Mary Powell, Goat Rental Business Owner and Agricultural Educator
Name: Mary Powell
Occupation: Goat rental business owner, Cowboy (in the girl kind of way), Goat wrangler, and Agricultural educator
Residence: Mary lives in the Smokey Hills of North Central Kansas
Background: Mary spent 27 plus years working on ranches, farms and feedyards as a working cowboy, until she was forced by injuries to “retire” from cattle and moved on to raising meat goats. She has two adult children, five grand-chinchillas, a grand bunny, four Border Collies, five horses and more than 100 goats.
Mary has a Bachelor’s degree in Animal Science from Kansas State University with an emphasis in Livestock Production Management. In her spare time, she writes about her livestock experiences and uses those experiences in her storytelling-humorist performances as The Barnyard Mare, Duchess of the Prairie.
Current Projects: Mary is working on a book about raising goats from a beginner’s perspective and is expanding her collection of livestock misadventure stories. In addition to the writing, she works to develop a Boer Goat bloodline that is specifically bred to be a brush goat that has a rapid growth rate with a higher worm resistance and is closer to the original South African Boer Goat.
Connect with Mary: Follow Mary and her many misadventures with the goats on Facebook at Barnyard Weed Warriors and Ash Grove Goat Ranch or on her BarnyardWeedWarriors.com website. If you have questions for her about her goats or Border Collies, email Mary at barnyardweedwarriors@yahoo.com.
