Sagebrush Diet Percentage

Hello all, I’ve just bought 10 acres of mostly sagebrush + some wild oats and wildflowers. Does anyone know what percentage of their diet sheep and goats (or other animals!) can safely consume in sage? I’ve looked online and asked in another forum, but I can’t seem to find an answer. I know I’ll need to hay supplement at first, but I want to feed the animals as much from the land as possible. My plan is to rotate over the land and reseed with hardy legumes alongside existing browse/sage. I’ve had dairy goats before, but the land was completely different. Thanks.

I'm no expert, but I do know that there are different types of sagebrush. Some are pretty good forage others not so much. My family helped the ID Fish and Game plant Wyoming Big Sagebrush seedlings in April to replace some old stands that had been destroyed by wildfires. We were told that Mule Deer and Sage Grouse would really benefit from our efforts in three or four years. We've had a "wet" spring and early summer and the planted seedlings have surpassed the expectations of survival that the ID Fish and Game had.  
One hundred and fifty years ago the settlers in this area (ID, UT, NV) looked at areas where the sagebrush was doing particularly well (big and bushy) as an indicator of good farm land. Your sagebrush doesn't look to be very big or bushy but that may be just the type that you have on your land.

As far as I can tell, this species stays small regardless of conditions, even in the more fertile areas it remains quite short. There are two native sages in the area. I believe mine to be prairie sagewort (Artemisia frigida) due to its leaf pattern.

I don’t know about the percentage of sage in a goat diet. I do know that the nutrition available in Sagebrush varies throughout the year. I think when the growth is new cattle can be persuaded to eat it, and they only require those supplemental tubs of minerals and molasses, or what ever.

Old senescent and woodysage brush- artemisia doesn’t provide much feed.

Fred Provenza, retired now, researched cattle and nutrition on sagebrush in Utah. One very interesting thing he discovered was that beyond weaning, the fetus will be better able to digest the food the mother is eating than the mother.

This suggests to me that, though it may be a long-term project, if you breed a line of goats that eats sage brush when it is in its most nutritious form, eventually, you will have goats that utilize sage brush.

I think you would need to find a way to convert senescent stands to earlier growth phases….  which also decreases fire danger.  I think once the sage is converted and properly managed, the goats would keep it there.

Might be an interesting project, and if you did develop a sage adapted line of goats, there might be quite a market!

I assumed the goats and sheep would not eat sagebrush since the deer do not eat my sage bushes of which I have several varieties.

The article on eating sagebrush by the University of Utah may have some good info though it may not answer the question:

https://extension.usu.edu/behave/past-projects/eating-sagebrush

Fabulous article, Anne. Thank you for posting the link. While it does not name an absolute percentage, it certainly provides information on how to increase the intake of sage brush, and how to diversify the pasture, increasing the amounts and diversity of other available forage species.