Feeding tree leaves to goats
"I don't want to go out," Abigail said on Wednesday morning when I went to tether our little herd in the woods.
I was gobsmacked. Abigail not only always wants to go out, she wants to get to her fresh forage now, ASAP, hurry up, do you get the message?!
But I think the deer
flies the day before got to be too much for her. We had a light rain in
the morning, so I put the herd out later than usual. And when I went to
bring the goats home, the pesky deer flies were buzzing in their loops
so annoyingly that I was barely able to gather three goats before
rushing for cover myself. I should have worn a hat...and I'm sure that,
as a tethered goat, the deer flies were twice as annoying. (They do
bite, but it's really the buzzing that drives you mad.)
So
I met Abigail in the middle. I tethered her out early, took her in a
bit after lunch, then cut some locust boughs in the evening to top off
her belly. No, Mark, I don't know what you're talking about when you say
I spoil our goats....
More seriously, I do
dream of eventually having large enough pastures so our goats can get
all of their nutrition on their own schedule, retreating to the barn
when necessary to beat the flies. In the interim, tree boughs seem to be
a quick-and-easy solution for supplemental feeding when it doesn't make
sense to bring the goats out into the woods to eat. Like tree hay...but for summer nutrition rather than winter feed.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.