letting them chew my hair and nuzzle my neck.
Farm owners Bill and Mary Henning and some of their baby goats.
Photo: Nani Welch Keli‘iho‘omalu
According to the International Nubian Breeders Association, the Nubian goat is thought to be the oldest species of goat in the world; it hails from Nubia, a desert region encompassing parts of modern-day Egypt and Sudan. The Hennings’ goats, though, also known as Anglo Nubians, are a modern-day mix of traditional native prick-eared British goats and lop-eared Nubians. Like many goat dairy farms—and there were more than 35,000 in the U.S. in 2017—the Hennings raise this breed mostly, because of its milk’s higher-than-average butter fat content. The milk is also sweeter and milder, making for a farmstead cheese that’s light, creamy and, well, not goat-y.
“Here, try this,” Mary Henning says, handing me a tasting spoon of her goat cheese. This one is called the Korean Missile Crisis, a cheeky reference to the false ballistic missile alert that was accidentally issued in Hawai‘i in 2018. The cheese, which takes three days to make, is creamy with bursts of spicy Korean gochujang, garlic, onion and dried herbs.
She also hands me a piece of sea salt caramel from her own award-winning recipe. Caramel, she explains, isn’t typically made with milk, so hers is extra creamy and delicious.
Honomū’s goat cheese is light and creamy.
Photo: Nani Welch Keli‘iho‘omalu
When the Hennings lived in Arizona, raising goats wasn’t their plan. They had moved there from California in 2008 to be closer to Mary’s dad. Bill built fences and habitats at a wild animal park; Mary worked as a teacher. The goats were a happy accident.
“I told Bill I wanted the weeds [in the yard] gone, and he brought home goats,” Mary Henning says with a laugh.
It’s true. Their neighbor had a few goats he didn’t want anymore and practically gave them to Bill. He brought five home, and four were pregnant.
The couple quickly learned how to milk the goats by hand and, eventually, how to turn their milk into soap and cheese—a result of watching a lot of YouTube videos. By the time they decided to move to Hawai‘i, they had dozens of goats in production and the know-how to create a slew of goat milk products.
When they bought the 15 acres of undeveloped land—former sugar cane fields—in Honomū about 15 years ago, the lot was jammed with tall California and guinea grasses. Along with Mary Henning’s brother, who had already been living on Hawai‘i Island, the family cleared the land and built the structures for the goats. They brought over 23 of them in a shipping container used to bring Hawai‘i cattle to Mainland feeding lots. (The shipping company didn’t separate the goats by sex, as instructed, so the Hennings wound up with double the goats five months later. Bill calls it the Love Boat.)
Even the soaps are made from goat milk.
Photo: Nani Welch Keli‘iho‘omalu
The farm doesn’t offer any tours—there’s nothing much to see, Bill Henning says—but the free goat therapy is enough for visitors, even wary ones, to stop by. And maybe they’ll wander into the shop. And they might buy some fudge or caramel or a bar of handmade small-batch soap. Or maybe not—and they’ll leave with a fond memory of their Hawai‘i Island vacation. That’s great, too.
I want to sample more of the farm’s cheeses—the feta looks particularly delicious—and get a bag of caramels to take back to O‘ahu. But I’m struggling to leave the baby goats, with their breed’s signature droopy ears and capricious personalities. A chocolate-brown kid climbs into my lap and gnaws on my earlobe. Another lop-eared black-and-white cutie headbutts my fanny pack. I’m seriously in heaven.
Playing and feeding the baby goats at Honomū Goat Dairy.
Photos: Catherine Toth Fox
The kids will grow to at least 30 inches tall; the females will weigh over 130 pounds and the males 175. The Hennings’ goats are the only herd of registered, purebred Nubian goats producing specialty cheeses in the state. (There are other goat dairy farms in Hawai‘i, including Hawai‘i Island Goat Dairy in Āhualoa, about 30 miles up the Hāmākua Coast.) And theirs is the only farm that allows people to sit and play with baby goats—for free.
“People plan their whole trip around visiting our farm,” Bill Henning says.
Yeah. I get it.
The farm is closed Tuesdays through Thursdays. On days when the farm is open, the baby goat play yard may be closed due to bad weather or muddy conditions. Honomū Goat Dairy, 28-257 ‘Akaka Falls Road, Honomū, (808) 785-5546, honomugoatdairy.com.
This story was originally published in our Spring 2024 issue. Buy a copy here.
