How much pine is too much to feed?

1746 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by AndreaNZ, Sep 17, 2004

AndreaNZ

Discussion Starter · Sep 17, 2004

Hi, all -- we've just taken down 3 huge old pine trees (I think they're scotch pines if that matters), with 7 more to go... having read and been told that fresh pine boughs fed to goats can be a good vermifuge and that it has antiseptic qualitities as well, we fed a few boughs to the goats, who've eaten it with relish, and started stripping off the green bark. They've mostly all just kidded (one more doe to go, but she's about a month off - managed to keep the buck at bay for that long! :shock: ), if that matters for the pine intake. Can I just keep feeding them the boughs, or is there a point where it's too much? I haven't noticed any scouring at all, BTW, and they've been eating it about 3 days now.

Thanks!

Andrea
NZ

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Lt. Wombat

· #3 · Sep 17, 2004

We live in the heart of the Black Hills National Forest so expectantly we have tens of thousands if Ponderosa pines on the property. For fire prevention purposes we are cutting all branches up to the 6â level. All these branches plus whole trees are piled up and the goats eat them year round.

We were always told pine was an abortive agent but we have no seen this occur. Maybe itâs because they eat them every day and have a level built up. Either way itâs a free food source. And after 3 years here we still have only finished about 15 acres of the cutting so they have a long future of free food.

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