Are goats everywhere? The handful of places I've lived (Central Florida and SF bay area) I've never seen a "wild" goat. Deer, sure. But deer seem to be much pickier than goats when it comes to their diets
Goats and Deer are picky eaters, if they've got a buffet they eat what they like and avoid what they don't like.
Goats eating trash is usually a mix of curiosity/exploring with their mouth, the glues are often tasty, and some people are jerks and don't feed their goats/hungry goats will find calories.
Yeah, that works cause goats like blackberry (the whole plant). I didn't think they liked scotch broom (mine won't eat it), but the rent a goat services carefully size the fencing so the goats don't have so much available that they can be really picky.
Deer aren't everywhere.
I live in a city where I see deer literally every single day. Multiple times a day.
I've never seen one in the forest here. Not once.
Cougars come into town regularly because that's where the food is.
> They arrive early and open the trailer. The goats jump out, ready to eat, as Ms. Malmberg watches that they don’t stray. The team sets up an electric fence to confine the goats and their meals to a specific area overnight.
Doing the same thing with deers would be much harder. Keeping deer confined in a specific area in order to concentrate the grazing requires much better fences, and when they inadvertently escape it takes much more work to bring them back.
My biggest questions with this setup is how they keep the cost down from setting up an electric fence in order to create a good fire wall. Electric fences are generally very labor intensive, and we seems to be talking about steep slopes in some cases.
Shock collars are expensive when you need 50+ of them, plus keeping them all charged etc. the current method of portable net-type fencing is very efficient.
That seems unnecessarily cruel to draw an invisible line that’s always changing and shock them for violating the line. The reason this is ok for dogs is because they’re in a fixed location and can learn the boundaries. The goats on the other hand are always being moved to new areas.
That price could be perfectly reasonable depending on the lot size and vegetation density. To have dozers or mechanical fuel removal out there could easily been more money and if you can’t get fire insurance but live in the wild land urban interface, several grand a year in fuel removal is going to be par for the course.
Yeah totally. It was ridiculously not worth it for him, but I understand why the business would rather work with clients at that price level than deal with someone who can do it by hand in a few hours and just happens to be lazy.
There are more mobile systems that are easier to set up quickly. I don't know how they'd fare against a herd of cattle, but they seem to contain the goats around here just fine.
The electric fences are obviously temporary so not nearly as labor intensive as a permanent electric setup. A single person can run a good length of fencing by themselves if the fence line path is semi cleared. It’s like staking in a 2.5’ tall volleyball net. The goats know it’s electric so avoid contact; it is less stable than you’d think.
> Keeping deer confined in a specific area in order to concentrate the grazing requires much better fences
I'm sorry, but this just wrong. Goats are the most difficult animals to keep fenced in... they climb just about anything (the fence itself or something else that will help them get over it) and they are much stronger than deer or most other similar-sized animals, and thus also much more likely to break a fence. And they are smarter, too, and will figure out some way to out. There's an old saying: the fence that will hold goats holds water.
You may want to reevaluate this. Deer easily jump 5’ fences, goats can be contained with a sturdy 3.5’ fence. I own 4 goats that are contained on 2 acres… regularly see deer coming and going as they please, jumping over a fence the goats can’t get through.and a large buck deer is way stronger and taller than the biggest buck goat.
If you've seen one of these setups (the SF Bay Area has been doing this a while, so I see it a fair amount), you know that it takes a lot of goats to clear a hillside. Like in the 50 range. There are not enough deer to get the job done.
The goats are 'free' but require expensive fencing and supervision. Otherwise they'll just wander off and eat the tastier food crops or household plants.
Goat meat and milk processing is not as automated as it is for cattle, chicken, pigs.
Free-range goats with a GPS-based pain collar could be a solution.
Unrelated to the article, but NYT is forcing me to login before reading the article. I guess the days of opening a private window to circumvent the three articles per month limit are over.
Sheep prefer grasses, goats will eats all kinds of shubs/brush and do a much better job of removing thick fire fuels to a higher heigh as they will also climb. Sheep tend to eat at ground level.
I have seen them at Hayward shoreline (Bay area). They are efficient at clearing long patches of grass without much supervision. They were bounded each day by a re-installable fence. New location on each day covering approx. 50-60 sq yds. The fence even-though was weak seemed to deter the goats from wandering away.
The only drawback i could see is they eat away everything they like which could mean eating rare or endangered flora.
It cannot scale, but it is a useful tool for specific locations and problems.
What does scale is using fire to fight fire -- prescribed burns, and allowing natural fires to burn while monitoring them for safety. In parallel, lots can be done to harden home in the Wilderness-Urban-Interface.
Like a working bee, it gets community involvement.
Or instead of getting a Jumping Castle for something to do you might get goats to help out. Poison would be cheaper and more effective. But so is eating Soylent, sometimes solving problems can be fun.
Correct it's not a solution.
FYI Goats don't really eat grass. They are Browsers not Grazers.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 164 ms ] threadThey do really think that ants and other insects process less flammable material than goats do?
Goats eating trash is usually a mix of curiosity/exploring with their mouth, the glues are often tasty, and some people are jerks and don't feed their goats/hungry goats will find calories.
https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Rent-a-goats-gain-fo...
Fortunately, my yard is mostly invasive weeds, so I don't have problems with the deer.
Doing the same thing with deers would be much harder. Keeping deer confined in a specific area in order to concentrate the grazing requires much better fences, and when they inadvertently escape it takes much more work to bring them back.
My biggest questions with this setup is how they keep the cost down from setting up an electric fence in order to create a good fire wall. Electric fences are generally very labor intensive, and we seems to be talking about steep slopes in some cases.
They don’t. Friend of mine owns some land north of SF and was quoted $5000 to have goats come eat the grass.
I suspect his land is too small to be worth the hassle for the goat service provider so he was quoted the go away price.
I'm sorry, but this just wrong. Goats are the most difficult animals to keep fenced in... they climb just about anything (the fence itself or something else that will help them get over it) and they are much stronger than deer or most other similar-sized animals, and thus also much more likely to break a fence. And they are smarter, too, and will figure out some way to out. There's an old saying: the fence that will hold goats holds water.
IMO goats should be released in masses to the foothills everywhere. 98% of what has/is burning isn’t urban or agricultural.
Vineyards can spend more on fencing or fire insurance…
I’ve seen what happens when you let goats run free to in the hills. The technical term is called desertification.
So guessing that’s why her herd is that size.
Goat meat and milk processing is not as automated as it is for cattle, chicken, pigs.
Free-range goats with a GPS-based pain collar could be a solution.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/12/health/goat-yoga-oregon-trnd/...
The pictures show goats eating grass, not forested underbrush including small trees, bushes, and dead branches which provide fuel for these fires.
What does scale is using fire to fight fire -- prescribed burns, and allowing natural fires to burn while monitoring them for safety. In parallel, lots can be done to harden home in the Wilderness-Urban-Interface.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-18/how-pres...
People don't realise just how quickly the wet landscape can dry out when the hot winds come.
I learnt this the hard way on my property.
Like a working bee, it gets community involvement.
Or instead of getting a Jumping Castle for something to do you might get goats to help out. Poison would be cheaper and more effective. But so is eating Soylent, sometimes solving problems can be fun.
Correct it's not a solution.
FYI Goats don't really eat grass. They are Browsers not Grazers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9yiclBCxMo&t=577s
Then when you get rid of the goats you have a total blackberry infestation.
I found out the hard way.