Off a road north of Cincinnati in Hamilton, Ohio, sits Dog Town Farm. Named after a historical dog fight that happened in front of a mail house which gave the surroundings the moniker, the farm is easily lost in the rolling fields of grain and soybeans nearby. But if a driver looks closely, they will see miniature zebus — a species of cow — bred to provide animal therapy to youth in need.
The farm in ruby-red Butler County is operated by Morgan and Ashlee Conrad, a lesbian couple. Though Butler County is not known for its LGBTQ+ acceptance, the women have found support and acceptance in Hamilton and the farming community.
“People start raising zebu because, you know, they’re cute, and they’re fun and people get really invested in them,” Morgan said. “To be able to specialize and attract the right kind of buyer for what we’re doing has been really cool.”
Coming back home
Ashlee grew up on the farm across the street from where she lives today. Growing up in Hamilton, she didn’t really think about her LGBTQ+ identity. She moved away at age 20, going to college and studying humanities doing “the whole self-discovery thing.”
Through meeting people at college, she started to question what “box” she fit in, and how she fit in it.
After graduating from college, she got married but divorced in 2016.
“It seemed like a good time to come back to the farm,” Ashlee said. “It was a little daunting coming back and being in the same area knowing that I’m gonna see kids from high school at the grocery store and that sort of thing.”
Her father gave her part of the family farm, which included a house across the street that needed some TLC and 23 acres.
In 2022, Ashlee opened the dating app Bumble and met Morgan, who was also going through a divorce and redoing her own home.
“Her Bumble profile said, ‘We must love animals,’” Ashlee recalled. “I was like, ‘Bet.’”
Morgan grew up on a farm in Indiana. She went to Ball State University for architectural design, one of only 26 students admitted that year.
“Loved it, hated every single classmate by the end of two years and went and talked to my dean,” she said. “He was like, ‘They don’t change. They’re kind of assholes the entire time. Everyone’s competitive for no reason.’”
She transitioned to construction management and worked for steel companies building large structures like hospitals and hotels. After, she went to grad school to study student affairs, later working all over the country working for student services at a variety of higher-education institutions. Morgan loved her job, but it didn’t pay well enough.
“I met [Ashlee] in the transition of looking for something else anyway, and getting a divorce, it was just a shifting time,” Morgan said.
They started dating, and Morgan moved from Indiana to Hamilton in June 2022. She helps with the farm and works as an engineer for a heating and air-conditioning company.
Starting Dog Town
Ashlee’s father first sparked her interest in exotic animals growing up on the family farm. They would raise animals that “[werent] your typical farm animal.” After she moved back home and the pandemic hit in 2020, she began to dive once again into the world of exotic animals. First, she bought a zebra before moving onto zebus. Ashlee sold her zebra in 2022 as she found tiny cows to be a lot more fun, easier to raise, with “very neat personalities” compared to zebras.
Zebus are a species of cow from Southeast Asia. Ashlee breeds a miniature version. Zebus have a distinct fatty hump on their backs to help them store water, as they originated in hot steppe and tropical climates, and they typically live for 20 years. They are smaller than a typical cow and not as heavy.
“Another calf stepping on a kid’s foot is still 200-plus pounds,” Morgan said. “Instead, a [miniature zebu] stepping on your foot is 30. It would hurt if one of the bigger ones did, but it wouldn’t break your foot necessarily.”
But it was by chance that Dog Town Farm became the business it is today. While Ashlee was tending to the livestock, a teenager stopped by to ask about the zebus, she said. He was “super adamant” that his parents wanted a cow, and he gave her their email.
His mom told Ashlee that she runs an animal-assisted therapy farm for foster kids and their host families. Miniature zebus are essentially big dogs — you pet them once, and they nuzzle you, begging for more.
“That kind of opened us up to like a whole market that these cows really fit very well with,” she said. “These guys are very small, and they’re not intimidating, and they have kind of a quiet personality.”
Most zebus are bred and raised to sell to hobby farmers. While Dog Town still offers livestock to private owners, they are the only farm they know of that prioritizes therapy farms.
Connecting with the farmer community
Morgan and Ashlee attend county fairs, sometimes selling their livestock to auctions or sometimes to bid. When someone buys an exotic animal for the first time, the community jumps into giving that person tips and advising them on how to begin the art of husbandry with the animal.
It’s supportive, but Ashlee said going to auctions can still be “daunting.” They are usually surrounded by men and the Amish community, and they’ve borne the brunt of stares from the fairgoers.
“We’re kind of like, ‘For one, we’re two women, two, we’re gay — so what is that going to look like?” Morgan said. But as they went to auctions, they began to see the same faces. “They’ve been really welcoming [and] helpful. There’s a couple people that, if we can’t make it to an auction, I think I could text or call them and they would buy the thing we wanted and bring it back with them.”
Ashlee usually takes on the task of working with locals to find suppliers. Morgan, on the other hand, does a lot of marketing and developing networks outside Ohio.
Ashlee and Morgan have also linked with suppliers for resources like hay, but interactions can be “weird.” One supplier was gruff and short-spoken when Ashlee first met him, but they eventually started to make small conversation. He would start to tell Ashlee about the lesbians he knew, and ask if she knew them.
“He was trying to connect with me in a way, and that was how he was trying to do it,” she said. “It was very endearing, but it was comical at first.”
But he will start talking about politics and mention how he’s a Trump supporter, and Morgan said it puts them into a tough spot.
“Not that our conversation would be less friendly, but we try to keep it as friendly as possible because we rely on this person,” Morgan said. “We have good relationships with them, but I’d say those friendships are kind of weird and complicated.”
Moving back to Hamilton and going to feed stores and buying hay alone was hard for Ashlee at first, but the community has shown support.
“Being in the truck all alone and pulling up to a farm that is out in the middle of nowhere is a little daunting, so it was cool to find people who were supportive in that,” Ashlee said.
Responses
Other animals are throughout Dog Town Farm, including dogs and cats, chickens, and a water buffalo Morgan bought Ashlee as a surprise gift. Their different work styles compliment each other, so they take opposite shifts and swap day-to-day chores each season. Morgan takes the day shift and warmer months, while Ashlee takes the night shift and colder months.
“Cows inevitably get out. It doesn’t matter what kind of breed of cows you have, they’re going to try to get out if they can,” Morgan said. “It’s a little less stressful knowing that one of us is always near, if not at the house, 24/7.”
So far, business has been successful enough that zebus are “pre-sold,” Ashlee said. That means a customer puts a deposit down on a zebu before it’s born and joins a waitlist. If the calf is healthy after two weeks, Ashlee and Morgan will deliver the calf to the customer.
The farms tell Ashlee and Morgan how much the cows are loved, along with a video of them with their clients.
Before they were involved in therapy farms, one of the first cows they bought was Fred, a male zebu. He is father of a lot of their zebus — the herd bull — though at around 5 years old he is starting to get towards the end of his fertility, which usually caps at around age 7. He loves treats and tries to get everyone’s attention while a reporter is conducting an interview.
This time of year, Fred is beginning his mating cycle, and he’s still kicking up dirt to show everyone who’s boss.
As Ashlee and Morgan talked to The Buckeye Flame, a car drove by and honked its horn a couple of times. The two laughed, and Ashlee explained it was one of her old history teachers.
“He cannot get over how small they are,” she said. “[He] thinks Fred is just the coolest thing he’s ever seen.” 🔥
IGNITE ACTION
- To learn more about Dog Town Farm, visit their website here.
- To learn more about LGBTQ+-owned businesses, Plexus LGBT & Allied Chamber of Commerce can be found here.
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