The goat as gardener - biotope maintenance with goats

The use of goats in biotope maintenance has gained in importance in recent years, especially on rough grasslands. As part of a flock of sheep or on their own, they are mainly intended to help control woody growth and also to push back scrub encroachment. More than any other farm animal species in Germany, goats can obtain a large part of their nutrition from leaves and bark. They like to climb and can therefore also be used in terrain where machines and other farm animals reach their limits. In addition, their unusual feeding behaviour - they can stand on two legs if necessary (facultative bipedality) - allows them to reach foliage in higher regions that are inaccessible to sheep. In addition, their split upper lip allows the goats to pick out food selectively. Thus they can also graze on thorny bushes.

Goats love leaves and bark of woody plants. Only some spurn them, but otherwise they can cover up to 60 % of their diet with foliage. In nature conservation, they can therefore be used well for bush clearance; the woody forage is also highly species-appropriate. It would therefore be desirable if dairy goats were also offered foliage feed, but most pastures have no woody plants, and feeding them in the barn is too labour-intensive. However, so far there is little knowledge about the feed value and the effect of foliage on the products, about the best possible availability of foliage (for example as fodder hedges) and about which woody plants are best suited. We investigated these questions at the Thünen Institute of Organic Agriculture with woody plant studies and fodder hedges for goats.