Goat Yoga: Lainey Morse puts baby goats in an Oregon yoga class — 500-deep waitlist

Lainey Morse had just been through what she calls the worst year of her life — a chronic disease diagnosis and a divorce — and the only thing that helped was sitting out every evening with her goats at No Regrets Farm in Albany, Oregon. The farm already hosted kids' parties when a yoga instructor suggested holding a class there.

Add baby goats to the yoga class: they mill around, hop on mats and steal savasana — turning strict meditation into the happiest therapy session on a farm lawn.

She held the class and let the herd roam free among the mats. The goats did what goats do — head-butting yogis in downward dog, sitting on strangers, nibbling anything floral (solid-color mats only became the rule) — and Morse, watching visitors light up the way she did, kept the goats in every class after. Sessions cost $10, booked through the farm's Facebook page, and local press spread the photos.

By September 2016 the waitlist was 500 people deep for a handful of farm classes at $10 a head. CBC, Teen Vogue, The Oregonian, a Washington Post video came to Albany within weeks; 'goat yoga' was on its way to becoming a copycat craze on farms and studios worldwide, and by 2021 Morse's Original Goat Yoga was licensing its brand across the USA.

Lainey Morse's 2015 was brutal: a chronic disease diagnosis, then a divorce. Every evening she came home and sat out with her goats at No Regrets Farm in Albany, Oregon. 'Do you know how hard it is to be sad and depressed when there are baby goats jumping around?' she told CBC's As It Happens in September 2016. When a yoga instructor suggested holding a class at the farm, Morse decided the herd should join in.

The formula was simple and almost free: yoga on the farm lawn, goats wandering loose among the mats. They head-butted practitioners, sat on their belongings and tried to eat mats with flower prints — 'the new rule is only solid colour mats', Morse said. The goats took the seriousness out of the practice: strict meditation became 60 minutes of laughing, cooing and occasional goat droppings, which Morse described as therapy rather than fitness. Sessions cost $10 and booked through Facebook.

The pictures sold themselves. The Oregonian wrote it up as the latest fitness craze, CBC put Morse on national radio with a 500-deep waitlist, Teen Vogue and India Today followed within days, and a Washington Post video called it a hit. Copycat goat yoga classes spread to farms and studios across the US and beyond, and by 2021 Morse's Original Goat Yoga was licensing the brand across the country — all from a woman who says the goats saved her first.

The insight came from her own recovery: she had direct evidence that goats dissolved bad days, so she was packaging something she knew worked, not a gimmick.

It broke the category's biggest barrier — yoga's intimidating seriousness — which opened the class to people who would never buy a studio membership.

The cost structure was absurd in her favor: the goats, the lawn and the smiles were already on the farm, so a $10 session was nearly all margin.

The idea was perfectly shaped for 2016 social feeds: photos of baby goats on yoga mats traveled faster than any ad could, and every share doubled as a booking request.

The product wasn't yoga or the goats — it was permission to be delighted. A $10 add-on turned a farm side-plot into a brand with a 500-deep waitlist; fun is a differentiator nobody can outspend.

Goat yoga outgrew the farm within months: the waitlist hit 500 people by September 2016, and national and international outlets — CBC, Teen Vogue, The Oregonian, India Today and a Washington Post video — all covered the craze in its first months. Imitators put goats on mats across the US and abroad, and Morse became the recognized originator of what is now a fixture of agritourism. In 2021 her company announced expansion of the Original Goat Yoga brand across the USA through licensed locations, five years after the first class in Albany.