Goats for Morons

My goats love pine. The like to eat all types of fir needles as well.

Drat I was hoping to do a swap
Your goats for our politicans. Although why you would want one is byond me

David

Jonathan Burger wrote:My goats love pine. The like to eat all types of fir needles as well.

Good to know. And I guess they're alright with it.

Pine needles can cause abortions in cattle. Goats seem to be surprisingly tolerant of toxins (my one azalea is dead and my goats aren't), but that might be something to consider if your goats are or will be bred.

A Philipsen wrote:Pine needles can cause abortions in cattle. Goats seem to be surprisingly tolerant of toxins (my one azalea is dead and my goats aren't), but that might be something to consider if your goats are or will be bred.

This winter I cut down pine trees (have way too many of them) as a supplement to the goats hay. They chomped through them happily all winter and all 5 bore healthy babies in the spring. So I'd guess its not a problem. What they really love is cedar trees (which are also a natural dewormer), they ate every needle off the cedar I cut down before they would touch the pine needles.

Philip Green wrote:

A Philipsen wrote:Pine needles can cause abortions in cattle. Goats seem to be surprisingly tolerant of toxins (my one azalea is dead and my goats aren't), but that might be something to consider if your goats are or will be bred.

This winter I cut down pine trees (have way too many of them) as a supplement to the goats hay. They chomped through them happily all winter and all 5 bore healthy babies in the spring. So I'd guess its not a problem. What they really love is cedar trees (which are also a natural dewormer), they ate every needle off the cedar I cut down before they would touch the pine needles.

At some point you can compare Cows, sheep and goats, but the one big difference is goats are browsers and cows and sheep are grazers. Eating pine bark and needles is a normal feast for goats, where it isn't for sheep and cows. Though when we had Jacob sheep they could kill off a stand of pine trees rather quickly, sheep and cows normally eat from the ground up to about 6 inches and goats like to eat from about 6 inches above the ground to as high as they can reach.

My goats also eat pine and fir, but they seem to prefer larch.