# Forage Garden/Gardening w Goats



## Clovers_Clan (Jul 17, 2012)

Does anyone have experience with forage gardening or gardening with goats? Its been hard finding information on this topic.

I have been experimenting with incorporating goats into my garden to utilize spent crops at the end of the season, fertilize, reduce weeds, extend forage for my animals through the winter...

Here are some things that have worked, and haven't for me. Please chime in if you've had experience with others. I live in Georgia, so that greatly affects what I can and can't plant. Note: I'm strict organic, wouldn't dream of letting goats forage an area with pesticides.

*Fall "buck plot"* seeding in the vegetable garden: has really helped me extend forage season and reduce hay use. Although the collards(rape) contain goiterogenic compound(reduce ability to process iodine), my goats have had no problems with it in moderation. Free choice baking soda helps relieve gas. The oats both green and gone to seed are great. Chicory takes one summer season to get going, but the goats seem to love it. Red and white clover don't get started until spring but I'm hoping it will get going again in the fall, since the goats love it.

*Cereal rye and vetch*: the rye is great for the goats and is allopathic, meaning the plant suppresses weed seeds from germinating. It also improves the soil. I've used just a bit of vetch. It is a prussic acid risk, if the plant receives a freeze, and the seeds are a concern also. Not sure if I will continue with it. It does balance out nitrogen tie up from the cereal rye. I've had it growing in the pastures for many years and it hasn't made anyone sick. They seem to prefer the multitude of other spring greens, when its iffy. I find my goats, given plenty of choices, know what and how much of it to eat. The deadly ones like camma get yanked up immediately when I discover them.

*Garden crop residues*: The goats love the remnants of the field peas. Worth growing just for the goats, not to mention nitrogen for the soil. The goats do nibble around at the okra leaves. We'll see if they leave it alone enough to keep harvesting for us. Same with bell peppers. Tomatoes they won't touch, so best to just rip those up to get rid of the bugs. Anyone have more favorites?

*Pruning roses*: Goats love rose leaves and they are high in iron and calcium. Give them prunings or if you can secure a cage around the part you want to keep, let them do the pruning. Those prolific Banks Rose shoots are a great treat and no thorns. Just don't feed if the roses have been sprayed.

*Those lovely weeds!*: Didn't plant them but so glad they're there!

Lamb's quarters(why on earth is it vilified?) high in iron, similar nutritional makeup as spinach. Goats love it and people can eat it too. Great in quiche: Surprising Lambs Quarters. Its at its prime right now, just in time to help goats recovering from the horrid wormy summer in the south!

Plantain, both broad and narrow leaved: My rescues couldn't get enough of it when they came home. Extremely high in vitamins, sick and malnourished goats crave it. A good indicator plant, if your animals are eating it, get a fecal done! My adult does had been ignoring it until the worm count started creeping up. Dido for the docks - we have bitter dock in Georgia(also edible and great in quiche)

Yellow wood sorrel(Oxalis): a tiny yellow clover - A nice punch of vitamin C, high ascorbic acid. Another one my rescues love. Vitamin C is useful in fighting off infections.

Passion Flower: Guess its a southern thing. The rescues crave it and it grows like crazy! I'm saving the seedpods and planting more next year. Its a beautiful vine with striking flowers, too.

*And weeds that have to go!*

Horse nettle, pig weed, thistle: Get a good pair of gloves and rip it out, don't let it seed. Nothing eats them, they have painful spines and will take over a pasture in no time.

Cereal amaranth: Thought I'd try some, bad move. Seeds prolifically and the goats don't seem to like it that much. Rather have something more desirable taking up that space.

Please chime in... what have you tried?


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## silverseeds (Apr 28, 2012)

Thanks for posting this1 Its something Im constantly thinking about. Your in a much different region then me, but it is still nice to hear what worked for you. Im a bit surprised about you not liking pigweed (wild amaranth) though, Im guessing my local stuff is of a porrer quality then yours and my goats love it. Its related to the lambsquarters. (wild quinoa) It has a very similar nutritional profile. Are the seed heads just to spikey? or something? Im really excited about my tiny honey locust trees I planted this year. It will be many years before I can feed it to the goats, but from what Ive read they love it, and its supposed to be very productive to coppice the trees for more production.


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## Cannon_Farms (Aug 28, 2008)

federal rye can cause issues with their seeds and the goat's teeth if I remember correctly I can't remember why its not ideal for horses or goats. Rye grass is a great nutrient rich alternative so is oat grown as a grass. 
mine live food plot mixes and bamboo, the bare pasture you seen them in will be a bamboo patch once we get things taken care of from the lawyer junk.


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## tentance (Aug 16, 2012)

heyas.
are you 100 percent completely sure your vine with pods is a passionflower? it may still be, but i live just a tad south of you in the florida, and we have a crazy invasive native purple passionflower that makes little fruits known as maypops. that fruit is a key ingredient in hawaiian punch. i didnt know there was a passionflower that made pods? 

and as to your question, here is what we are growing or encouraging for the rabbits: 
sweet potato greens
black turtle bean greens
black eyed susan greens
bahia grass
rye grass in october
sycamore leaves
pink purslane
and my favorite, Bidens alba, aka Spanish Needle. rabbits love it, and it's good for people too. like lamb's quarters, here's a paper about it. well, bidens pilosa is alba's sister. 

http://www.ptfarm.pl/pub/File/Acta_Poloniae/2011/1/083.pdf

just recently put a huge post in the natural rabbit feeding forum thread about southern forages, from some data from 1934.


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## Clovers_Clan (Jul 17, 2012)

> Thanks for posting this1 Its something Im constantly thinking about. Your in a much different region then me, but it is still nice to hear what worked for you. Im a bit surprised about you not liking pigweed (wild amaranth) though, Im guessing my local stuff is of a porrer quality then yours and my goats love it. Its related to the lambsquarters. (wild quinoa) It has a very similar nutritional profile. Are the seed heads just to spikey? or something? Im really excited about my tiny honey locust trees I planted this year. It will be many years before I can feed it to the goats, but from what Ive read they love it, and its supposed to be very productive to coppice the trees for more production.


This may be a different plant, what I call pigweed is from the amaranth family but has WICKED spines on the stems and branches. It has pinkish red stems. Here's what it looks like:

"POISONOUS PLANTS SLIDES - PIGWEED"



> Im really excited about my tiny honey locust trees I planted this year. It will be many years before I can feed it to the goats, but from what Ive read they love it, and its supposed to be very productive to coppice the trees for more production.


I have a different species of locust, and yes, they devour it! It suckers back when I rotate pastures, so theres a constant supply. I read somewhere that the seed pods are poisonous to horses, I think. I will look it up. Goats love a lot of different suckering trees, oaks, elm, mulberry, privet... If they have a chance to recover they'll keep coming back. Or like you say you can keep a constant supply trimming the shoots.



> federal rye can cause issues with their seeds and the goat's teeth if I remember correctly I can't remember why its not ideal for horses or goats. Rye grass is a great nutrient rich alternative so is oat grown as a grass.
> mine live food plot mixes and bamboo, the bare pasture you seen them in will be a bamboo patch once we get things taken care of from the lawyer junk.


Thanks, Cannon_Farms. I had no idea. Do you have a link for that info? I planted it for soil improvement and hadn't read much about it as a forage specifically for goats. What I've planted is Wren's Abruzzi Winter Rye - a cereal variety. My goats happily chowed down before it could set seed.



> are you 100 percent completely sure your vine with pods is a passionflower? it may still be, but i live just a tad south of you in the florida, and we have a crazy invasive native purple passionflower that makes little fruits known as maypops. that fruit is a key ingredient in hawaiian punch. i didnt know there was a passionflower that made pods?


This is the passion flower we have, sounds like the same stuff. Hmmm could be making my own punch too?:
secrets of the passion flower (haiku) Â«



> and as to your question, here is what we are growing or encouraging for the rabbits:
> sweet potato greens
> black turtle bean greens
> black eyed susan greens
> ...


Goats love sweet potato vines too. And there's always plenty to feed when I dig up the sweet potatoes.

Thanks for all the suggestions!


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## JBarGFarmKeeper (Nov 1, 2011)

Clovers_Clan said:


> This may be a different plant, what I call pigweed is from the amaranth family but has WICKED spines on the stems and branches. It has pinkish red stems. Here's what it looks like:
> 
> "POISONOUS PLANTS SLIDES - PIGWEED"


This is the "pigweed" that I have also and the goats love it here too.


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## Clovers_Clan (Jul 17, 2012)

My goats won't eat the pigweed. I think they don't like it well enough to incur the spines.

I was digging around for information about the rye and ran across a really great article of forages and forage systems.

Langston University Goat & Research Extension

Apparently caution should be used with rape(canola), similar to collards...

"White goats frequently become badly ''sunburned'' when they are on rape (canola) pasture in bright, sunny weather with little or no shade."

It also said this(maybe this is the concern with cereal rye seed heads?)...

"A number of plants may have a spiny covering, long beards, fine hairs and when eaten may cause mechanical injuries or form hairballs in the stomach and intestines. Sand bur, downy brome grass, squirrel-tail grass, poverty grass, mesquite, and cocklebur are some of the offending plants."


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## Awnry Abe (Mar 21, 2012)

I have been experimenting with ways to keep a certain doeling in the fence and out of the garden. She bee-lines to the chard, if nothing new has popped up there, she hangs out in the sweet potatoes. Both of those plants are telling her, "Don't worry, we'll make more.". I had some peas drying in the pods for reseeding. They must have to die for.


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## tentance (Aug 16, 2012)

Passionflower - That's definitely the same flower as we have, so the globes are fruits, not pods 
My mother planted one seed about 15 years ago, and now there are vines in various spots throughout the whole block, likely due to the birds. It makes a small edible fruit called the maypop, and is similar to passion fruit. the fruits are seedy with a poor shelf life, so are frequently used for juices, wines, and jellies. The plant blooms for months in the late summer, but each flower is usually only open for a day or two. There is some evidence that native americans planted the passionflower throughout the southeast from seeds gotten via trade.
http://ethnobiology.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/JoE/9-2/Gremillion.pdf
I had no idea goats could eat this vine, has anyone fed it to their rabbits?


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## April (Nov 28, 2006)

Our goats will do horribly humiliating things for a sprig of "Trumpet Vine". Campsis radicans - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It grows very prolifically, attracts hummingbirds and it's beautiful. Feeding the goats keeps it from covering my house. 

I'm sad to hear that the goats don't like the Amaranth so much. I had great plans for it.


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## downsized (Aug 28, 2012)

Clovers_Clan said:


> Lamb's quarters(why on earth is it vilified?)


Lambs quarter is a nitrate concentrator plant under the right conditions. 

Nitrate Toxicity, UC Davis Veterinary Medicine Extension

Beware of Nitrates



> Adverse weather conditions such as the hot, dry weather experienced this past year can cause nitrates to accumulate at high levels. In plants that are drought stressed, nitrate levels can be especially high for several days after a break in dry weather. Frost, hail and low temperatures will interfere with normal plant growth and can cause nitrate accumulation. Plants require temperatures at 55E or above for active photosynthesis. If photosynthesis is not occurring due to low temperatures, frost or hail damage to leaves, nitrate can then occur in the stems or stalks. *Several plant species such as pigweed, lambs quarter, oats, millet, sorghums, sudan grass and corn are often high in nitrates.* Under extreme conditions, even grasses and legumes can accumulate nitrates.


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## silverseeds (Apr 28, 2012)

April said:


> I'm sad to hear that the goats don't like the Amaranth so much. I had great plans for it.


They absolutely love it at my house. 

The nitrate thing doesnt happen often, and if you understand why it happens and only use it as a portion of the diet when the issue arises it will never be a problem. People still use sudan grass and it does this worse then lambsquarters and pigweed. Also the more heavily bred quoinoa and amaranth apparently do this less then their more wild direct relatives. We eat the leaves ourselves actually. Very tasty, and an easy summer green when most greens wont grow.


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## Clovers_Clan (Jul 17, 2012)

Darn, I wish MINE liked amaranth! It sure grows well here.

Trumpet vine grows everywhere outside of the garden . I'll start feeding that too.

I practice no-till gardening and only add plant compost with a bit of well composted chicken manure. And water some when needed through the heat/drought. Hopefully that will keep the nitrate risk low. Knock on wood, I've never had a problem. Thanks for the link! I will keep a watch for those conditions.


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## Shygal (May 26, 2003)

I have experience in gardening with goats....unwillingly. My goats incorporated themselves into my garden one year and they spent the crops I was going to utilize :grump:


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