Afraid of getting stabbed in the leg by your neighboring bramble?! Have I got the solution for you! Thanks to my mother’s bravery when it comes to shoving, yanking, stomping, and otherwise removing blackberries from their invasive, tightly woven majesty, I have discovered / cowardly designed a simpler / safer / less stabby method of stomping blackberry bushes down to the height my nigerian dwarf goats can eat.
I’ve used a variety of tools to remove blackberry bushes, but either they were slow, ineffective, or I ended up bleeding. Consequently, if you can fence off an area and borrow goats, I definitely recommend it. Goats will kill them permanently, and then all you have to worry about is knocking the blackberry bushes down where they can get to them instead of killing them, and there’s significantly less clean up since they’ll eat or kill anything that would grow back.
Goats Destroying Blackberry Bushes
Yes, it’s a thing. I can’t speak for the taller goats, but my shorties eat everything they can possibly reach within a matter of days. It’s quite impressive, but also means I need to knock more down to their feasting range. When you see areas filled with goats and completely absent of vines, it’s because they murdered them. A few things to note, though, are that my goats don’t eat much of the vines themselves. They’ll eat the younger, fresh, tender vines that freshly sprouted, but anything a year or older isn’t going to touch their picky tongue. They want the ice cream of the bramble world, though they will definitely kill it so it never comes back if given the opportunity. They completely devoured their old pen in under 2 months, and are on track to eat everything in this one before winter hits! So, you do have to do something about the big vines, such as knocking them down to the grown without stabbing yourself.
How to Push Down Blackberry Vines Without Being Stabbed
This is simpler than you might think! I personally used an inexpensive chunk of fence with 2×4 holes that worked perfectly…until I started causing some of the metal to pop off with my might (or post partem increased body fat – it’s really up for debate). I simply put it up to the base of the next level of vertical blackberry pushes and then stepped on it, easily knocking it down. I could knock down a 10×10 area in about 15 minutes, making my goats reach it pretty quickly. A piece of plywood would work as well, though be much heavier to move than a wire mesh 3.5 ft fence piece. I definitely suggest looking around what you have in your yard and give it a try!
It’s a fun way to be the demolition crew to the bramble while your goats play clean up crew. AND most importantly, no getting stabbed.