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.

Reviving this thread just to sing the praises of a near-exclusive forage diet for my Nigerian Dwarf goats.

It is truly remarkable how perfect a pairing these goats make with the supremely vigorous invasives that love the American Southeast.

My area has the notorious kudzu, along with the less well known but even more expansive privet. We also have loads of Japanese honeysuckle and porcelain berry.

With just these four plants and about an acre of land, I could feed my four goats year-round. The privet and honeysuckle are evergreen and the kudzu and porcelain berry are so vigorous you can gather enough for wintery hay and still have more than enough for warm weather feed. The privet are so tough too that they survive almost complete debarking.

That's a totally free, endlessly renewable feed source for at the very least a steady supply of meat (haven't tested the all-forage diet on dairy production yet).

The next phase for me is working in trees/vines that have more utility to humans as supplements and maybe replacements for the less desirable invasives.

The candidates so far:

Wax myrtle (evergreen shrub forage that's also safe for rabbits plus berries for candlemaking)
Elaeagnus ebbingei (another evergreen for goats and rabbits plus edible berries)
Chocolate vine (semi-evergreen vine that produces bizzaro but edible akebia fruit)
Arctic kiwi (deciduous vine with honeysuckle level annual growth but potential 50lb+ fruit yields per vine)

Add these to the established multiuse fodder powerhouses like mulberry, Jerusalem artichoke and bamboo and buying any kind of goat feed other than a mineral lick or some hay for a brutal winter becomes a distant memory.

Sam Shade wrote:That's a totally free, endlessly renewable feed source for at the very least a steady supply of meat (haven't tested the all-forage diet on dairy production yet).

A neighbor lost a goat who had been feeding 2 kids. It may have been a lack of selenium, as our soils are naturally low in it, or it could have been other minerals. So knowing your soil as well as the nutritional value of a variety of forages put together, is important for milk production. I'm sure I read of someone offering a variety of different minerals separately, rather than the "multivitamin" approach which has been shown not to work that well on humans at least. The animals were smart enough to know which minerals they needed and did very well with that approach.  

And wrote:

Elaeagnus ebbingei (another evergreen for goats and rabbits plus edible berries)
Chocolate vine (semi-evergreen vine that produces bizzaro but edible akebia fruit)

These can both be invasive in areas. That can be an asset if you've got enough animals to keep them under control, but worth looking into how controllable they are in your specific climate. There are a couple of Elaeagnus species that are not invasive in my ecosystem, but are elsewhere.

Jay Angler wrote:

Sam Shade wrote:That's a totally free, endlessly renewable feed source for at the very least a steady supply of meat (haven't tested the all-forage diet on dairy production yet).

A neighbor lost a goat who had been feeding 2 kids. It may have been a lack of selenium, as our soils are naturally low in it, or it could have been other minerals. So knowing your soil as well as the nutritional value of a variety of forages put together, is important for milk production. I'm sure I read of someone offering a variety of different minerals separately, rather than the "multivitamin" approach which has been shown not to work that well on humans at least. The animals were smart enough to know which minerals they needed and did very well with that approach.  

And wrote:

Elaeagnus ebbingei (another evergreen for goats and rabbits plus edible berries)
Chocolate vine (semi-evergreen vine that produces bizzaro but edible akebia fruit)

These can both be invasive in areas. That can be an asset if you've got enough animals to keep them under control, but worth looking into how controllable they are in your specific climate. There are a couple of Elaeagnus species that are not invasive in my ecosystem, but are elsewhere.

Mine have successfully raised a single generation of kids - I just don't know if my mostly forage diet for them is sufficient to generate the surplus to give us milk as well.

Supposedly elaeagnus ebbingei is a sterile hybrid which keeps it off the invasive list in my area I believe. I know umbellata and pungens are frowned upon for invasiveness.  I think chocolate vine is still tolerated in my area but I know some northeastern states are trying to get rid of it.