Ozark Mountain Goat Pastures
Good Quality Pastures for Meat Goats
At Critter Ridge we have established good quality pastures for goats, on land that is too steep and rocky to use farm implements. This is land where it would be impossible to prepare a seed bed..This type of land can be purchased at a much lower cost than tillable land.
Pastures are very important for keeping the costs of raising meat goats down. At Critter Ridge, during a normal year we feed very little purchased feed or hay from April through December. In January, February, and March our goats receive about 50% of their nutrition from purchased feed and hay, the balance from pasture. During droughts or cooler than normal winters we have to feed more purchased feed.
Goats grazing high quality pastures produce better quality meat and milk, at a lower cost to the producer, than goats grazing poor quality pastures or goats fed stored feeds. An ideal pasture program for meat goats would provide highly nutritious forages for as many months out of the year as possible. Such a pasture program would include both cool season and warm season forages and would also include legumes.
Pastures with legumes will produce more forage and will produce better quality, high protein, forage because of the extra nitrogen made available by nitrogen fixing bacteria which grow in nodules on the roots of legumes,
Ideal pasture forages need to be hardy and persistent. Once they are established, they should be there permanently. This is especially true on land that is too steep and rocky to till.
Pastures are very important for keeping the costs of raising meat goats down. At Critter Ridge, during a normal year we feed very little purchased feed or hay from April through December. In January, February, and March our goats receive about 50% of their nutrition from purchased feed and hay, the balance from pasture. During droughts or cooler than normal winters we have to feed more purchased feed.
Goats grazing high quality pastures produce better quality meat and milk, at a lower cost to the producer, than goats grazing poor quality pastures or goats fed stored feeds. An ideal pasture program for meat goats would provide highly nutritious forages for as many months out of the year as possible. Such a pasture program would include both cool season and warm season forages and would also include legumes.
Pastures with legumes will produce more forage and will produce better quality, high protein, forage because of the extra nitrogen made available by nitrogen fixing bacteria which grow in nodules on the roots of legumes,
Ideal pasture forages need to be hardy and persistent. Once they are established, they should be there permanently. This is especially true on land that is too steep and rocky to till.
Our Pasture Program for Meat Goats
Based on our experience and information available on new forage varieties, this program has two sets of pastures. The first set of pastures contains novel entophyte tall fescue, Bermuda grass, crab grass, hop clover, white clover, our hardy strain of subterranean clover and forage chicoty. The crab grass and hop clover will establish themselves. They both make good grazing for goats. All of these forages can tolerate very heavy grazing. This set of pastures is available for goats to graze without restrictions the entire year.
A Second Set of Pastures
A second set of pastures in our program contains novel entophyte tall fescue, warm season native grasses, and lespedeza. Lespedeza and native grasses provide high quality grazing in summer, when most forages are poor quality. Lespedeza is difficult to establish and maintain in goat pastures. Goats will kill it if allowed to graze it without restrictions, Grazing in this second set of pastures is restricted from April through September to allow the lespedeza to get established and to survive.
Because of the restricted grazing, warm season grasses such as crab grass, purple top, sage grass, Johnson grass, and blue stem will establish themselves, along with many herbal weeds that goats like to eat. These forages are well liked by goats, but, except for crab grass, they do not survive in goat pastures with unrestricted grazing.
The growth of fescue and serecia lespedeza in this second set of pastures is stockpiled for late fall and winter grazing when the lespedeza is dormant. Like Bermuda grass, serecia lespedeza makes good winter grazing after it is freeze dried by the first frost. Serecia lespedeza seeds cling to the dormant plants in winter providing feed for goats and wildlife. Deer, turkey, quail, and song birds eat serecia lespedeza seed in winter. The goats and wildlife will spread lespedeza seed in their droppings.
We have recently established this second set of pastures, and are running some trials to determine how much grazing the serecia lespedeza can tolerate. We set aside four acres of established fescue that we over seeded with fifteen pounds of Korean and 30 pounds of AU grazer serecia lespedeza seed per acre. We did not graze the lespedeza at all from April through September for two years after it was seeded. We plan not to ever graze it in April and May when the quality of forage in the first set of pastures is high because of hop clover. We will use rotational grazing in June through September and unrestricted grazing in fall and winter.
Because of the restricted grazing, warm season grasses such as crab grass, purple top, sage grass, Johnson grass, and blue stem will establish themselves, along with many herbal weeds that goats like to eat. These forages are well liked by goats, but, except for crab grass, they do not survive in goat pastures with unrestricted grazing.
The growth of fescue and serecia lespedeza in this second set of pastures is stockpiled for late fall and winter grazing when the lespedeza is dormant. Like Bermuda grass, serecia lespedeza makes good winter grazing after it is freeze dried by the first frost. Serecia lespedeza seeds cling to the dormant plants in winter providing feed for goats and wildlife. Deer, turkey, quail, and song birds eat serecia lespedeza seed in winter. The goats and wildlife will spread lespedeza seed in their droppings.
We have recently established this second set of pastures, and are running some trials to determine how much grazing the serecia lespedeza can tolerate. We set aside four acres of established fescue that we over seeded with fifteen pounds of Korean and 30 pounds of AU grazer serecia lespedeza seed per acre. We did not graze the lespedeza at all from April through September for two years after it was seeded. We plan not to ever graze it in April and May when the quality of forage in the first set of pastures is high because of hop clover. We will use rotational grazing in June through September and unrestricted grazing in fall and winter.
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We use turkeys to control grasshoppers in our pastures. One grasshopper per square yard will eat as much forage as one cow per acre. We also have wild turkeys that help controle grasshoppers in our back pastures.
