My goats are doing well this winter. They play well together. Although I think their favorite thing to do is eat buckthorn in summer & fall.

Dirty D ironwood is a mast tree just like an oak it is shad tolerant and is also a companion tree for oak stands. You need to get some education in forestry before you make bad choices in forest management.

My 13 1/2 month old pygmy is pregnant. I thought the due date is mid May but it might be soon now that I noticed the udder & big teats tonight. This is my 1st time at this. The seller was supposed to fix the male but that didn't happen.
Hopefully all goes well.

If all goes as planned it'll be eating buckthorn by mid summer. I'm hoping it's only 1 kid. I'm surprised how quick the udder appeared. I didn't notice it yesterday.

Born May 10th.

When I throw buckthorn in the pen, it's amazing how much they like it. I think it's their favorite food.

Toss in some Boxelder and do a comparison. Goats love Boxelder, its made me reconsider its value to deer as browse.

Aren't deer in the same family as goats? If so, why don't they eat the buckthorn? I have had as many as 12 deer in my yard at once. Yet, they don't seem interested in the buckthorn. They sure like my wife's flowers, though.

I don't know, but deer hate eating buckthorn.

Yes deer and goats are both ruminents, but that does not mean they eat or like similar feed items. Some ruminents are grazers and some are browsers. Buckthorn is an invasive and animals here did not evolve with buckthorn, where goats may have been raised in habitat where buckthorn was present.

Bryce

I've seen deer on my place nibble on the buckthorn. Not to great detriment.

Stupid deer if they ate the buckthorn, garlic mustard, honeysuckle and Dame's rocket I'd be happy to have them around, but as it is they are a pain in the arse.

Deer will browse on young buckthorn, not heavily but it's noticeable. Good enough reason to cut down all the large over mature stuff at minimum

I feel the same way, but they sure like everything in my garden.

Deer here don't eat everything....just everything you want.

This seems like a very good post.

I put the goats in a new pen of honeysuckle & buckthorn tonight. It's amazing how thick these invasives get.

I've got some honeysuckle in my woods, but it isn't nearly the problem the buckthorn is.

X2

Where you guys have buckthorn and are using goats, are you seeing the goats also browse/eat/kill autumn olive? I have 240 acres with a couple acre pockets that are being overtaken by AO, and I’ve been wondering if goats would be effective.

I'm talking about White Oak, not Red Oak stands. Ironwood is not a companion tree in any significance in a White Oak Woodland.

Just to educate you a little.

I am pushing my woods from a Maple Dominated heavily shaded forest to a White Oak/Hickory open woodland that it was originally before settlement. This was determined by the original notes from the first surveyors and by remaining grasses/sedges/forbs discovered in a site survey. I have areas that were so heavily shaded that NOTHING grew on the forest floor. In the middle of summer the ground was nothing but leaf mold.
There were other areas that the forest floor was covered with nothing but Sugar Maple seedlings. Of course there was some variety of large trees here. This is a very poor condition for any forest. So I am thinning all small Sugar Maples, Ironwoods, Red Maple out of it. I am seeding these thinned areas with native grasses and forbs and for management I am burning frequently (less than 3 yr intervals). After this some of the original native plants are coming back. Broad-leaved Panic Grass, False Melic Grass, Carolina Vetch, Pale Vetchling, and Wild Strawberry are just some examples of the stuff returning that originally grew here.

I am not doing this in all of my woods. In the end I expect about 80%. The remaining 20% will be close to as it is now, dominated by large Sugar Maples with lots of Ironwood in the understory. The only management I do here is some light thinning of smaller trees to support shade tolerant grasses/sedges and forbs. Occasional (5-10 yr intervals) burns will keep understory from becoming dominated by Sugar Maple seedlings and other fire sensitive trees and brush.

I am not doing any of this with any care for timber production. I am doing this to improve the diversity of plants and thus improve the place for wildlife. I have already seen species of Birds return that were absent such as Red headed Woodpeckers. I can also tell you that even tho I am not doing anything with deer in mind they are taking great advantage of all the growth of grasses and forbs that now cover what was once either nothing but Sugar Maple seedlings or nothing at all.

I am doing this with the advise of a PhD holder who is very knowledgeable in this.

Just felt I should put this out there as I know you have zero knowledge about what I have and what I'm doing. Respectfully even if your the worlds foremost expert in forest management you maybe could learn something about more than the boards and cords of forestry.

I've never seen autumn olive, so I don't know..but I bet they'd eat it.