Goats on the Move
October 15th, 2013 · No Comments · Posted in farming
Popular lore has it that goats will eat anything–even tin cans. But it’s just not true. The real question is whether goats prefer to graze grass off the ground, like sheep, or browse vines and brambles like, well, goats.
My personal suspicion is, it depends on the goat. I recently asked a breeder of Kiko goats and he replied, “It’s a pretty well kept secret, but our goats like to graze.” We’ve been trying to give our own Kiko goats opportunities to do both. And given the option, they will eat both grass and leaves off trees and vines.
Recently I moved Dolly, our six-year-old Kiko dame, and Tanner, her seven-month-old daughter, out into the orchard where the sheep were grazing. It was a bit of a gamble, since goats have been known to eat the bark right off of trees. Sure enough, not only was Dolly trying to climb up into the trees to eat the leaves, but once the goats tired of noshing on vines surrounding a big rock pile, they began to chew the bark off our young apple trees.
I had to quickly move them back into their permanent enclosure and rethink my strategy.
My goal in all this was to get the goats to trim all the vines and undergrowth that obscure the stone walls that line the orchard. The entire property would look so much neater if we could clean up those areas and I’d much rather have the goats do it than have to do it myself.
After surveying the area, I moved the temporary electric fencing to another spot on the other side of the orchard where the goats would be exposed to both pasture and hedgerow, while avoiding the young fruit trees. What you see in the photo at top is daughter and a friend visiting from D.C. as they walked Dolly and Tanner out to the new enclosure in the orchard yesterday morning.
Turns out Dolly loves to walk on the leash. Tanner’s still getting used to the idea.
Last time I checked, the goats were eating a little bit of everything, scaling a new rock pile and generally having a ball.
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