Multiflower Roses taking over!

[BJ]

How do you eliminate multiflower roses?

Is there a way to remove them with natural products that will not be harmful to the creeks & pond? We have cattle grazing our pastures and timbered areas so we do not want to use any product that might be harmful to livestock or water sources.

[lyceum]

Get goats. They love them. LOL

Carisa

[ozark_jewels]

Goats.....they adore them and will eat them till they die off. I wish we had more!

[lgslgs]

Yes, goats!

It doesn't take many and they love all sorts of thorny food - multiflora rose, catbrier, honey locust, brambles, etc. (Yum!)

Lynda

[genebo]

10-4 on the goats. Mine cleaned up the roses, honeysuckle, blackberry, poison ivy and sweetgum saplings in no time. With help from my Dexter cattle.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

[Jcran]

Just in case no one else mentioned it, get goats! We have totally eradicated the invasive acacia around the front of our property, using the goats.

[BJ]

We have considered getting goats...if we can find some not too expensive. What kind?? We just would want some big goats and don't want to milk.

We've heard that their hooves have to be trimmed often and that they are prone to some kind of worms...thus needing to be wormed about every 3 months. True??? We know zip about goats! Also...will they need shelter?? We have about 10 acres of our land that is creek, timber and pasture and fenced with field fence. We just wanted to turn them out to clear the brush. Guess we would need to find some used to living like that??

[KSALguy]

go over and visit the Goat Foram but i would say any cheap weithers of any large breed or even some scrubby Spanish goats if you can find them, they will clean it all up for you,
hoof trimming is a good idea unless you have good dry rocky ground, then they will break off on their own, worming is also a good idea but you can use the range wormer cubes they make for cattle as well, so its not too difficult if your not in it for milk or meat production.
you might have to reinforce your field fence though, depending on how its set up

[agmantoo]

Should you not want to use goats a herbicide known as Crossbow can be sport sprayed onto the multiflora. Label requirements state that beef cattle do not need to be removed.

[genebo]

BJ,

The hardiest and most worm resistant are the brush goats. They are the survivors of the original goats brought here by the Spaniards. Fainting goats are also very hardy, and a cross between the two is hardier than the parents.

Boers and Nubians are much less hardy and less worm resistant. I don't have experience with any other breeds.

Goats and cows have different worms. When one eats the other's worms, it kills the worms. Running goats and cows together helps each species.

If your soil is soft and loamy, you'll probably have to trim goats hooves every couple of months. If your soil is coarse and gritty like mine, it's not such a problem. I trimmed my own hooves, alone, until I had a heart attack. Now I pay a young man to come and trim them two or three times a year.

You know that cows won't eat around their manure piles. Goats will. They'll prosper on those clumps of rich grass.

A third element to add to your pasture would be Muscovy ducks. They'll scatter manure piles so thin that they won't hatch fly larva. You'll never have to drag your pasture again if you have Muscovies. I ask my visitors to look at all the manure piles in my pasture. They always answer, "What manure piles? I don't see any."

Genebo
Paradise Farm

[Oxankle]

Thanks, Genebo. I needed to know that about the muscovys . I knew that there had to be a reason I started raising some.
Ox

[Jcran]

My 7-year old is writing her animal report on boer goats. We just this second finished writing the sentence, "goats go good with cows since goats browse brush and don't eat the cows' grass." We are looking for a good bucket calf since our goats are swimming in grass this Spring.

[lgslgs]

Originally Posted by BJ

We have considered getting goats...if we can find some not too expensive. What kind?? We just would want some big goats and don't want to milk.

You should talk with OzarkJewels about wethers. We check out her website often. She has good, strong looking goats raised on good land - some of the best we've seen. She's also in your state.

As for breed, I'm partial to Nubian/Alpine crosses. Nubians are lovely goats, and a touch of Alpine seems to add vigor and a bit more hardiness.

You should see goats at work. We're having some big trees taken down near the house and have a lot of branches to clean up. You wouldn't think a pile of stick (no leaves) would make a good snack but they are on it like a bunch of vultures. They look absolutely cute and happy gobbling up vegetation that really should be inedible!

Lynda

[genebo]

Jcran,

Goats do eat grass. They're quite happy eating the best grasses in the pasture. That's how they clean up the lush clumps of grass that shoot up around a cow patty. However, they have a taste for a very varied diet, so they will also eat thorns, brambles, tree leaves and bark and a host of other things. When my woods are full of green stuff in the spring, they seem to spend more time in the woods than out in the pasture, but when everything has been eaten in the woods, they're right out in the pasture alongside the cattle.

I believe that the goats that spend the most time in the woods and brush take in more roughage, which helps clean out the worm larvae. Therefore, they are hardier. Goats on pasture or in a feed lot have a harder time with worms.

The worms are ingested from the bottom 4" of the grass. Worms that crawl higher on the grass stem dry out and die. So goats and Dexter cattle, that eat brush, will just naturally have fewer worms to contend with. That's an added benefit of rotational grazing, where the animals are not allowed to graze the grass below 4" tall. Fewer worms!

Genebo
Paradise Farm

[PACrofter]

Question for those whose goats have taken care of brush: how big does a tree have to be (height and diameter) to be left alone by goats? (Or sheep or cattle, for that matter...)

I have some pasture that has lots of brush but also 5 - 6 year old hickory and maple that I'd rather keep, and I'm concerned that if I run some goats, sheep or cattle there that I'd lose 5 - 6 years of hickory and maple growth. Or that I'd have to protect all the small trees I want to keep, which could take some time on 20 acres.

I guess there's probably a relationship between the size of the animal and the size a tree would have to be before it's left alone. Any rules of thumb for what that relationship is? Or is anything smaller than a mature oak fair game for a goat?

[genebo]

All the trees are fair game. No matter how big they get, if the bark is tasty, the goats will eat it. That girdles the tree, killing it.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

[ozark_jewels]

Our goats will eat the bark from almost any size cedar tree(which is great around here!!), but they don't girdle oak trees, walnut trees, elm, etc, if they are bigger than saplings. They will girdle *young* trees of almost any sort and most trees with smooth bark. When the trees are large enough that their bark gets lumpy and rough(larger oaks, walnuts, etc), they don't usually eat anything but the leaves they can reach. That is of course unless they are being starved.

[ozark_jewels]

Originally Posted by BJ

We have considered getting goats...if we can find some not too expensive. What kind?? We just would want some big goats and don't want to milk.

We've heard that their hooves have to be trimmed often and that they are prone to some kind of worms...thus needing to be wormed about every 3 months. True??? We know zip about goats! Also...will they need shelter?? We have about 10 acres of our land that is creek, timber and pasture and fenced with field fence. We just wanted to turn them out to clear the brush. Guess we would need to find some used to living like that??

Any kind will work, as long as they aren't pampered show goats, because thats not what you'll be doing with them. If you don't want milk or kids, just buy some wethers. You do want to buy *healthy* wethers(for your sake, easier to care for), so my first thought is *not* a salebarn.....you can pick up CL there as easy as falling off a log, then you would have it on your land and that is not good. Dairy wethers are cheap and usually easy to come by. They are also quite hardy as long as they have been raised that way and not pampered. Dairy crosses are usually very hardy...my favorites for hardiness would be Lamanchas. Purebred Nubians sometimes don't like the cold as well, but depending on where you buy from, Nubians can be quite hardy. I have some Nubians that you just can't kill.... Boers too....but I breed for hardiness. The trick, no matter what breed you go with, is to buy from a place that raises them and keeps them, the way you want to raise and keep them. If you want them to thrive on brush and browse, don't buy from someone who feeds a lot of bagged feeds and drylots their goats. Its simply common sense there.
If you have plenty of room for them to browse, they will be much less prone to worms. Heavy worm infestations come when the browse is down and the goats are forced to eat the lower plants where the worms get ingested in large amounts. Cattle and goats have different types of worms, a good thing. I have a good amount of pasture and browse for our goats to run on and I usually worm twice a year, unless its a wet, warm winter...then I might have to worm three times a year. With your situation(plenty of browse, no milking does, no breeding bucks, no kidding, very little to stress them), you ought to have very minimal health issues.
They will probably need their hooves trimmed a couple times of year in Missouri. Milking does or breeding bucks need it more like three times a year, but a herd of brush-eaters ought to be able to easily get by on a couple times a year. You trim their hooves with a pair of small pruning shears, so nothing really hard about that.
They will need shelter from the rain and wind. Just a three-sided shed facing away from the wind will work perfectly. It just needs to be dry inside and be relatively draft-free. You can also pick up a "calf-hut" at a local MFA store....those work just fine.

[ozark_jewels]

Oh, and another thing is that goats are a smaller prey-type livestock, so they are prone to predator problems(the worst usually being roving domestic dogs! ). So unless you intend to be around close most of the time, an LGD(livestock guardian dog) or preferably two would be a good investment. They will also protect any calves you may have their as well. A good LGD is worth their weight in gold.

[Tiffin]

I'm sorry to put a damper on the goat thing, but we tried that for our multiflora rose. The problem is that the goats want to wander. The don't tether well as they will twist themselves up with rope. I had to take a chair and sit with them when I wanted them to eat a certain area; well who has time for that. Fencing a large area with 5' fencing is too expensive. They won't stay in electric fencing. Anyway, we got rid of them and now brush hog and use a brush mower, hedge trimmers, whatever. The multiflora rose does not recover with continuous mowing. And I only have to fill the gas tanks when I need the tool, not feed it continously when not in use. Again, sorry but even the goats were cute at times they did not work for us.