So I have 3 dairy goats. I didn’t even get a full season of milk from them, since about a month and a half after each of my goats kidded I was hit with a milk aversion only pregnancy could burden you with. I smelled, saw, noticed, or went anywhere near a teat and anything I consumed that day would end up all over it. Not a great set up.
Determined not to give in to my husband’s grumblings about goats being freeloaders we should sell, I instead decided to make use of some cattle panels I had originally intended to use for growing grapes and a few carabiners I found in my garage. 4 cattle panels at about $35 each and 12 carabiners at free each later, I had a temporary goat enclosure for shady days or around shaded areas that was fairly easy to move and set up. Just because I couldn’t milk the goats didn’t mean they couldn’t be useful! On top of their freeloading, they could destroy our arch nemesis – blackberry bushes.
Now, I have Nigerian Dwarf Goats, so they predominantly like eating the tender branches and low leaves, but with a little bit of manual labor knocking the branches down when the goats clear out what they can reach, they do a pretty good job of murdering everything. In fact, if I remember (which I won’t), I’ll take a before and after shot of where I had them clear out last! I was able to get them to clear out a huge bramble and all I had to do was leave a few logs they could climb on then mow over the remaining invaders.
My next project for this summer, pending how busy baby makes me, is to extend their actual run to include this logged area below. I have all the materials, just not the time! That will be with actual fencing, though, using 4 foot no climb horse fencing (more economical for long spreads than the cattle panels from my local farm supply store), T-posts, and the hopes and dreams of goat lovers who want their husbands not to encourage them to sell their pretty girls.
