Goat Towers Around The World - Updated

This post is an update of an earlier post made in November 2009. In the original post only 3 goat towers were included and the present post includes 3 more.

___________________________

It may sound strange but few towers exist around the World, built specially for the goats to climb up and down the narrow sloping ramp. The purpose of these towers appears to be mainly advertisement and also to keep the goats active and happy.

Goats are very curious and climb up to precarious/dizzying heights with ease and without losing their balance. They can tackle narrow ledges with exceptionally coordinated sense of height.

A search on the Internet reveals that till date only six goat towers have been built in the World. These are;

1. Quinta da Aveleda, Penafiel, Portugal
2. Fairview Cheese & Wine farm, Paarl, South Africa
3. Findlay, Illinios, USA (aka "Tower of Baaa")
4. Ekeby Farm, Moss, Norway
5. Goat Tower (Torre de Cabras) at Fínca el Rocio, Villa Belgrano, Córdoba, Argentine
6. Silky O’Sullivan’s Bar, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

A brief description and couple of images of each of these towers is given below;

Goat Tower, Quinta da Aveleda, Penafiel, Portugal

This is the first known, original Goat Tower. It was built as a garden folly in late nineteenth century by Fernando Guedes da Silva da Fonseca at the Quinta da Aveleda estate, Aveleda, Penafiel, Portugal.

Image from Flickr is by Viagens de um Alicórnio

View location in Google Maps and Street View

Goat Tower, Fairview Cheese & Wine farm, Paarl, South Africa

This is the most famous and probably the second Goat Tower. Reportedly Fairview Farm's owner Charles Back was inspired by the Quinta da Aveleda, Portugal. In the early 1980’s decided to build a landmark for his estate. Completed in 1981 tower has since become a logo/trademark of their products and visitors to the farm rarely leave without a snapshot of the tower and its resident goats.

Image from Flickr is by gconard

Image from Flickr is by valkyrieh116

View location in Google Maps and Street View.

Goat Tower, Findlay, Illinios, USA

The idea for this Goat Tower came to the owner of the goat farm David Johnson after he read about the Fairview Goat Tower in some magazine and he decided to make a similar tower at his estate farm. Built in 1998 it is locally known as the "Tower of Baaa" and is reportedly highest of the three towers with a height of 9.5 metres and diameter of about 2.1 metres. Its 276 spiral shaped concrete steps allow the goats to climb up and down with ease, passing each other on the ramp.

Image from Panoramio is by dennisdw1

Image from dalejtravis.com is by Dale Travis

View location in Google Maps

Goat Tower, Ekeby Farm, Moss, Norway

This tower was built by Finn-Erik Blakstad, who while doing his Masters-in-Law in South Africa had seen the Fairview Goat Tower and was very fascinated with it. On returning to Norway he took up the farm business of his parents and after obtaining permission from the Charles Back, owner of Fairview Wine and Cheese Estate in Paarl, South Africa made an exact replica of the original. He even invited Charles and his wife Diane for the official opening of the tower in 2007.

Like other towers here also, besides keeping the goats busy and happy, the tower serves as an advertisement for the restaurant which is located at the goat farm.

Image from Panoramio is by ekeby

Image from Panoramio is by ekeby

View location in Google Maps

Goat Tower, Fínca el Rocio, Villa Belgrano, Córdoba, Argentine

This is second Goat Tower (after the Ekeby tower, Norway) to be modelled after the Fairview tower, Paarl, South Africa. Owner of Fínca el Rocio had requested Fairview for the designs of Goat Tower and they sent him the designs they had prepared for Ekeby. The tower was completed in October 2010. Initially the goats didn't use the tower and had to pushed to walk up. The goats were however lured up by keeping their food (corn) at higher level. In words of the owner; "... only the hungriest walk up in the beginning, but now they happily go up and down!" (Source Fairview's Blog)

Image from Panoramio is by Finca El Rocio

View location in Google Maps

Silky O’Sullivan’s Bar, Memphis, Tennessee
This is smallest of all the Goat towers and is located in the outdoor seating area in back of the main building. Reportedly the USP of the bar is the beer drinking goats which are kept in a pen there.

Image from Flickr is by Allison Meier

View location in: Google Maps
______________________________

Main source of info: Wikipedia / modernfarmer.com

View all the locations in Google Earth

---