Goats and Buckthorn

I know goats will eat buckthorn but in my limited experience they will eat everything else first. Does anyone know if they will focus more on buckthorn either in the early spring when it's the first to leaf out or late fall when it's the last thing hanging onto it's leaves?

We have around 100 acres to clear of it and it seems impossible. The neighbors also won't do anything about it on their land so it will need to be continously managed

Grazing is considered somewhat effective in knocking honey suckle back but is not really good at eliminating it. Also with 100 acres that is a lot of area to cover and it will take a lot of time or you need a ton of goats and that means a lot of fencing unless you don't care if they our out a lot.
There are types of Round Up (glysophate) where you can spray and kill the growing vegetation and graze or cut 3-4 days later which may work in keeping ahead of the emerging plants. Downside is you will have killed all the other vegetation as well.
Bryce

If goats work I may get 1 or 2.

I had the Forester at my property this week & he said buckthorn can be treated in the winter. Maybe he was talking about using Tordon because I didn't think the Garlon I use via cut stump treatment would be effective in winter. Intriguing though.

personally I would never use goats on any property that wasn't in really sad shape to begin with. Even then what the goats do will not guarantee elimination, just knocks them back for a year.

I killed most of my Buckthorn using the basal bark method using Garlon 4 for the herbicide mixed with diesel.
Gotta be careful with it tho and avoid over application.
My place (approx 20 acre of woods) that had Buckthorn did not have it very bad. Scattered in 3-4 areas and none of the areas it was dominate.

Goats will never clear 100 acres unless you Fence them in small lots, and then everything gets eaten before moving them to the next lot....more goats work faster but it will take some time.

I'm planning on going to a goat demo at the state cranberry research station in August if anyone is interested

Currently I'm skeptical of goats, although one of my three properties has such a massive Buckthorn problem that it probably can't hurt to try goats, and since the worst problem is at my home property it would be a little easier to own a goat. The problem I see is that my guess is goats would eat anything they can get their mouth on. If they eat grass that would be a plus, b/c I don't like to mow.

My uncle has goats for pets, but he hasn't used them for eating invasives. I'm not sure if all goats are good for brush removal

I’d control burn the whole thing if possible

As a goat owner I will tell you that you are wasting your time.

We had 40 something at one time. They eat what you most want them too last 99% of the time. The cost to fence 100ac to reliably keep a goat in will be significant

On top of that if you do not have rocky soil you will be trimming hooves regularly AND they are the most parasite prone critter I have ever owned.

If I had 100 ac of "brush" I would hire someone with equipment to get it cleaned up. Think heavy equipment, push up and burn.
Then get a sprayer, educate yourself on the best herbicide for basal spraying the targeted species and get to spraying any new growth.

100 ac is nothing to attack on foot unless the undesired stuff makes up a small percentage of what is there

There's a business called brush busters that rents goats out to people with overgrown land in the Charlottesville ,VA area. I have seen the goats @ work. I don't know exactly how it compares to using herbicide. But roundup is slowly being phased out by local laws. I do have a landscaper that uses Roundup on the sly. Whenever a car drives by they stop spraying. They have a lookout dude who yells "car". At least one other state has phased out roundup for non row crop usage.

I have 20 acres of woods too. I thought about the goat idea. After a little research, it is as you say. It knocks the buckthorn back for a year, but comes back the next year.

I cut the larger plants down and paint the stumps with undiluted Crossbow. That kills the tree. New emergent plants can be killed with a diluted Crossbow spray.
I also have an abundance of prickly ash that I treat the same way as the buckthorn. The prickly ash is much easier to kill than buckthorn.

He does not need to fence the entire property. He only needs a 3 to 5 sections of premier 1 electro net fence a battery, solar panel and energizer. Then just move the fence when they have eaten it down.. hoof trimming I'd once every 3 months and simple. Parasites are much lead of an issue tlwhen you are moving the goats around vs leaving them in the same area. Mowing my path, Moving my fence pulling and driving the ground rod only takes an hour and half maybe 2.

Instead of fencing, could a person put the goat on some sort of leash/anchor with swivels?

Yes, but I did have one get into yellow jackets and couldn't get away from them like that . I won't do it again and do not recommend.

When you use a rope you have to be careful that the goat doesn't strangle itself. Yes, it has happened unfortunately.

Use chemicals and mechanical means of pulling. I've waged war on buck thorn. It is the Devil of the Woods.

I wanted to use electronic dog collars. I've heard goats can be trained to it and they're cheap compared to goat fence

This sums up exactly what I do and have experienced.
I'm not sure how forests in Wisconsin are going to have a future because most people are doing nothing about buckthorn.
I would imagine there's a risk coyotes and bobcat could harass a goat
On an infested property it'd be easy to keep a goat busy all summer probably, but during the off season I'm not sure what the best thing to do with the goat would be-- perhaps find a farmer willing to hold it

AJE, in the off season - butcher and eat the goat. Problem solved!

Well if he can mow paths through it, I would mow what I could and basal spray the buckthorn. Goats are not going to kill brush too big to mow anyway, they will only clear the vegetation they can eat. Ground to 4' or so.

Bottom line is you have your opinion of goats and as a FORMER owner of goats I have mine. OP needs pros and cons to make a decision and I am just providing some cons

I'd invest in machinery -Before- I'd think of Goats

Fencing for Goats isn't Cheap.

When Buchthorn showed up on our 120 A about 15 yrs ago most of it it was still saplings(5-10') and not too difficult to pull or grub out with a mattock. We divided the property into sections and my deer hunting gang chipped in a day of service work each fall as we we checked stands and trimmed/cleared trails when buckthorn is easy to stop(one of the last to loose its leaves so it stands out) and cleared a section in a four year rotation(actually took a couple days first year each section. Lucky few of the buckthorn were larger than 1" dia. yet. Those mother seed trees that larger we sawed off and the stump covered with 8mil BLACK plastic and zip tied in place(has killed 99%) that I read about some specialist recommending. Now each year it takes about 1/2 day to pull knee to head size saplings to keep up for each section. Buckthorn is usually shallow rooted and is easy to just pull out at that size and find. Just be sure to not just drop pulled sapling roots down back on the ground as they are tough and often will reroot to ground. We shake as much soil off the roots as possible. We are 95% buckthorn free now, with only 4yr and younger seedlings but it will another yearly CHORE! No doubt each piece off property will be need different control efforts. We are fortunate to have most heavy mature woods with less ground light that helps buckthorn take control. But the Black plastic method has been far more effective that herbicides we tried(even hi-con Glyps).

A local got goats for his 5 A, he now has half the trees he once had(many debarked by them) and zero understory of any kind - BUT no buckthorn, lol.

Garlon 4(?), which ever one is mixed with oil, will kill stump-cut treated hardwoods in the winter. The water-based version needs a fresh cut and it should be during the growing season…I think. We use the oil-mixed version and treat ash stumps throughout the winter.

Drakej - Good on you for managing your property well! It’s a lot of work but considering how unusable the land becomes once buckthorn takes over it is well worth doing.

Donnie - What forest type are you working with? If you have oak and other fire tolerant species in the over story then a combination of mechanical treatment, stump spraying and burning should put momentum on your side. If you have aspen, maple or other fire intolerant species you can do the same but not burn. I can give you more details if you’re interested.

I have primarily a oak forest but burning here would be a nightmare. Huge swamps full of dead cattails and fields full of corn. At this point I don't see a solution. Even if I cleared it it would just keep coming in from the neighbors. Best I can do is cut and treat the large females and try and allow some trees to grow past it.

Fire is only a nightmare if it gets out of control. A growing season burn is the one that will set buckthorn back and hopefully kill it, root and all. Fires that time of the year are slow and easy to control. You do have options and while the neighbors aren’t currently helping the matter, good management on your side can be the ticket to getting them on board and doing something.

My neighbors won't do anything about theirs either. It probably causes me twice the work. Maybe if I get a goat I'll let them borrow it.

I'm going to go to a goat buckthorn demo on August 24th at the Wi Cranberry Research Station. It should be interesting.

I went to a conservation event today & there was a guy there that has witnessed several goat vs buckthorn operations. He made it sound like they're popular around the Twin Cities. He said it's interesting to watch, as often times 1 goat will knock over a buckthorn plant and the others will go in a sort of 'attack' mode on that buckthorn as the other 1 pushes it down.

If I get a goat I suppose I should get 2 or 3. 1 person told me they make decent pets. I'm not sure how they would be in the winter though or how costly they are to procure or maintain.

The goat demo was interesting today

Did it seem like they were eating the buckthorn or do they just eat everything leafy they can reach?

Everything leafy, it seemed. I've been pondering getting a couple, but I feel like more research needs to be done

It kind of defeats the point of getting rid of buckthorn if everything else is eaten as well. At that point you're just losing cover

I'll be attending another goat demo on August 24th but that one will be with a different company's goats in attendance.
It'd be nice if a person could talk to a private landowner that has just a few goats and quite a bit of experience with this. With those that haul around a massive amount of goats for a business, it seems like they are big on a marketing pitch and don't want to give out too much individual advice b/c they'd rather you hire them than get your own goats

There's only certain situations when a person would want to use a goats.

They didn't seem to be bothering the bark of larger desirable trees

Maybe a couple goats would make decent pets

Maintaining the goats in the winter could be a challenge

I'm not sure how costly it would be to procure & maintain a couple goats

I have plenty they could eat on my 8 acre homestead

An electric fenced pen is what they used yesterday & what I would probably want. For a couple goats on my homestead, a small pen would probably do

They don't have problems w/ predators, but maybe that is b/c the pros have such a large herd

They didn't say anything about a need for trips to the dr (vet)

Maybe a couple calf hutches in the pen could provide them cover. Winter could be a different story

Look at all these goats

https://www.wsaw.com/video/2023/07/...oys-herd-goats-get-rid-invasive-species/

I have 10 acres of my pasture fenced in woven wire now. Planning on adding some goats to it and seeing how they perform on weed control.

I'm wondering if I can let a few goats out into the adjoining woods without fencing, hoping they'll eat buckthorn but stay near the herd.

'Might work fine but I wonder if yotes & bobcats would leave them be

Not much for cats here, yotes can be taken care of year round and it's near the house.

Thank you for the news link, AJE!

Let us know how it goes.

This was on today's news:

https://www.weau.com/2023/07/14/goats-help-get-rid-unwanted-foliage-new-subdivision-augusta/

Every year I am hearing more & more about goats.

I'll probably get a couple but haven't decided yet.

I'm headed to the county fair in a couple weeks to learn more about goats.

I have my first 4 goats. I have two locked in a small pen with no feed near the house, I'm cutting thistle and Buckthorn and feeding it to them, trying to teach them to target my main issues, not sure if what I'm doing will help once they are out on pasture or not. The two goats in a larger pen are eating some Thistle but mainly eating grass, not impressed with the amount of grass they're eating VS weeds so far.

You need to find someone using goats for what you intend to do and visit them instead. Reality and the show ring seldom meet here, it may be different in other places.

Good point Okie. I haven't found any individuals yet that are using goats.

I signed up to attend this goat demo:

I've been at the Fair the past 5 days..an excellent opportunity to learn about goats

I think the problem your going to find is unless you fence them in tight you won't get the weed control you want, they'll eat what they like and leave the rest if giving them too much room. The flip side is if containing them in a small "paddock" they'll end up eating everything and leaving a wasteland. You need to rotate through the area to avoid that, so you may get some control over the invasives but probably never eliminate them unless you go the wasteland route.

It will be a balancing act. I agree there is no perfect solution.

I'll probably get pygmy goats instead of the boer meat goats. For my 5 acre homestead.

They make shoulder harnesses to mitigate the risk of a choking/entanglement hazard from a neck leash. I would hate to have 1 get into bees though. I haven't heard of a goat w/ an electronic collar.

I now have 29 goats with more on the way. I'll post a before and after. I would strongly advise towards boer or nubians if anyone wants goats. They're larger but easier to handle and they don't test fences as much.

I'm glad yours are working out.

That's interesting b/c I talked to several goat people & they said boers are more aggressive than pygmy goats. But maybe pygmy are more known to jump & eat bark.

I plan on ordering a couple soon for my 5 acre homestead. 'Not sure what type yet. Some use Kiko's.

I toured a farm with some pygmies the other night. My dad held some green foliage in front of 'em & they didn't seem interested. I held a couple buckthorn branches into the pen & they went wild over it.

I heard boers are louder, which wouldn't be good if their bellering wakes a person up in the morning

I haven't ruled out boers, but 1 downfall is I think they would require more supplemental food in the winter

If I need to transport a pygmy I could maybe put it in my large Bobcat cage

TTT.

It's not too late to sign up for this event.

Today's event went great. Here's a picture from Kyle of Diversity Landworks




https://www.diversitylandworks.com/

Glad you enjoyed it. I wouldn't get to caught up on goat breeds, I do prefer the bigger boer cross goats, they reach higher and push down larger buckthorn. Having good easy to catch goats is more important than anything.

Good info so far, thanks.
I'm getting a couple of female pygmys next year. Hopefully I can keep them from geting parasites

I feel like if you keep them on browse you can keep the parasites down. The problem is with feeding hay and dry lots.

I don't know if I will feed 'em hay. In the winter I'll give them 'All Stock' pellets & maybe some sort of mineral block. I bet they would enjoy table scraps too

Pretty soon the native plants will have lost their leaves for the season, leaving goats to focus on buckthorn probably more than ever

The goats not only eat the buck thorn leaves, they eat the berries rendering most of them no longer viable. I've done acres with the goats so far, after they eat the low stuff I go cut any additional tall buckthorn down and they eat the leaves and berries from that. They also eat the small red cedars.

The natives that take the biggest hit are boxelders and cherry, they love cherry bark from young trees.

Pigs pigs pigs

If they eat my black cherry, that's fine with me.

Same here, I cut cherries for them to eat, they hammer them

A good thing about goats is they love honeysuckle too.

It's probably nutritious for them.

I'll stick w/ goats. My goats should arrive in May.

I had an interesting scenario unfold this month. An acquaintance of my family is offering me to borrow some of his boer goats in exchange for doing some nuisance trapping at his farm.

Goats will eat the new emerging plants. But, they will come back the next year. I cut the larger seed -bearing plants off and paint them with Crossbow undiluted. The new emerging plants I sprayed with diluted Crossbow or Crossroads. They don't come back.

I will say, if you don't like the goats you won't like managing the buckthorn this way.

After the goats go through its very easy to go in and cut the big stuff down, next time the goats go in they will now be able to eat everything. Seeds are viable for 2 years, getting rid of buckthorn is at minimum a 3 year process no matter what.

Our woods had a area of huge elms, when they all died it became a huge mess of buckthorn, I feel the goats are the best way to catch up with it and I enjoy raising livestock, win, win.

X2

Do you have trouble with mice chewing the extension chord on your heated water dish?

That's always an interesting experience.

How much is there?

I have not had trouble with that.

trouble with goats used in any natural area is they are going to eat pretty much everything including buckthorn and honeysuckle. The collateral damage would be horrific.
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Most perennials will come back. So if you want get rid of buckthorn its going to take several years of goats. And even then you'll have to treat the larger ones that the goats don't kill.

Then if your lucky after several years of goats tearing up your land and denuding it its wide open for all manner of invasive plants. Burdock, thistles and so forth.

No way I would ever put goats in a natural area. The only way was if I knew their food preference matched what I wanted to get rid of and then it would be only for short enough period of time so once they got rid of the targeted stuff they'd be pulled before they started on the rest of the stuff.

I'll stick to cutting a treating the stumps with herbicide. While it maybe more time consuming and more than likely more expensive it is the best way with no collateral damage.

The areas I'm working in are solid buckthorn to the point it's hard to walk through, after the goats go through its way easier to work in the area. I've cut and poisoned these areas since I was a little kid 25 years ago with little progress, the goats are making short work of my worst areas and I can always put them back in for a tune up anytime.

You both make some valid points. It depends on the property & how you manage the goats. For the property I hunt on, the situation is like Dirty D where I don't want goats out there, for reasons like what he eludes to. On the other hand, my 5 acre homestead in a different township is perfect for goats, thus why I have some goats on order. Goats absolutely are not for everyone, in fact I'd say they are only good for a small % of certain situations & for people that have done their homework.

AJE
Invasive Species Coordinator
Robinson Creek Preservation Association

The way this spring is starting out I might need my goats sooner. I still need to find some cattle panels.

I attended a grazing conference today. This interesting group was involved:

https://grassworks.org/

I had never heard of them.

1 of the people at Saturday's River Country RC & D grazing conference said he gets a couple dozen baby goats each spring, lets 'em eat brush all summer & then makes a profit selling "em before winter for meat.

I agree. I also have ginseng in my woods. I wouldn't want goats to eat that. It would take several years of goats eating the small plants before they would be eliminated because they will come back even after they've been eaten. I prefer to spray the new emerging plants and cutting the larger ones and painting the stumps with undiluted Crossbow.

I will say wintering goats has been a learning experience. I babied the goats with a nice shed and was rewarded with pneumonia for my efforts. Goats need good quality feed, they did not do well on hay my cows got fat on, I'm now feeding silage and alfalfa and they're doing better. I would like to go to a tmr ration but I need to find a cheap tmr first. The goats are healthiest and happiest in the woods, next year their winter accommodations will be much more spartan and I expect then to do better that way.

and I'll bet his place is full of coarse invasive stuff, nothing of value, not a native plant other than what grows out of the reach of goats. No thanks, goats are bigger problem than they are a solution.

If he just concerned about money and screw the place thats OK I guess as he owns it. Overgrazing causes real damage. Had a neighbor that grazed 4 horses in about 1 1/2 acre pasture. It looked horrible every year he had them on it. The grass was as short as any putting green except for the invasive weeds (Musk Thistle, burdock and few other lovelies that the horses wouldn't touch). When he moved out the pasture was a disaster area choked full of thistles, burdock, curly dock and on and on for at least 3 years. we moved after that point so I can't say how long it was destroyed.

Look into some of the arid areas of the world that used to have lush growth till sheep and goats got cut loose and grazed full time. No thanks.

This is a before and after of some of my property, you guys can judge for yourself if it works.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion and experience on what works for them. If goats are working for you, wonderful. Your before and after photos look good, but unless you have been using the goats for several years, your before photo will be a replay come spring. The plants in your photos are small plants. I have some plants that are 2-3 inches in diameter. One person I know who has used goats to control his buckthorn says goats don't get the larger plants. You have to take care of them yourself.

One other thing about buckthorn is that it's too bad there isn't a market for the wood. It really is a beautiful wood. One guy I knew made some really nice ornamentals out of it using a lathe.

It makes nice walking sticks.

How much $ are goats selling for right now? I need to get some by June. My 5 acres is so overgrown that I would never be able to fix it myself even if I was retired.

For the big stuff I have great success w/ cut stump treatment using Pathfinder II. For the little stuff, it's so thick I'd have to carpet bomb it w/ Roundup, which I won't do.

Luckily the price of cattle panels has dropped from last year..$30 now for 16 footers.

The experts have offered to do a formal grazing plan for me but I might (at least starting out) just try some test areas using their advice.

Proper grazing is so important that WDNR has actually hired a full time statewide grazing expert.

Good boer goats are $3 lb. You can find pet quality goats pretty cheap, under $100 a head for someone's pet they got sick of and don't want to see butchered. They'll clear 5 acres faster than you think.

I can get you the number for a guy in central mn who raises good goats when your ready. His goats have done the best for me, they're cross bred meat goats and seem hardier than others I've gotten.

Donner, consider feeding them All Stock.

https://www.theisens.com/products/prosper-all-stock-feed-55-lb

I feed silage and hay. I'm lucky to have the silage and the goats thrive on it.

The price varies throughout the year here. During Ramadan the price tends to spike. You could sell to Jews if you don't like Muslims.

Beautiful!

Give them Redmond's salt or some brand of loose mineral. Salt blocks don't deliver the minerals fast enough.

Try using diluted Crossbow for the little stuff. It says on the insert it will only kill leafy plants, not grass. I've had good luck on the little, new growth. Round Up kills everything.

I should get some Crossbow. It's on my list to look into b/c I heard it works on honeysuckle. I didn't know it works on small buckthorn.

Do female goats work just as good as males & are they any harder to care for than males?