Goats Eating Trees
September 14th, 2015 · No Comments · Posted in farming
It’s not true that goats will eat anything but they will eat trees and that can be a good thing or a bad thing. Goats especially love to strip the bark off young trees. That’s why we keep them out of the orchard at all costs. If they succeed in eating the bark all the way around the trunk–girdling the tree–that tree is as good as dead. But we like it when goats start munching on saplings and shrubs that have gone wild in our hedgerows. Cleaning out hedgerows is one good reason to have goats.
At the moment I’ve got the goats on about two acres of property we haven’t been able to use as pasture up to now. That’s because it’s totally infested with golden rod with very little good grass to be found. This year I’ve been mowing those two acres to try and eliminate the golden rod and allow some sunlight down to soil level where grass and clover might grow. Since separating the boy animals from the girl animals back in July, the goats have been grazing this area almost exclusively and I worry now they might not be finding enough to eat.
In addition to stripping the bark off the sumacs and several shrubs, the goats have eaten most of the low hanging leaves off the other woody plants. They like to rest in a row of trees along the driveway, and the goats, who love to browse wherever they can reach–they’ll even stand on their hind legs to get what they want–have done a terrific job cleaning up this area. Today I spotted some small sumacs that still had leaves on the upper branches, so I went out with my pruning saw and cut them down, bringing them to ground level where the goats could feast on the fresh foliage.
This is a good strategy for thinning the hedgerows if there’s a human around who can give the goats an assist. Just cut a sapling or low-hanging branch and the goats will come running. Although goats will graze just like sheep, they have a strong desire for leaves higher up. No need to deny them if you’ve got a saw handy.
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