"I need to find some information on small scale rotational grazing. I am
working with someone who has a flock of chickens, one goat and one ram and
around 7 open acres and wants to know if there is a way to set these
critters up in a rotational grazing system."
I am inclined to the view that a goat alone and perhaps a ram alone, are
deeply unhappy creatures, and I would discourage someone from keeping highly
social animals alone. And a goat alone is likely to be a tethered goat,
which is in human terms a bit like a tethered, muzzled Robyn Williams or
Bette Midler. The finest book on goat husbandry is by a Scotsman, David
Mackenzie, "Goat Husbandry" can't find my copy for citation. Wonderful
account of the social behavior of goat herds (and their attitudes to
goatherds), and of the wisdom with which goats seek the edible. Good
diagrams to make the point that if you draw a goat, a cow and a sheep same
size, the digestive apparatus of the goat is comparatively enormous. The
goat is a fragile thing dependent on acquiring daily, by browse, rather than
grazing, a wide variety of feed to keep a powerful, diverse, rough and rich
compost going.
So, in any succession, the goat must come first (after a good browse of weed
and shrubbery is established), and have first turn at the trees and shrubs
(and the berries and the peach trees, unless you have very sound fences).
And it must be kept relatively dry. A wormy goat in the rain dies miserably
and fast.
A goat will not willingly eat off the ground. It is very vulnerable to
worms, and shares worms with sheep. A sheep by contrast must have very short
grass to graze, and if included in a rotation, the sheep can follow a cow. I
think a sheep is not at worm risk from cattle, but a vet may have better
advice. There should be a big interval in rotation between the sheep and the
goat. SO: goats browse, cows then graze high, sheep graze short, chooks peck
and plough, crops then flourish with their own rotation, weeds and bushes
arise and cleanse the soil for the lordly goat.
To raise a small goat herd takes courage, patience and time. Much as does
family day care among the hyperactive, I imagine. I dearly loved a couple of
milking goats we once had, but I could no more walk out the door and do
something privately without these lovely women shouting to me and following
me, inspecting my pockets, than I could walk past a child crying in a cot.
There are few more idyllic and sensual experiences than being outdoors on a
spring morning with your ear to the belly of a tall dark Anglo Nubian nanny,
taking her milk as she, with sweet breath from a breakfast of
molasses-sprayed horse mix, nibbles your ear. Sigh... temps perdu. But look
them in the eye - they always look you in the eye - and you will know that
these women, if not doted upon, fondled and restrained daily, will be fickle
and treacherous.
A Washington DC journalist who went feral in near-suburban Maryland wrote an
entertaining little book "Never Kiss a Goat on the Lips" [in case it has
been eating poison ivy, he says], which I also can't find to cite. It has
useful discussions of such matters as moving the matrimonial bed to the barn
to better attend to lady goats in child birth. Read it before buying a goat.
Dennis
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