{"id":72092,"date":"2025-12-28T16:21:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T16:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/72092\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T16:21:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T16:21:30","slug":"franconia-township-man-fights-to-keep-his-goats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/72092\/","title":{"rendered":"Franconia Township man fights to keep his goats"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Delco to Chesco and Montco to Bucks, what about life in Philly\u2019s suburbs do you want WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Tommy and Bam-Bam, a pair of elderly goats, have been Franconia Township residents for more than 10 years, but in early December, the township\u2019s zoning board ruled to evict them.\n<\/p>\n

Ken Schumann has kept goats on his property since 2000. In May, officials found him in violation of the township\u2019s zoning code, which prohibits keeping livestock animals on any property smaller than three acres.\n<\/p>\n

Schumann argues township officials had visited his one-third-acre property on more than 10 occasions since he got his first pair of goats, Mindy and Molly, more than 20 years ago, including inspections to review construction of a deck and garage, during which the goats were visible. Schumann said he never received a complaint or warning from the township until this spring.\n<\/p>\n

Franconia Township did not respond to multiple requests for comment.\n <\/p>\n

The township\u2019s letter citing Schumann\u2019s code violation stems from complaints it received about the goats. Schumann acknowledged that the goats have broken out of his yard multiple times and defecated on a neighbor\u2019s property while he was repairing the fence around their enclosure.\n<\/p>\n

He paid $1,800 to appeal the zoning board\u2019s decision, asking them to grant a one-time variance until Tommy and Bam-Bam die of old age. At 15 and 10 years old, respectively, the goats are near the end of their life expectancy.
\n\"AKen Schumann adopted Tommy, a retired therapy goat, in 2015. (Emily Neil\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

At a hearing on Dec. 4, the board denied the request.\n<\/p>\n

Schumann\u2019s options now, he said, are to rehome the goats or keep up the fight in court. He and his wife, Kathleen Schumann, are both retired and on a fixed income. The two are considering setting up a GoFundMe to pay for legal expenses.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like I\u2019m asking to change the zoning and let me have more goats,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m simply asking for a variance to let them live their life out here. That\u2019s all I\u2019m asking \u2014 and, more importantly, an explanation why they never said a word, never. So that only led me to believe, knowing they were here, physically, seeing these goats all these years, that wasn\u2019t an issue.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

If he had known he wasn\u2019t allowed to have goats, Schumann said, he wouldn\u2019t have acquired Cupcake and Peaches after Mindy and Molly died. He wouldn\u2019t have gotten Bam-Bam as a young goat or adopted Tommy, a retired therapy animal, in 2015.
\n\"AKen Schumann bought Bam-Bam as a young goat roughly 10 years ago. (Emily Neil\/WHYY)\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Delco to Chesco and Montco to Bucks, what about life in Philly\u2019s suburbs do you want WHYY…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[37749,28,30,29,1087],"class_list":["post-72092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-goats","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-zoning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}