Spring Baby

Spring

Intensive Grazing

Ragweed Before and After

Dead Cedar

Opening the Underbrush

Grazing Horses

Ragweed Remaining

Goats and Ragweed

View South of Pasture

Fall in Missouri

Winter Confinement

Winter

Baby Goats

The grass is just coming up and the leaves are popping. This spring foal is only a few weeks old.

An early foal eyes the fresh spring grass. It will be turned out to graze soon.

Using the horses to intensively graze down tall fescue. Goats will follow to clear up the weeds and brush. Clover and lespedeza will be frost seeded afterwards.

Several varieties of ragweed thrive in Missouri. Here you see the vast amount present in our pasture in late fall. The horses graze first, leaving the ragweed. Then the goats are turned in to browse it down completely.

The goats have killed this small, scrub cedar tree. They have ate the lower branches, as high as they could reach, and peeled the bark from the trunk. With the lower limbs broke off by the goats, we can now easily get in close to saw the tree down.

Once impenetrable, the undergrowth between these trees has been trampled and browsed by the goats. We can now get in and clear the brush. Sunlight can penetrate and grass will now grow.

The horses are allowed to graze first. They will select the choice grasses leaving behind the weeds and brush.

The horses have been removed from these paddocks and only the ragweed remains. The goats will be turned into these lots to eat the remaining weeds.

The goats have been turned out into the paddock to graze on the ragweed. They favor this weed and will seek it out over other browse.

Early fall 2002. This is a typical landscape of Northeast Missouri, USA

It is fall and harvest time. After the fields are grazed, they are mowed. Leaves are turning and will soon fall. Early winter rains will soon begin to be followed by snow.

The goats are confined for the winter in a paddock close to the barn. They will begin kidding in January and will be brought into the barn at that time. Until then, they will be be left out with large bales of hay to keep them satisfied.

Winter is a quiet time, but new kids are on the way in January and Febuary, to be followed by the arrival of the new foals.

The baby goats are warm inside the barn. Special pens are set up to help bond them with the doe. In a few days they will be allowed to join the others in a maternity ward. Then in just a couple of weeks they will be outside playing in the snow.