Trees as goat forage - is it possible?

Fed a bit of feral Bradford thorn (pear) the past couple days.  They seemed to like it well enough and it greens up early.  Feeding this time of year is always a struggle for me.  The sheep/goats ignore decent hay in favor of poor little cool season grasses just trying to get started. The Bradford might just fit the bill for some feed this time of year to take the pressure off the grass.  I made my cuts up high to see how well they pollard.

Hi everyone

I'm in New Zealand and I have two pet goats. They have their own Facebook page: Tiggles and Giggles.

I have skim read these comments. No-one seems to have mentioned that acorns (especially green ones) can be fatal (too many tannins). I fence my boys away from the big oak tree in late summer/autumn.

Also, referring to the picture of goats up a tree, I have been told the poor things get put up there as a tourist attraction.

Lucy Pritchard wrote:Hi everyone

I'm in New Zealand and I have two pet goats. They have their own Facebook page: Tiggles and Giggles.

I have skim read these comments. No-one seems to have mentioned that acorns (especially green ones) can be fatal (too many tannins). I fence my boys away from the big oak tree in late summer/autumn.

Also, referring to the picture of goats up a tree, I have been told the poor things get put up there as a tourist attraction.

First of all, the goats in the trees are living in Morocco, hence there is no lush green to graze on.
They really climb into the Agan trees and eat the fruits.
Families later collect their dung for the seeds in it and produce one of the world's most expensive oil.

My two goats were meant to be a BBQ sponsored by me, but we didn't realize that the farmer sends them alive.
Hence the names:
Boonrod (Survivor)
and Super, because there was at the begin (we were unprepared that our BBQ was alive) no fencing from Bamboo and Eucalyptus trunks high and strong enough that both not managed to escape as they liked, especially the Billy Goat (Boer).

When I go out with them they prefer Leucaena Trees over all and if they stripped these trees down they chose as next Moringa..
I doubt they grow in NZ..

Goats may "thrive" on trees, but my experience is that trees will not thrive when goats can get to them. I made the mistake of pasturing goats with trees. The goats stripped the bark right off of them. Killed them all. Bye, bye, apples and locust, that I had spent some time growing. Our goats do well with leafy, woody, herby things. They're great for clearing out, and killing, brush and poison ivy. But they kill trees.

P.S. Oh, by the way, if you do use your goats to eliminate poison ivy, don't let the goats rub up against you. The ivy "poison" stays on their fur and transfers to you. Doesn't hurt the goats, but it sure can make your day less enjoyable.

I have a friend who has been experimenting with this....    

We have found that goats will eat the bark all the way to the base of the tree, thus killing it...

So... what he found to be effective is to get three skids,   plant your tree,  ( in our case mulberry tree )    Then tie these three skids up around protecting the tree skids standing on the short end up in the air tied into a triangle shape. with wire.

This protects the tree from the goats destroying the bark, but they can harvest from the top of the tree the leaves.       So you have a self feeding production for the goats.       Mulberry is high in protein, and if you get the right variety will produce lots of leaves.

Mart Hale wrote:We have found that goats will eat the bark all the way to the base of the tree, thus killing it...

This is likely symptom of mineral deficiency. Goats have very high mineral requirements (compared to other pastured animals) which is why they prefer browsing woody herbs, shrubs, and trees. These are deep rooted plants that pull up minerals from deep within the soil. Upping the goats' supplementary minerals may help here, especially if the minerals are custom blended to address area soil deficiencies.

Ous loooove the oak , pine, maple and they even snuck in a Manzanita! No grain just orchard grass and browsing from our yard, BUT ALOT OF TREES and they are super healthy! Lots of kindling for the fire should be completlt dry in a month...someti.es the goats eat the branches but minimal.