posted 10 years ago
Unless the trees are big enough that the bark is rough and scaly, and tall enough that the goat cannot rear up, or put its forelegs up on the trunk and reach lower branches, you are asking for trouble! Goats are nosy and smart.....and they will try new things!
A few ways to proceed would be to stoutly fence a circle around each tree....bringing with it the problem of being able to access the tree yourself. A goat will worry with a gate or closure with more persistence and more intelligence than you can imagine. I had success on one farm by taking old metal barrels, bottomless, and setting these around each tree up on glass jugs laid on their sides, or stout pieces of plastic, and then hooking this to electric fence so that the entire barrel was electrified! But, as the trees grew, the barrel was stranded there forever. It is possible to train goats to respect a single strand of electric fence, by means of baiting it with tags of foil with something yummy on it like peanut butter. But a new or desperately hungry one will always push the boundaries!