Grazing Goats for $

[Tam319]

Hi all,

I was wondering if any of you have used your goats as grazing/brush control for $? I have some questions for you!!

A local environment company is doing reclamation on an area that was previously burned in a brush pile. They've just planted some little spruce trees and want goats to graze approx. 50 acres to remove competition for the little trees. He said it is 5 acres here and there, not just one big patch.

Firstly, won't the goats devour the spruce tree saplings?

Secondly, what kind of time frame would you be looking at for 50 acres if you had 40 goats? Apparently in some areas the grass is very deep (he says up to 2').

Would a temporary electric fence and 2 LGD be sufficient protection?

What would you charge for this?? It would be approximately 45 minutes from home so I am trying to consider the cost for my time to be moving and monitoring the goats regularly.

The company does not have experience with this so they are not really sure as to price or time frame but would prefer if I would come back to them with the info.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!!

Tamara

[Freeholder]

Yes, the goats will eat the little spruce trees -- probably before they even touch anything else! When we had goats in Alaska, their pen fence was made of unpeeled spruce poles, and there were a couple of spruce trees inside the pen. The poles and the trees were speedily de-barked!

Kathleen

[fishhead]

I would expect the goats to think the spruce seedlings were candy. My goats even loved nasty old jackpine. One way to find out would be to do a test and see if they eat the seedlings.

[Muskrat]

1) The seedling will be the first to go.

2) The goats won't like the 2' grass.

3) Will there be water available or will you have to haul it?

3) Can't even make a guess as to how long it will take because the time needed will be dependent upon the actual grazing. Just as a ballpark, forty goats could probably clear an acre in five days, but the definition of clear can make that problematical. They also won't clear the five acres equally.

4) You're going to be putting up electric fence ten times, assuming 10 five-acre parcels. Fencing a five-acre lot is a big job for one person. And that's if you get it right the first time. You probably won't be in level ground. Are you going to use solar chargers? What if it rains for a week?

5) 45-minutes away. LGDs are good, but that's asking an awful lot of your dogs.

6) At one time, we set up at 5 acres for $175. That's $35 an acre. We did it, but we needed browse for the goats, so we avoided renting pasture for them. That was the payoff. It was also much closer and we had more goats.

[Tam319]

Howdy,

Thanks for the feedback. I was a bit surprised when I asked "So you are putting the trees in AFTER the goats are done, right?" and he assured me that the trees were going in BEFORE. Sounded like a recipe for disaster to me. Glad to hear that I'm not the only one to think so! LOL It would be TERRIBLE if I did ALL THAT WORK and ended up with a bill for the damaged trees! EEKS! I agree that the goats wouldn't much like the grass...they are browsers after all and grass is only consumed here as a last resort if all the tasty bits of browse are gone.

Thanks!

[southerngurl]

What about just using horses or cows,they would be less likely to eat the spruce.