Ohiofarmgirl's Adventures in The Good Land is largely a fish out of water tale about how I eventually found my footing on a small farm in an Amish town. We are a mostly organic, somewhat self sufficient, sustainable farm in Ohio. There's action and adventure and I'll always tell you the truth about farming.


Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Goat Clearing

The goats have done an amazing job clearing their new yard. Remember when it looked like this?  Now look at it:

I can't believe they ate the whole thing!

Yeah. I know. Basically this is the same-ish view as the 3rd pic on this post. Pretty much the goats have eaten everything they could reach. It's pretty impressive.

The only thing about goats, tho, is that they don't mow everything down low like sheep. Since goats are grazers they just pull the leaves off some of the stem-ier stuff and leave it standing. I've been working on actually mowing it down with the mower.

We've also had a couple of burn piles to try and knock the rest of the bramble down. Eventually this area will be tilled and planted with pasture mix. I can't wait to have useable space.

Dahli and the little goats lead the charge. Hey! Where's Nibbles?

The goats are now on to grazing their new location - out past the gate down by the pond. They are very excited about this new freedom. Unfortunately since they are past the gate.... yours truly has to supervise them. I don't think they will get a wild hair and go swimming in the pond... altho stranger things have happened.... but my concern is that the goats will be entirely unprotected outside of the fence.

So while the goats are pushing and shoving each other over that perfect leaf.. no, THAT perfect leaf.. wait there's the one - THAT perfect leaf..... I get to sit there and watch their foolishness. It kind of grinds my gears but I won't abandon them to torment and death. So I just sit quietly. And compile a list of 1,000 ways dogs are better than goats.

For her fans, here is Nibs making a grand entrance.

Hopefully the goats will have this new area knocked down soon.

Happy Tuesday everyone!  Are you grazing your goats?


4 comments:

Traci Sumner said...

Got rid of all 7 of them last Friday. Considering what hay costs, they had to go. And the $200 bucks I got for them will buy 2 months (almost) of hay for the steers and heifer. Would have kept the goats if they were still milking, but we had a HORRIBLE time with worms this summer, I just didn't like the thought of feeding those chemicals to my kids, because nothing would agree on withholding periods. I love my critters, but they have to be productive members of the group.

BrownEyedFarmGirl said...

They have done an awesome job clearing the area. A donkey would protect the goats and free you up to do other things:)

David said...

So... If you followed up the goats with pigs... how much more worked over would the pasture-to-be, be? I 'm familiar with crop rotation but livestock rotation for land management? hmmmm

Ohiofarmgirl said...

Oh you are kidding with the worms, Traci, I'm so sorry. But onward, right? :-)

hey BEFG! We would get a donkey just for the jokes! And yep the goats really did a great job.

It's going to be pretty darn easy, Dave. The worst part will be tilling it. The hogs create kind of a moonscape so leveling it will be the toughest. If i had a tractor it would take about 30 minutes. :-)

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