ecological goat grazing
Providing biological weed control, fire prevention, and reclamation services with goats of large acreages (500 or more acres.) At Studt Ranch we provide a natural and sustainable solution to weed issues, reclamation, and fire control problems. Our goats are range goats who are used to being on our own property and are acclimated to eating a wide range of plants.
Call Us: (970) 462-6361
weed management, fire control, and reclamation
We are a ranching family in Colorado and our goats have spent their lives on the range with a herder. There is a true need in the West for targeting grazing and ecological management that improves the quality of the soil and vegetation of our land while minimizing the use of herbicides. Goats are frequently hired to eat a variety of plants as well as till and work nutrients and seed into the soil as part of reclamation.
Here are some reasons Goats are ideal for this work:
- Goats are immune to the toxic effects of most noxious weeds. Therefore, they can help control the weeds that harm other livestock.
- Goats prefer to not eat grass and therefore do not compete with cattle for feed.
- Goats are great for reclamation because they can both till the soil, remove the weeds, and work grass seed and their own dung as fertilizer into the ground with their hooves all at the same time. That’s called ecological multi-tasking.
- Goats are the original “green” weed control. Goats are an effective weed control agent that aids in the elimination of unnecessary herbicidal chemicals being added to our environment.
- Wildfires are started primarily with dry plant matter. Goats eat the brush and dry plants that are fuel to fires. By eliminating wildfire fuels goats can play a huge role in preventing wildfires.
- Goats increase forage for other livestock by helping to eliminate noxious weeds that compete for soil space and nutrients.
- Goats pulverize when they chew as well as have a unique make-up of strong digestive juices and so unlike other livestock the seed of most plants being eaten does not make it through the digestive tract intact
Below is a partial list of common plants goats are used to control:
- Cheat grass
- Common tansy
- Common mullein
- Curly Dock
- Dalmatian Toadflax
- Dandelions
- Diffuse knapweed
- Downy brome
- Dyers woad
- Gorse
- Hoary cress
- Himalayan knotweed
- Indian tobacco
- Japanese knotweed
- Kochia
- Kudzu
- Larkspur
- Leafy spurge
- Loco weed
- Lupine
- Medusha head
- Mountain Mohagony
- Nettle
- Oxide daisy
- Perennial pepperwood
- Poison Ivy
- Poison oak
- Purple loostrife
- Quack grass
- Russian knapweed
- Russian olive
- Sedge
- Scotch broom
- Spanish Broom
- Spotted knapweed
- Sweet clover
- Thistles:
- Canada Thistle
- Musk Thistle
- Plumeless thistle
- Purple star thistle
- Scotch thistle
- Yellow star thistle
- Yellow Toadflax
- Willows
- Wild Rose