Goats Do NOT Eat Everything!

Goats like to eat leaves, weeds, shrubs, tree bark, and garden vegetables. They do NOT eat everything. In fact, they don’t even prefer grass, but they will eat it if there is nothing better. Sheep make much better lawn mowers.

I just returned from a 4-day Goat Browsing Academy. It was an intensive seminar about raising goats, focusing on what goats eat and renting goats out for land enhancement projects.

My first land enhancement project started today in my own yard. It is filled with clover. Goats like clover when it goes to seed. Therefore, I put my 2 bucks in the yard to feast on the clover seed heads. Hopefully, we will have a lot less clover sprouting up in our yard next year. That is, if I get the goats out of there before they poop the seeds out…

Many seeds will pass through a goat’s digestive system unharmed in about 3 days. Therefore, you can “transplant” vegetation by letting goats eat the seed heads and then move them to another location. I will move my goats back to their pasture in 3 days so that the clover is replanted there for next year. Seed and fertilizer in one convenient portable package! Gotta love it!

  1. I have to say, the goat fertilization project you have going there seems ideal for the circumstances. We have clover in our lawn that just sprang up last year, and now there is even more this year. I was trying to figure out ways of getting rid of it. Too bad I can't have a goat in the city. I live in south Jersey, but claim Tennessee as my home. I miss it. We plan on retiring there one day. I'd love to have chickens and goats and such. I miss my grandpa's farm! –Cheryl

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