# How to keep the goats from eating the trees?



## Lizza (Nov 30, 2005)

Our land is very wooded. We just built a buck pen and have some large trees that are inside of said buck pen. How do we keep them from stripping off the bark and killing the trees? Can we wrap something around the trunks to protect them? Our goats just love to kill every tree they meet.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

you will have to fence in your trees, wrap tin or wire or something around the trees so they cant get to them other wise they are fair game,


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## Lizza (Nov 30, 2005)

Wrapped them all tonight with left over welded wire fencing. That should keep 'em! The bucks get moved in there in the next few days. Thanks for your help


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## Patty0315 (Feb 1, 2004)

Some will eat bark if lacking minerals , so make sure they are getting a good mineral mix.

Patty


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## Ezrandi (Aug 6, 2007)

I have to ask... 

I didn't know they will kill the surrounding trees.. sapplings yes, (eating the leaves and tender stem) but I am surprised that they will eat enough of the bark of a large tree to kill it.

Patty, If they get enough Minerals will they leave the older trees alone?


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## Jim S. (Apr 22, 2004)

Ezrandi, they kill the tree by girdling it. It's pretty rare for that to happen in my neck of the woods, unless the pasture is way overstocked, even in drought. But it can happen.


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## Lizza (Nov 30, 2005)

We feed a good mineral blend (free choice). They have only killed one larger tree (a madrone), I just want some extra insurance for these trees. Mine kill them by eating the bark and then it just slowly dies. Are mine the only ones that do this?


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## lgslgs (May 30, 2005)

Ours are taking out all of our maples. They love to strip the bark when the sap is running. No sugar maple here is too big for them to eventually kill. Same with honey locust. They stick to smaller oaks, so the large one's here don't get savaged. Beech and hickory are next down on their favorites list so they just get nibbled. They won't touch Paw Paw though - not bark, leaf or twig.

Sassafras is interesting. They harvest the saplings, but they also like to nibble on the really thick and gnarly bark of large sassafras at certain times of the year. The bark is too solid for them to do any damage but it seems to be a taste treat.


Of course, ours eat trees because their diet is free browse year round, our land is wooded, and they've already taken out their thorny favorites like blackberry and cat briar. They don't get hay and only get grain as a tiny bedtime snack reward for coming back to the night pasture. If they still had more understory we'd have a lot more saplings. They'd still savage the sugar maples, though.

Lynda


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