Does anyone here garden? Do you have any tips for keeping goats out of the garden? Are there any garden plants that are good for goats (I mostly grow leafy things like kale, collards and mustard greens)? Does mint (just the regular garden varieties) make their milk taste off? What are garden plants that are poisonous to goats? I know potato and tomato greens are bad.
Thanks, and pictures are welcome and appreciated (shame on me, I didn't take pics of my garden last year)
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I got a different buck and the kids from him share his mischievous personality. Can they eat Romaine lettuce?
That is funny! I can picture little goats running for the strawberries and then running off with them. <g>
I planted strawberries this year and they make a bee-line for them everytime they get out. They love to pull the plants up and run with them. All the wild ones they have access to and they love the ones I plant.
My husband and I grow a market garden so the goats get lots of odds and ends from the garden.These are things I have noticed they like.Bok choi,kale,carrots,turnips,green bean plants,pea plants,lvs from broccoli plants,dried up tomatoes,juicy fresh tomatoes,cucumbers. I have tried chard and summer squash,eggplant,beet greens,lettuce and they would sample them but then leave them alone. I am hoping once again to try and get myself organized enough to get kale and collards planted in late summer for next winter greenery to feed.And also got a package of the giant sugarbeet (mangels)seed to grow for winter feed.Right now still out in the uncleaned up part of the garden are these summer turnips that got big and are partially freeze-dried(from just being out) and the goats love those.I have tried feeding various strong smelling and tasting plants to goats to see if it changed the milk.I have fed rosemary,turnips,lavender,pinon pine and have noticed no off-flavor to the milk.I thought it might be cool to make a cheese with the milk after feeding rosemary but there was no flavor.I also have a couple rows of nice green rye grass planted as cover crop.When walking back and forth to the milking room we go right past those rows,sometimes the goats are all over it munching down on the rye and other times they prefer to pick out all the dry leaves that have landed in the rye.Just a reminder that they are not grazers.I can't help but believe that more variety for an animal like a goat is healthy.
We grow most of our own food, which includes fresh produce. My goats won't eat mint. We have a fence around the garden with 2X4 welded wire. The goats also have their own woven wire pasture, so there are two fences (at least) between goats and garden. Last summer I was letting them graze right outside the garden, and somehow the fence broke, and several went in there and were eating my strawberry plants! :( Sugar beets (mangels) are supposed to be really good for goats and other large livestock.