Why Goats?
Goats love to eat weeds
Goats love to eat herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees. They have four stomach chambers that allow them to digest fiborous plant material, bark, cactus, and even rock. Their powerful stomachs also fully digest pollen allergens and weed seeds, eliminating them from the environment and turning them into nutritious manure for the soil. Weed wackers and lawnmowers just spread allergens and seeds into the air. Herbicides poison the soil and water, cause cancer and other diseases and are simply a dead end.
Goats eating your weeds and fertilizing your soil naturally is simply the best way to go.
Some of goats favorite foods include Siberian Elm, Kochia, Bindweed, Tumble Weed, Goat Heads, Ragweed, Amaranth and many more of the most intrepid weeds in the Albuquerque area.
fire mitigation
Goats clear the understory of forests, breaking down woody and dry plants, therefore mitigating the risk of fire. They can also be used to clear brush from around buildings as a firebreak (See Resources for the story on the goats protecting a library from a forest fire).
We also offer chainsaw and pruning services to further remove and process trees and other woody material.
Cloven hooves prevent desertification
and climate change
Plant communities have evolved over millions of years with large herds of hoofed animals eating, digesting, and trampling and mulching them into the earth. This is part of the vital process plants in arid climates depend on for their life cycle of decomposition and mulching in dry and cold seasons to retain moisture and soil life for their roots which allows for regrowth in warm moist seasons.
Without herds of hooved animals, the plants dry up and oxidize and don’t decompose, soil becomes exposed and lifeless, water evaporates and runs off and the desert grows. The goats cloven hoof also breaks the surface of hardened dry soil, allowing water and nutrients to penetrate the surface and also tills in seeds and plant material. Furthermore, their manure and urine water and fertilize the soil, bringing it to life.
It does require attentive management to avoid overgrazing and to mirror the balance of nature, but that is the task of the goatherd.
See Allan Savory’s video “How to Green the World’s Deserts and Reverse Climate Change” in the Resources section and his books on Holistic Management for more information on this.