The Buck and Boys have a small fenced yard, that was shared by all 5 goats when we first moved, and shared by the alpacas for a couple weeks as well. Their small yard's grass and weeds couldn't keep up with the amount of mouths to feed and even though we tied them out for a few hours each day, it was obvious we needed to do something.
The hillside behind our house was to be a pasture in the future. And it was really overgrown, so while my brother was here visiting we figured that the future was now. And we made plans to fence in most of that back hillside. Did I mention it was overgrown? And that we were planning on running electric?
After a few passes with the weed-eater and a lot of hard work with a machete, Paul, my brother and stepfather had cleared a good path to place the posts. It took about 2 days total to get the posts in and the wire strung. We attached it at the bottom to the girls' pasture so they run off the same charger.
We started them in slowly. 3-4 hours the first day and gradually increased it until they are in from about 9:30 in the morning until feeding time at 7:30 pm. Bella joins them most days, and Johnny has made his transition into the Buck and Boys yard as well.
They have been in for 1 week now. Can you tell a difference?
The first picture is the first day and the second is today at 1 week.
It's not as noticeable in the picture, but below is one of the most drastic changes. They have eaten this down almost entirely and use the remaining branches and dead vines as shade and shelter.
Some days they are so full by feeding time they can hardly walk up the hill to get back to their yard/barn to sleep. And we are left with happy, very fat goats.
Wow, that is amazing how quickly they ate all that down. My boys would be impressed bc they are the "clearers" around here.
ReplyDeleteGoats doing what goats do best. I love it! Stopping by from the Barn Hop. Have a good one!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! We just tied up our two males on one side of our property to get some clearing out. We mostly put them there because we have 2.5 acres (we are in NC too!) that is mostly wooded, totally able to sustain our 7 goats. Instead, we've been buying feed for them! We still have our 5 females that we haven't put out yet. We are hoping to get some fencing in as well to rotate them. I love the before and afters. I wish I had done that! Our goat area used to look like the rest of our property...very green. Now its pretty barren!
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Kerri