Forest management with goats: Interview with small forest landowner Tony Miller
Published 10:30 am Monday, December 11, 2023
- Tony Miller’s four goats graze about a quarter-acre per week.
Tony Miller is a small forest landowner who owns and manages two tree farms in Southwest Washington, totaling nearly 100 acres. He was motivated to become a forester by his stepfather (who also worked for the Department of Natural Resources), after 50 years as a residential contractor.
In his owns words, “I went from a residential contractor nailing up Douglas-fir and now I’m growing it!”
Tony is currently participating in the DNR Financial Assistance for Wildfire Resilience and Forest Health program to help reduce competitive noxious weeds and an overabundance of native brush species on his tree farm. Reducing competition to allow native conifer species to grow quicker and more resilient is nothing new to foresters and tree farmers in Washington.
However, Tony utilizes a different piece of ‘equipment’ or ‘contractor’ to assist with his brush control — goats!
DNR staff sat down with Tony to ask more questions about his small herd of goats to gain a better understanding of how they work as a forest management tool and what turned him onto being a goat farmer as well.
DNR: What sparked your interest in utilizing goats for forest management activities?
Fun Facts about Tony’s Goat Family
• Tony just started using goats in January 2023. His goats can reach about four to five feet high to eat vegetation but will also pull material down to the ground to eat.
• The goats don’t get out of the fenced area because they see the black and white electric wires. Goats can get out of penned areas by climbing or jumping on leaning branches, trees, or even 4-inch wooden fence posts if they fall to a 45-degree angle.
• Tony’s goats are a cross of Nigerian Dwarf and Alpine.
• The herd can easily be controlled with the mother goat. Once you get mom under control, the rest of the herd will follow.
• The herd drinks about 10 gallons of supplemental water per week.
• Their favorite food is blackberries but will not eat bracken fern.
• The goats love to eat the moss off Douglas-fir trees. They don’t girdle the trees by eating the bark but will completely glean the moss off the trees up to four feet.
• Just like deer and elk, they love western redcedar. They will nibble on branches of Douglas-fir but will not eat the tree to the ground. You must keep them away from newly planted trees.
• Goats are emotionally relaxing and when you have a bad day, the goats “just take that away!”
• Before the goats, Tony could only see 50 feet into his farm, but now he can see one thousand feet and easily traverse the farm to assess the health of the forest. All because of the goats!
Tony: It was a combination of things but was initiated by the discovery of laminated root rot on the tree farm. The tree farm had an overabundance of ground cover, and I needed to open up the ground cover to conduct a thorough analysis of the extent of the root rot. I needed to know if I could selectively cut out the problem or did, I need to clear the entire farm to re-plant with root rot resistance species. So, while I was away from the farm for a bit, I returned and saw my neighbor’s property had five goats and they ate the vegetation to the ground! I went and talked to my neighbor and then I decided to buy the goats. It wasn’t anything that I planned on doing, but something that just hit me! The goats are helping me evaluate the problem because I’m able to see and assess the tree farm better.
DNR: How many goats do you have, and what is a good number to manage your tree farm?
Tony: I went out and bought three goats and now I have four. The goats I have are a family. I have the matriarch and the mother to the rest of them. The four goats do about a quarter-acre of grazing per week. I have about a half-acre of electric fencing. As I increase the herd, I’ll be increasing the fencing. I will be breeding the goats next month and hope to double the herd to eight. By doubling the herd, I’m thinking that I’ll be moving my fence in two to three days, instead of five to seven.
DNR: Do you take the goats home each night or do they stay on the property?
Tony: The goats stay out there 24-7 on the tree farm. I go in every couple of days to check on them. I provide them with a chemical enzyme for their digestive system that comes from alfalfa. They have a 4-foot by 12-foot pen that they sleep in during the night. I get sawdust from the local landscaper and throw it on the ground in their pen.
DNR: How much do the goats eat as compared to snoozing?
Tony: They are constantly eating! I’ll prune up vegetation that I don’t want and then take it to the goats. They eat it up. They will constantly eat anything and everything. I even watched them devour a holly tree. They will devour a blackberry bush in no time! They’ll eat salad as well.
DNR: What would you charge per goat/day if you were to provide their services to others? I know that you are early in your experiences in managing goats, and coming up with a price/day might be challenging, but what would be the process?
Tony: This is hard to say. The biggest struggle is transportation and then secondly, where are the goats going and addressing the predators. I can address the concerns of the coyotes and black bears because the electric fence is rated for black bear and coyote. The fence is 42 inches high and has a very good electrical passage for my 500-foot fence. Setting up the area for goats is another complicated issue. It takes me about one day to move the fence from one location to another, taking around eight hours. I would then come out once per day to watch the herd for a half-hour to make sure they are doing okay and eating right. It just varies on the distance from my residence to the herd and the transportation costs as well.”
DNR: Say that I’m a landowner learning about goats, and I’m excited to learn about your success with the goats on your tree farm. If I were to have four goats on my property, what should I expect to see after a week? Will it be a mud pit?
Tony: You can avoid creating a mud pit by precisely managing them based on the ground conditions. With that said, you know what the conditions are before placing the goats so one knows what to expect. Outside of wetter areas and on regular ground, there isn’t a concern. They do a lot of good for the ground. Aerating. Fertilizing. By walking around, they mix in the fertilizer (laughs). I haven’t seen anything on my tree farm that I would call that they left a mess. It’s just how long do you want to leave them there, and if you see them starting to tear stuff up, you move them out of there. If I don’t want them in a particular place, I fence them out!