Will Goats Eat Anything?


Willow, happily munching on the rose bushes around the house. She's quite spoiled that Willow

This was a question posed by one of our readers a few weeks ago. It's a subject I've often thought about addressing. 

A common belief is that goats will eat anything. Many people imagine a goat eating a tin can. I don’t know exactly where that image comes from, but it’s prevalent. A quick Google search brought back tales of goats eating the labels off tin cans because they liked the taste of the glue.

So is it true? Will goats eat anything?

The answer is a definite “no”. At least for our goats. Prior to owning goats I too thought they'd eat anything. I figured that of all the grazing animals (goats, sheep, cows, etc) goats were the least discriminating.

Turns out goats are the MOST discriminating. One of the first things you hear from farmers raising multiple species is that the goats are the hardest to keep in good “body condition”. Goats like to “browse” rather than “graze”, meaning they like to eat at head-height. They also like to eat a wide variety of grasses and forages, easily getting bored with one type of grass and quickly moving on to something else. You can't just plant a bunch of fescue, orchard grass, and other common grasses and get away with it. Goats will do fine, but they won't thrive in that type of pasture management.

That's why, despite low fertility, our "diverse" pastures are perfect for goats. It's a wild territory out there, filled with all kinds of weird stuff. The goats can happily move from one species to another, picking and choosing what they'd like to eat. In fact, when forage specialists from UT have visited the farm they generally say just keep on doing what you're doing. Maybe lime it a little and add in some legumes, but for the most part don't screw up the diversity of forages. Roses, lespedeza, privet, and other less-common "forages" (or "weeds", to some) are natural de-wormers, high in protein, and won't easily die in a drought. They also grow most of the year in Tennessee.

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Levon, The Yard Tiger Special, and An Outdoor Cat is Born

Levon, exhaustedThe other day I asked on our Facebook page what people wanted us to write about. I like to ramble about electric fencing, guinea fowl, and so forth, but I have to imagine our readers would rather hear about something else. So my loving sister suggested I write an update about Levon, our lone feline friend (as opposed to our feline enemies, the bobcats).

Levon, as you may recall, is our house-cat. Or shall I say, our barn-cat. He's really a house-cat, converted to barn-cat, converted back to house-cat, converted back to barn-cat.

Originally, he came to us as a house-cat. But we didn't want a house-cat. We wanted a barn-cat. So we put him in the barn. Then one of our dogs chased him up a tree and almost killed him, so he reverted back to house-cat status. A few months ago he brought fleas into the house and was exiled. Back to barn-cat, dogs be damned. Luckily, he thrived in the outdoors and now he is a permanent barn-cat, and that’s not changing.

Upon his most recent disbarment from indoor privileges, he developed great skills in hunting, pouncing, prowling, and big white dog evasion. He is quite stealth and he loves to climb. He doesn’t like other animals (besides me), so he doesn’t waste any time socializing. If he’s not napping, it’s all business (I relate to Levon on many levels). I believe some of his skills came from the time he sat on the arm of the couch and wathced Braveheart with us. Thus, he briefly became known as "Levon Wallace". 

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The Heat Is On - Our First Breeding Season Begins

Gozer, putting the moves on TijerasA few months ago, Scrapple and I had a little kitchen table meeting to strategize our first breeding season. We decided that we would aim to kid at the beginning of April. By that time the grass is growing and the sun is warm but the insects aren't yet out in full force. Goats have a 5 month gestation period so this meant we would breed at the end of October/beginning of November. 

While it was pretty easy to write "Breed Goats" into a calendar reminder, it didn't take long for the reality of how clueless we were about the actual logistics to set in. 

We knew that we wanted to choose who bred with who, and who was not going to be bred (Willow) so this ruled out just "running" the bucks with the does for a month (which is a great way to do things if your herd is set up for it). We would need to wait for the signs of heat or estrus in the doe. Then we would need to put the doe with one of the bucks in an area away from the herd. We would need to make sure that he actually did the deed, several times, and then wait to see if the doe came into heat again later in the season. If not, the breeding will have been successful. 

With no experience breeding any animals (not even pet hamsters!) we were a little boggled. We hit the books, expecting some clarity only to emerge thoroughly perplexed. Experienced goat owners talk of identifying a goat in heat by her waving tail and "winking" vagina. What!?!

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