Eustis Mckenzie

Thanks all, this is exactly what I was looking for, if not hoping hoping for. I think we’re going to put our plan on hold until we’re ready to permanently keep a herd, and then maybe hair sheep are better suited to this site.

Establishing a food forest is our main goal right now and it would be devastating if goats demolished all our saplings.

I definitely got the message about tethering off goats, and when we do get goats or maybe hair sheep, we’ll use either electric or wire fencing.

Peace!

One thing I should have mentioned is that we, and the land, aren’t in a position to take on dairy goats long term right now. A seasonal project is what this would have to be: get the goats late spring and butcher them late summer. Once we've established trees and perennials, we'd like to be self sufficient and keep a herd year round, but this would be a trial run.  So I guess meat goats are indeed what we’re looking for.

If portable electric fencing isn’t too expensive I’ll seriously consider it. Would a single hot wire really be enough to keep them in? One concern I have about electric fencing is the brush I’d like the goats to clear touching the fence and draining the charge or starting a fire.

Here is a picture of the paddock they would be kept in:

Hi Gier,

Please ask away!

I’ll return them to the paddock at night. During the day I’d use rope to tie them to a tree in the woods.

Yes, I can supplement a decent amount of hay.

Are some breeds easier to herd? Clearing the poison oak is the main goal, meat is secondary.

I want to preface this with: These goats would not be pets, we are meat eaters, but if this can’t be done humanely for the goats then we’ll abandon the plan.

The problem is the solution right? Poison oak thicket equals goat meat? It seems like a permaculture solution but I’ve heard goats can be a headache.

We have 2 acres of oak/pine woods with poison oak covering around half of that. I’m hoping to get cheap adults in late spring, let them have at the poison oak and butcher them late summer.

We’d keep them in a 1/2 acre paddock with 4 foot fencing (2 strands of hot wire on top), and use cattle panels/tin roof for housing. Initial plan is to walk them to the woods each morning, tether them to a tree and walk them back to the paddock in the evening. It would probably be easier to set up their shelter in the woods but woods aren’t fenced. The oak and pine trees are large so I’m hoping safe from goat girdling?

The soil here is poor compacted clay, so the shrub layer is not super thick but in addition to the poison oak there is hawthorn, wild rose, Himalayan blackberry, snowberry, scotch broom, and native grasses/forbs for them to browse. The paddock has compacted clay soil as well so the grass doesn’t grow more than 2 feet high. Does this seem like enough to feed 2 or 3 goats?

Please poke some holes in this plan!