Hair, ears and shoe laces are nibbled at, backs and legs are gently clambered onto and mats are left with little ’gifts’. Oddly enough, goat yoga (goga) is a lot more therapeutic than you’d think.

I first saw the videos of goats leaping onto people in the downward dog or the child’s position when they took over my social media feeds last year.

Much to my surprise, the American creation had found its way to our island and I was eager to give it a go with the Isle of Man Newspapers team, despite never having done a yoga class in my life.

Excitement and some trepidation was felt by the team who wondered what their goga experience would entail. After all, the probability of a goat peeing or pooping on you would be pretty high, we thought.

Reaching the farm, we were given a run-through of what was to happen by our yoga instructor, Suzanne Young. We each found a mat supplied by the farm before the four-legged eating machines found us.

Cooings and yelps of delight went around the group as the friendly teenage and bottle-fed kids came over for a scratch or a snuggle.

During our 40 minutes of yoga we had the young goats constantly interact with us - whether that was by eating our shirts (which we were prewarned about) or skipping happily around us.

A lot of the goats were content with just chilling out on people’s mats due to the heat, which made it into a game for us all while we moved into different poses trying not to lose our balance.

One kid was so chilled out with the group that it took a whizz on the mat that Katie Kitchener, from our distribution team, was using. Her mat was quickly replaced and after a lot of laughter we were good to go.

A favourite of the newspapers team was a little Angora goat called Marilyn, which we were told had claimed internet fame after a video was posted of her goga performances. The yoga itself was great for newbies and challenging enough for those who are well-seasoned yogis. By the end of our session we felt incredibly relaxed.

They say laughter is the best medicine and that is something that the young goats definitely provided for us.

Following the last ’namaste’ we were given time to socialise with the kids.

Suzanne, who runs Pilates, Yoga and Dance Studios Ramsey,shared how she began this unique venture in June this year.

’You never know what the universe will throw at you,’ she laughed. ’I’ve learned so much. Clare Lewis, who owns the farm with Mike Walker, is so knowledgeable.’

She explained that goga was created in Oregon, USA, by Lainey Morse who was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. The entrepreneur believes that doing yoga with goats has many benefits. Suzanne agrees.

’It’s an extra income stream for the goat farm and it’s animal therapy for those who do it,’ she said.

Clare and Mike have about 200 goats on their farm.

’We loving having visitors to the farm,’ said Clare. ’There’s so much that goats can give to people, for instance we’ve had people with special needs come up to spend time with the goats and they all got something from them as the goats are so friendly.’

She explained that yoga and goats go well together as the animals naturally love to climb and jump up on things.

’Goats just love people,’ she added. ’Everybody who comes to goat yoga gets something different from it and the response has been absolutely brilliant. Goga is a seasonal thing and we won’t be doing it all year round as the kids are getting a bit big now, but we are looking to run farm tours while the [goga] season is out.’

For more information, search ’Isle of Man Goats’ on Facebook or check out the website: manxmohair.im