GOATS ON grass

Goats raised on pasture require a few essential elements to stay healthy and happy

- LESLIE J. WYATT

When it comes to eating, goats are more like deer than sheep or cattle, and their smaller mouths and split lips give them the ability to select tasty leaves from amongst thorns, find choice blossoms in what appears to be weeds or brush, and thrive on what would starve a cow. But contrary to the old stereotype, goats will not eat tin cans and people’s red underwear. In reality, they are drawn to the most nutritious plants, including weeds, and the leaves and bark of bushes and trees.

For many of us, the term “pasture” brings to mind rolling grassy fields, but for ideal goat grazing, that picture needs to be amended. You need some good, healthy weeds dotted throughout that picturesque grass!

Kathy Voth, owner of Livestock for Landscapes and the founder and editor of the online grazing magazine On Pasture, has a whole different take on weeds than most people.

“They’re really nutritious and really good for animals,” she says. “The reason animals don’t eat them is because they never have, so why would they start now?”

For goats, Voth’s favorite plant in any pasture is Canada thistle. “As forage, it’s very resilient, propagating from roots and seeds,” she says. “Goats can graze it down, and it’ll come up again. It’s also high in protein, which is a hard thing for animals to get.”

Normally, grasses, weeds and browse should make up 90 to 100% of a goat’s diet. If you’ve got a hillside full of poison ivy, wild honeysuckle, briars and whatnot, your goats will be in heaven.