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No. All goats will eat weeds. Certain breeds, however, do have advantages and disadvantages in terms of their care and maintenance.
However, if you're thinking you can just plunk a few goats on your property and never have to worry about weeds again, be aware that goats don't recognize the difference between the weeds you want them to eat and the plants and trees that you like. They'll jump up in trees that look tasty and strip everything they can reach bare; we lost a couple of fruit trees in our orchard this way.
Rosie, you & I agree with most of the great advice you've given. I'll add a couple of things I learned as a goat newbie eight years ago. As you point out, you definitely have to keep them away from any desirable plants in their domain. They love tree bark, especially in wintertime, and completely girdled a couple of dwarf apple trees in the pasture. Too bad for them, since I didn't much like the apples & would shake them down for the goats to eat.
Also, my goats were surprisingly picky eaters. They left certain types of weeds totally uneaten and in seasons where weeds grew quickly, they didn't always keep up with the weeds they did eat. So, we still had to do occasional weed whacking.
Absolutely -- I've seen many posts about how goats LOVE to eat Himalayan blackberries. Not my goats! I think the goats have to be pretty darn hungry before they'll touch the things. I wouldn't count on them eradicating poison oak either.
There are certain types of plants that are poisonous to goats, so you have to make sure that you don't have those in the area you want them to forage in.
Another thing to know about keeping goats on your property -- especially a relatively small 1 acre property -- is that they can be surprisingly noisy at times. Make sure you (and your neighbors) will be OK with this.
Goats also poop a lot. On a one acre parcel, even with just a couple of goats, you'll need to have a plan for managing that poop if you don't want flies and smells.
I don't think you'll have a problem with goat poop on 2 - 3 goats/acre. It's only really noticeable if they crap on a sidewalk or path at my house. At least as far as mine go, the poop doesn't smell too strong (it's goat PEE that stinks) and dries out so fast it doesn't even attract flies.
Most importantly, if you're going to be a goat owner, you need to understand their care requirements. If you've never kept goats before, here are a few general things to know:
First, goats don't stay in one place and even the smallest goats can jump a pretty high fence and escape. So, you'll need to have proper fencing around your property, or at least around the area where you want your goats to eat weeds. Nothing will p*ss off your neighbors faster than your goats getting loose and snacking on the neighbor's landscaping.
If you live in an area where there are coyotes or other predators, you'll also need to provide some type of night shelter. We had a neighbor's group of dogs dig under our goats' enclosure and slaughter three goats in one night. After that, we had to fortify the enclosure where we kept them at night and put in a more secure barn to prevent this from happening again.
Foraging alone probably won't provide enough food for your goats. You'll need to provide supplemental feed for at least part of the year and the cost of that can add up. Goats also need certain minerals; you may have to provide supplements if they aren't getting it in their feed.
Well, that depends on how old the goats are, whether they will be used for breeding/milking, and their size and breed. Mine got a handful of goat chow 1x/day until they were about a year old, but now the only supplements they get are salt blocks and a horse treat at night to get them in the barn.
It also should go without saying that goats will require a ready source of clean water. So, you'll need to put in a watering station in the areas where you plan to use them as weed eaters, as well in the area where you'll keep them when they're not on the job.
If you're away from your house for several days, you'll have to have someone who can care for your goats in your absence (i.e., provide supplemental feed, water, make sure they haven't escaped or been injured). You can't just leave your goats untended when you go on vacation.
You'll also have some vet bills. Goats need to be vaccinated against certain diseases and they get sick, injured and into all sorts of trouble. If you don't want a bunch of babies running around, you'll also need to get them sterilized by a vet. Make sure there is a vet in your local area who treats livestock; most vets don't.
Goats' hooves have to be trimmed every now and then. If you've never trimmed a squirming goat's hooves, that's an experience! Goats also need worming.
Again, it depends. I trimmed my goats' hooves when they were small, but now that they are full grown and I can't manipulate them very well, I haven't done it in years. Their pasture is rocky enough that the hooves stay trimmed naturally. If your goats are penned or on soft lawn only, you will have to trim the hooves. Both you and they will hate it. I also used to be more diligent about worming my goats (buy apple flavored the horse wormer with Ivermectin that comes in a big syringe; around here, Tractor Supply seems to have the best price) but I haven't done it in a couple years. If you have a high-density goat population or a lot of wild ruminants (e.g. deer) running around on your pasture you may have an internal parasite problem. I look at my goats' coats and general health and as long as they look good I don't bother them.
If you have females and males, know that goats breed from a very young age, and you can end up with more goats than you expect very quickly. Also, sometimes mothers don't properly care for the kids, so you may need to do that.
I knew from the get go that I didn't want the hassle of breeding and milking goats, just pets and brush control. If that's your goal as well, buy wethers. They are cheaper than breeding stock and have fewer health issues. If you go for wethers though, ask the breeder when they were castrated, and don't accept any that were banded earlier than 12 weeks. If the goats are neutered too early their GU tracts don't develop properly and they will get bladder stones, a VERY painful condition for your little pals that is not curable and will result in euthanasia. I lost several at relatively young ages (about 4 y.o.) until I wised up.
If you don't want the hassles of owning goats yourself, then you might see whether there are any "Rent A Goat" companies in your local area. These companies put goats on people's properties for a temporary period as weed eaters. They'll provide the care for their goats, and sometimes also temporary fencing.
The rent-a-goat operations are hugely expensive ($800 - $1000/day) and not really efficient for a 1.5 acre lot unless it is a vertical slope. You are much better off hiring someone with a brush hog to come in once a year and clear out the poison oak and other weeds.
All in all, we found it was just faster and more efficient to hire a company to come in and clear the weeds on our property, rather than rely on our goats to do it. And, to be honest, once you add up supplemental feed, water, vet care, and other costs associated with their care, weed control using goats is probably not much cheaper than hiring someone.
All that said, goats are such sweet creatures! They make wonderful pets. We loved our goats, and, now that they've all gone on to goat heaven, we miss them!
I've had as many as six Nigerian Dwarf wethers on my roughly 2 acre fenced pasture with no problems except the bladder stones. As Rosie says, they are cute, cute, cute, even now at about 175 lbs each ("dwarf." hah) and when the grandkids come to visit they are the favorite animal on the place.
One care requirement Rosie didn't mention: goats are serious herd animals and you've got to have at least two of them. A single goat will be miserable, will cry all the time, and may even get sick and die from the stress of loneliness (had that happen to a friend who bought a goat to live with her donkey; the goat never thrived and died before it was a year old).
i am contemplating getting a few goats to eat weed on my 1.5 acre. does it make any difference what type of goat?
Funny, they just had a news item on TV about a bunch of goats that were being used to help clear a site and they got loose and wandered through a nearby neighborhood. The guy did mention a particular breed he had that he said were particularly good because they ate just about anything. I can’t remember what he said they were but on searching google for renting goats for clearing, a lot of companies came up. Maybe you could find out what some of them are using.
Funny, they just had a news item on TV about a bunch of goats that were being used to help clear a site and they got loose and wandered through a nearby neighborhood. The guy did mention a particular breed he had that he said were particularly good because they ate just about anything. I can’t remember what he said they were but on searching google for renting goats for clearing, a lot of companies came up. Maybe you could find out what some of them are using.
The goats in that article, from the photographs, were just ordinary goats. Meat type crosses mostly.
I bred and raised goats for ten years. I know some things about goats. First, if you want goats because you have one simple (if not easy) landscape problem that you need solved, don't get goats. Goats are livestock, not machines. They need care EVERY SINGLE DAY for their ENTIRE LIVES. They need EDUCATED care. Things you will need to know include:
how to build fences goats can't get out of (goats are the hardest livestock to keep fenced)
how to keep your goats from being killed by predators including dogs. Including perhaps your own dog.
what vaccines to give, and when, and how (most livestock owners administer their own vaccines).
how to deal with parasites, internal and external
hoof trimming
feeding -- if your goats run out of forage on your property, what will you feed them? Where will you store the feed? Where will you buy it from? What kind of manger do you need?
Diseases and injury
Dealing with poor behavior -- goats like other livestock need to mind you and be polite
And this is if you never breed your goats, milk your goats, butcher your goats . . .
Trust me. Hire a reputable company to remove your poison oak. I love goats myself, but I have a lot of experience with livestock.
My late mother-in-law had her granddaughter bring some of her 4-H goats up to the farm to get the weeds in the former hog lot under control. Unfortunately the fences around the hog lot were in poor shape so the goats ignored the weeds and headed out to the adjacent pasture and, eventually, the corn field. They stripped about three acres of corn the first year; the MIL offered to pay the tenant for the corn, but being a good-natured sort (as well as a relative) he just laughed it off. When it happened again the next year he accepted her offer and became active in the family's attempts to corral the goats. By that time, though, virtually no fence could hold them. When they got to the point that they preferred the neighbor's place to home we had no choice but to load them up and haul them to the sale barn.
They'll eat weeds that no other livestock will touch, but only if they can't get to something better.
My late mother-in-law had her granddaughter bring some of her 4-H goats up to the farm to get the weeds in the former hog lot under control. Unfortunately the fences around the hog lot were in poor shape so the goats ignored the weeds and headed out to the adjacent pasture and, eventually, the corn field. They stripped about three acres of corn the first year; the MIL offered to pay the tenant for the corn, but being a good-natured sort (as well as a relative) he just laughed it off. When it happened again the next year he accepted her offer and became active in the family's attempts to corral the goats. By that time, though, virtually no fence could hold them. When they got to the point that they preferred the neighbor's place to home we had no choice but to load them up and haul them to the sale barn.
They'll eat weeds that no other livestock will touch, but only if they can't get to something better.
.."when it happened again the next year
Glad I never had such inconsiderate neighbors in my farming days !
Glad I never had such inconsiderate neighbors in my farming days !
I think you misunderstood. The cornfield was on her property, it was just cash rented to a relative. She was an irresponsible landlord, not an inconsiderate neighbor.
The neighbor's property where the goats relocated to was an abandoned farmstead, they weren't hurting a thing being there, in fact the neighbors wanted her to leave them because they enjoyed watching them. The problem was that they would have eventually moved on to someplace where it would have been a problem. Plus they were becoming feral and the window of opportunity to be able to catch them at all was closing.
You are not going to have babies unless you have both males and females. Having said that, neutered males are a good route to go for brush eaters. I very seldom had to take mine to the vets. You could have problems with neighborhood dogs attacking them, especially if they are dehorned.
You are not going to have babies unless you have both males and females. Having said that, neutered males are a good route to go for brush eaters. I very seldom had to take mine to the vets. You could have problems with neighborhood dogs attacking them, especially if they are dehorned.
This is great info. If goats are like other animals, the poor males are kind of disposable unless they’re breeding quality. So they would be cheaper to acquire and would be spared a bad outcome.
Here in Savannah, a company has been hired to provide goats to clear areas which are hard to maintain with machinery. They come with a few dogs who guard them.
I went to a winery in Wales this year. They used special, short legged, sheep to maintain the grass around the grape vines. They were too short to reach the grape leaves. They were guarded by llamas.
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