Questions about goats and their impact on land???

dbusby · #1 12/04/13, 09:37 AM

I have been known to come up with some crazy ideas but sometimes they are good ideas. So here is my idea, please let me know your thoughts. I have some rural acreage that is mostly hillside land. It is thick with trees and brush and there are no trails to get down to the lower area of the property where the river is. I've always noticed deer or animal trails on other properties and often used those trails to traverse those properties. OK, here is the question: If I were to put goats or maybe another animal on my land and then strategically place feeders(food and water) that force the animals to take the same trail back and forth do you think they would make trails good enough for me to use to get down to the river. The hill is steep but it is traversable and I plan on angling the trail down the property in a zigzag design between the property lines. Here is a google satellite image of the property if your interested to see the shape(the 4 tracts outlined in blue are mine): https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid...08018,0.015889

Hollowdweller · #2 12/04/13, 09:53 AM

I'm not sure. I think it would work.

However goats will follow you and I've made trails in my woods by just walking with the goats and periodically stop.

Also if you walk them back thru the woods regularly and then let them loose they will usually follow the same path.

I don't know about feeders.

homstdr74 · #3 12/04/13, 10:00 AM

We had a small herd of dairy goats for over thirty years. In my experience, give any goat time and brush and not only will they clear trails, but you'll have all the brush removed and you'll be fighting an erosion problem.

**mygoat** · #4 12/04/13, 10:11 AM

The goats will clear the pastures and make them look like a park. You should be able to get through very well. Don't expect much wildlife though - the goats will leave the trees and remove the sheltering shrubbery that wildlife prefers.

Doug Hodges · #5 12/04/13, 11:41 AM

They will clear it out and make several trails.

dbusby · #6 12/04/13, 12:11 PM

I know nothing about raising goats so please don't slap me for this question. Is is it possible to safely tether a goat to a cable. Example: a 200' cable run with a 10' tether allowing the goat to use a 20' x 200' area. If you rotated the goat to a fenced area and occasionally the tether would that be inhumane? Any opinions/experience?

homstdr74 · #7 12/04/13, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbusby

I know nothing about raising goats so please don't slap me for this question. Is is it possible to safely tether a goat to a cable. Example: a 200' cable run with a 10' tether allowing the goat to use a 20' x 200' area. If you rotated the goat to a fenced area and occasionally the tether would that be inhumane? Any opinions/experience?

Tried that one. Unless you are on grass pasture, the goat will get the cable bollixed up in and around trees and all manner of brush, then stand there and bawl.

**mygoat** · #8 12/04/13, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbusby

I know nothing about raising goats so please don't slap me for this question. Is is it possible to safely tether a goat to a cable. Example: a 200' cable run with a 10' tether allowing the goat to use a 20' x 200' area. If you rotated the goat to a fenced area and occasionally the tether would that be inhumane? Any opinions/experience?

IMO, it's not really 'inhumane' per sey, but it is VERY risky and FAR, FAR from ideal. There are a LOT of problems with tethering that can LEAD to an inhumane situation.

First, the only time I've tethered goats was in my mowed, fully fenced backyard. I only did it because I had an escape artist mini buck, and prior to that my minis were tied because we had no pasture and the were dancing on the cars, lol. I was VERY specific about where the stake was put in so that it could NOT tangle with anything. You MUST check several times per day to make sure it hasn't dumped it's water or moved it's house. Goats on cables are denied social interaction and get bored easily. I think every one I've staked out has started purposefully knocking over it's water and butting it's house. I had a plastic dog house that disassembles easily - and sure enough, every tied goat that had that house would eventually disassemble it out of boredom and then stand in the rain and cry. Solid houses would just get butted until they tangled the cable up or the house was outside of their reach... and they'd stand in the rain and cry.

Trees above the cable can also be an issue. It will drop branches which get tangled in the cable and then shorten the cable. The goat will be on a shorter line and not be able to reach food/water/shelter. It'll stand in the rain and cry.

If stray dogs do get in your fenced pasture, goats on a tether are dead meat. To be honest, goats in a pasture are at a high risk no matter what when a dog gets in there, but at least there is safety in numbers in a herd and you can limit injuries/deaths simply by allowing normal herd behavior/safety in numbers. A herd will defend themselves somewhat against predators - a goat on a cable panics. In a herd, there may be one unlucky goat (young, sick, old, slower than everybody, made a poor choice in direction to run etc) or two that get caught/killed - but the rest are safer for that one's death. They escape while the predators are killing the unfortunate one. Heck, that's why myotonic goats were maintained as a breed - they were kept in with more valueable sheep flocks so if wolves/dogs/predators attacked the sheep, the myotonics would stiffen up/fall over, get killed and allow the sheep to escape to safety.

Goats exposed to rain/cold are at high risk for death/illness. Animals that dump their buckets are at high risk for death/illness. Animals exposed to predators, situations where they can 'hang' themselves (has definetely happend to a LOT of goats tethered out!) etc can lead to a high risk of death/illness.

Frosted Mini's · #9 12/05/13, 10:38 PM

Goats will love all that brushy food! They will need to be fenced on all sides except maybe the river side--they won't cross water. If you can't afford to fence it all, you could let them out in the daytime, and maybe kind of guide them to stay on your property while you do other work there and then put them in a pen while you aren't supervising. That pen could be moved around so they still have stuff to eat. I do think they will make paths, but it will take some time. Dairy goats will help out, but I think meat goats probably do a better job (I don't have any, so don't quote me here). A lot of the dairy breeds tend to be kind of spoiled princesses, plus they are way more work, if your main goal is land clearing.

dozedotz · #10 12/06/13, 09:42 AM

We live in deep woods with lots of brush. We have to rotate our goats through different areas so that they are not too hard on any one area. Lots of people rotate pasture for worm prevention, but we are actually trying to protect the woods so that the goats will have future browsing! One other thing, we have dairy goats and the girls' udders can be a problem in some areas. Those big udders filling with milk each day can get scratched or even poked by sticks, etc. Usually not a terrible problem, but it could be if you are not watchful.

gila_dog · #11 12/07/13, 08:44 AM

Depends on how many goats, and how much land. My 3 wethers browse on my property, and that of neighbors, several times per week, and they don't do any damage at all. As long as I keep and eye on them and don't let them eat somebody's fruit trees or rose bushes, that is. But as others have said, dogs can be a real threat to your goats. If your fences won't contain goats, they won't keep dogs out either.

LFRJ · #12 12/08/13, 05:22 PM

Some good browsing goats will definitely clear it. We're depending on ours to do the same to clear our property, and we haven't been disappointed thus far. They WILL need to be fenced in though. A dog or such, inside with the goats, or to run the fence line wouldn't hurt either.

motdaugrnds · #13 12/09/13, 08:58 AM

It is my experience goats will not only get rid of much of the brush, they will also kill some of the trees by eating the bark off them.

If I were in your shoes wanting to clear up forestry, I would NOT choose "dairy" goats. I would, instead, get some "meat" goats (or dairy "wethers"). Brush can be terrible on nice dairy udders. And the first thing I'd do is fence the area that I wanted cleared, maybe even get creative as to where you want them to make those trails down to the river.

Also, those goats (whatever kind) would need protections (as LFRJ mentions in his post); so I'd add a couple of LGD (livestock guardian dogs) in with them. Then I would keep a close eye on just how much they are clearing; as, above posters are correct, you could wind up with an erosion problem being on the side of a hill like that. (Maybe if you wind up fencing those areas off, you can run your fencing so as to keep from losing soil, i.e. leaving some area the goats could not get to.)