Need help with my rotational grazing plan for my dairy goats

I was gifted a young trio of Nigerian dwarf goats a year ago and have been adapting my 5 acre zone 7b/8a property to them as I go. I could use some input.

I have a very limited rotational grazing setup in place at the moment - basically shifting them back and forth between big paddocks every couple months.

Thus far I haven't had any of the parasite problems people warn about with such extended periods in one place; that may be in part because the majority of the forage is woody and elevated, allowing them to ignore most of what's growing on the ground.

But I do want to get to a more frequent and regular rotation. I've got about 3 shrubby acres that I can fence into paddocks without too much additional work (there's a lot of existing horse fence in place and I have a lot of cattle panels).

My plan is to divvy up these acres into 4 zones for each season, each zone subdivided into 6 paddocks. They'd spend a week in a paddock and cycle on, returning to that same paddock in 6 weeks for another cycle and then moving to a new zone with the new season. My hope is that will keep the forage growing and reduce the parasite load, in addition to making it possible to follow the goats with kunekune pigs or turkeys in the future.

I like this plan well enough but I'm trying to integrate with a planting plan to both maximize forage for the goats and get some yields other than milk out of these acres.

For example in my fall zone, I'm planting Jerusalem artichokes and moringa, plus hardy kiwis and muscadine and other vigorous vines along the outside of the fences. I can harvest the moringa in the summer and the tubers in the winter but let the goats eat them down to the ground in the fall (when the artichokes turn into ugly black stalks and the moringa melts in the cold weather).

In the summer zone, I was thinking of doing some low maintenance cut and come again crops that will bolt in the heat anyway (basil is a huge producer in my area - grows like a weed). A lot of tall greens.

But I have few ideas for winter and spring other than bamboo - which will need the goats to help keep it contained. The only stuff that seems to stay green in winter here is privet, pine and honeysuckle and I can think of spring crops that the goats wouldn't just annihilate.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

you've already named several excellent winter forages....bamboo, privet, and honeysuckle.  There is a cadre of common landscaping shrubs popular in the trade that are common in suburbia....they are easily propagated, vigorous, and often evergreen.  Several of them have escaped and are considered "invasive".  These are among the best resources around for winter browse.  Eleagnus, euonymus, photinia, loropetalum come to mind in addition to what you've already mentioned.  The only ones I know are to be strictly avoided are anything in the rhododendrom family (including azalea and mountain laurel) and oleander...these are notoriously poisonous.

Alder Burns wrote:you've already named several excellent winter forages....bamboo, privet, and honeysuckle.  There is a cadre of common landscaping shrubs popular in the trade that are common in suburbia....they are easily propagated, vigorous, and often evergreen.  Several of them have escaped and are considered "invasive".  These are among the best resources around for winter browse.  Eleagnus, euonymus, photinia, loropetalum come to mind in addition to what you've already mentioned.  The only ones I know are to be strictly avoided are anything in the rhododendrom family (including azalea and mountain laurel) and oleander...these are notoriously poisonous.

Eleagnus... I've got a few fledgling goumis up front. Hadn't considered then as a multi purpose winter fodder.

Thanks for the suggestions!

What about winter rye and clover plantings for fall?  Would your goats like those?

We plant a deer food plot for fall that is purple hull peas and turnips.  I am sure your goats would like those.

Sam wrote: I can harvest the moringa in the summer and the tubers in the winter but let the goats eat them down to the ground in the fall (when the artichokes turn into ugly black stalks and the moringa melts in the cold weather).

Wait, what? Moringa survived the last 2 winters there?

Anne Miller wrote:What about winter rye and clover plantings for fall?  Would your goats like those?

We plant a deer food plot for fall that is purple hull peas and turnips.  I am sure your goats would like those.

I've got white clover growing wild but my goats ignore most everything close to the ground. It has to be about eye level for them to take interest. The winter rye might work. Does it need irrigation?

Thanks for the help!

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:

Sam wrote: I can harvest the moringa in the summer and the tubers in the winter but let the goats eat them down to the ground in the fall (when the artichokes turn into ugly black stalks and the moringa melts in the cold weather).

Wait, what? Moringa survived the last 2 winters there?

That's some hopeful projection on my part. I read that they can work as die back perennials with luck and some protection in a milder temperate climate.

I've got some in containers close to the house that I'm hoping will come back from the roots next year. Also got some planted around the property in various microclimates to see if they come back unaided.

I use no irrigation just east of you, but it stays low over winter, about a foot tall. It explodes as the weather warms in spring. It stays green till after brassicas are setting green seedpods. I don't remember the calendar dates. Well, the seed formed, but was still green, not ripe at last frost, April 15.

I do try to seed winter grown crops about labor day. If fall rains are late, I'll water just to establish the
seedlings. Here, if I plant much later, brassicas will hibernate at 3 inches tall over winter and bolt to seed very very very early in spring. No harvest available. I started with Rye after I learned that lesson, so I am unsure of how late it can to be planted.

Please let us know how it goes. I had read that in Texas if a moringa tree was umm... maybe 3 inches in diameter that it resprouted after that last really bad snowy power outage winter they had. I've been playing with the idea of potting a few seeds up in BIG pots and wintering them inside for a few years. But I have no southern windows and funds are used for more promising crops. Though, I was THRILLED when a missed overwintered in ground yacon showed up this last spring. Yes, the winter of a week long of below freezing weather.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Please let us know how it goes. I had read that in Texas if a moringa tree was umm... maybe 3 inches in diameter that it resprouted after that last really bad snowy power outage winter they had. I've been playing with the idea of potting a few seeds up in BIG pots and wintering them inside for a few years. But I have no southern windows and funds are used for more promising crops. Though, I was THRILLED when a missed overwintered in ground yacon showed up this last spring. Yes, the winter of a week long of below freezing weather.

I have a south facing deck that I plan to use for a batch of dwarf moringa from Baker Creek this coming spring.

I typically don't like crops that require any hand holding but moringa is just too hard not to like - tastes great, grows with total neglect during the warm months and everything eats it ) chickens, goats, rabbits, fish!).

I really like the idea of harvesting it in  spring and summer and then letting the goats have it in fall. Even if it doesn't over winter reliably, if I can get a few babied container plants to seed I'll happily treat it as an annual for the same purpose.

Will update in spring if there are any survivors from the current crew.

Perhaps willow? I'm from the great white north so I don't know what stays green for you.

This is a great project Sam! I hope it all can be made to work for you. I suspect you may find that the size of the forage areas for the different seasons may need to be different sizes to reflect the food availability. It would be nice if an evergreen that needed hedge pruning for good flower/fruit production would be suitable in your area, but there is still some food value in young twigs of many trees I think.
I did a pfaf search hoping that a nice evergreen legume like tagaste would pop out, and it did come up with blue leaved wattle/orange wattle (Acacia saligna) I don't know if that is a possibility perhaps? Maybe more interestingly it came up with several bamboo species including river cane. I'm not sure whether the canes would still have food value in winter though? In spring the new shoots would be close to the ground so again not so useful...

Consider planting a phytoanthelmintic plant such as the AU Grazer cultivar of Sericea lespedeza for them. Ours prefer it to alfalfa.

The honeysuckle is also a favorite. Plantain? Redbud? Pine? Mulberry? Raspberry? Pumpkin? Goji berry? Teff? Medicinal herbs, some grown away from goats, such as mullein, very useful to goats & humans, but has toxic seeds.

I don’t know what the climate designation you gave means, or where you are.  If I say something “stupid” I am hoping you’ll forgive me.  I have rotational grazed dairy goats.

From observing my girls, I believe the fact that yours don’t eat things lower than a certain level only says they are getting enough to eat.

My goats loved day lilies.  When the milk was onion scented it made fabulous chevre.  They ate the leaves off comfrey plants.  I planted very tall grasses for them, big blue stem was a favorite.  Daikon radishes too.  Voracious approach to bind weed.

I’m glad you’re planning to get more than 2 paddocks.  They may not be eating everything, but they are surely selecting their favorites, which , over the long term suppresses them.  

Elderberry spreads in my situation.  I fenced the core of the tree so they couldn’t get to it, and they kept it from taking over.

I don’t know how you would manage them for fruit and forage in your system, but blackberries also grow rampantly.  My system was to maintain three thickets.  The goats were allowed to decimate one each year.

If they would eat dried hops vines, you could let them clean up after harvest, they die to the ground in winter.  I just can’t remember if mine ate them.

It sounds like a wonderful project.

Russian blocking 13 is supposed to be good forage through winter. I'm going to order a bunch for my new herd. Pigeon pea is their favorite right now. But they love moringa snacks too.

Goats are grazers? Eh wot? Traditionally aren't rocky upland situations the norm for Caprines? I'd figure on any woody shrub-type N-fixers that are growable in yr. zone, with a diverse grass/broadleaf mix in between & below. Lots of good suggestions are posted. I really like goats, in all ways, and have enjoyed them when I was directly involved. I once saw a setup that had a rock pile that sheltered rabbits, (semi-wild) and gave the goats enough climbing to keep their hooves trim

Bridget Vandel wrote:Perhaps willow? I'm from the great white north so I don't know what stays green for you.

Willow (I think my variety is black willow) sheds its leaves in the mid fall here. I have a bunch of them. I'd like to use them for tree hay next winter but in the meantime I throw the goats my willow prunings so they can eat the twigs and bark.  They like it ok tho they seem to prefer slippery elm and black locust bark.

Nancy Reading wrote:This is a great projeazct Sam! I hope it all can be made to work for you. I suspect you may find that the size of the forage areas for the different seasons may need to be different sizes to reflect the food availability. It would be nice if an evergreen that needed hedge pruning for good flower/fruit production would be suitable in your area, but there is still some food value in young twigs of many trees I think.
I did a pfaf search hoping that a nice evergreen legume like tagaste would pop out, and it did come up with blue leaved wattle/orange wattle (Acacia saligna) I don't know if that is a possibility perhaps? Maybe more interestingly it came up with several bamboo species including river cane. I'm not sure whether the canes would still have food value in winter though? In spring the new shoots would be close to the ground so again not so useful...

Great find thanks! Looks like there's been some research on a. saligna as goat fodder (not appropriate as sole feed but a solid supplement). Might be a good thing to put some in to break up the monotony of privet.

My own PFAF search turned up arbutus unedo, the strawberry tree, which I'm also going to try. Apparently evergreen with a beautiful and edible fruit (though opinions vary on its taste). More of a Mediterranean plant but I've had good luck with plants from that region (cardoon to name one).

jeramiah morgan wrote:Russian blocking 13 is supposed to be good forage through winter. I'm going to order a bunch for my new herd. Pigeon pea is their favorite right now. But they love moringa snacks too.

You think pigeon pea is worth trying in USDA zone 8a? I'd be willing to try it as an annual if the yields and growth are substantial in a single growing season or better yet as a die back perennial.

A definite yes on comfrey. The only question is whether to plant it inside or outside the paddock. My goats usually won't eat anything down to the ground so if comfrey can regularly recover from browsing it would make sense to put it inside if I can clear up enough sunlight from the shrub canopy.

Rick Valley wrote:Goats are grazers? Eh wot? Traditionally aren't rocky upland situations the norm for Caprines? I'd figure on any woody shrub-type N-fixers that are growable in yr. zone, with a diverse grass/broadleaf mix in between & below. Lots of good suggestions are posted. I really like goats, in all ways, and have enjoyed them when I was directly involved. I once saw a setup that had a rock pile that sheltered rabbits, (semi-wild) and gave the goats enough climbing to keep their hooves trim

A rabbit/goat combo habitat would be very interesting! My dad lives with me and has long planned a goat mountain of wire framed concrete and river rock - integrating my meat rabbits in the interior would be fun.

Thank you both.

A couple more thoughts for this great thread:

About comfrey, the variety that sets seeds can be invasive, but I’m not sure if that’s the russsian or the bocking.  I suggest getting the kind that doesn’t make seed, you have to get a root cutting, unless you do a lot of research on comfrey varieties in your region.  If you have a mild enough winter for Mediterranean plants, you might be headed for headaches with the seeding cultivar.  Or, I guess you could let the goats in to eat it all before it sets seed.  If finding a root cutting is difficult, Strictly Medicinal in Oregon, a mail order nursery will mail you some, along with a lot of helpful information and a great catalog full of stories and herbal lore.  Their website is pretty easy to navigate too, and there are sales from time to time, that you only find out about on the website.

The other thing I wanted to mention is the question of nutritional value of a plant (some kind of cane?) all dried up for the winter.  The goats have rumens, where a whole soup of microbes digest such things that are almost pure cellulose.  As someone said, it wouldn’t do for as the entire diet, but the carbohydrates in cellulose are significant.  The microbes need that kind of feed in order to maintain their numbers.  If you’re having to buy feed, the canes can be the cheap and plentiful part of the equation, supplementing what ever other forage there is available.  If there are commercial orchards, their prunings are also good feed for dairy goats, in fact if you’re trying to figure out what they’re going to eat in winter that is  a by product of another crop, you might plant some fruit trees, so that you can prune them in winter for your goaties, and you get the summer fruits.

Or get some coppices going in different winter paddocks.  Keep the goats iff them until they’re big enough, but then they could be part of your rotation.