Rotational Grazing, Goat Torture, and Bovine Compassion

Our goats and sheep are grass fed.  In the winter we use hay that is grown and cut just two miles down the road, and in the growing season we use rotational pasture grazing.  We choose to graze this way because we think it's one of the best ways to manage the internal parasites small ruminants face, plus we have found that it keeps our pastures in the best shape and allows a nice variety of plants to flourish.

Every farm manages rotational grazing a little bit differently, but for us it means using a series of electric netting fences to create pasture spaces that can be grazed down fully within a week or so.  Some larger farms move the spaces every day, but that just isn't practical for us.  From a parasite management point of view, it's just important to break the three week life cycle of the parasites by not keeping the animals in the same spot for that long.  Once the goats and sheep have grazed there, it's also important to allow that pasture to rest for quite a while.  Since our farm is small, and because goats don't eat the plants all the way down to the ground like cows and sheep do,  I will often mow behind them with our tractor to allow the sun to penetrate the soil and hopefully kill off any eggs and larvae.  All this moving of fences is time consuming, but we've had very few parasite issues over the years, and have been able to skip routine use of chemical dewormers.

So today it was fence moving day.

Generally I really enjoy this chore.  I usually wake up early so that I can be outside while everything is still quiet and calm, and before the sun is high.  I didn't sleep well last night, so this morning I was up and out even earlier than normal, just after the sun came up.  It was just gorgeous!  We had a cool night last night so the air was clean and fresh, the sky was clear, and the animals were all still resting and chewing their cuds. So calm and peaceful, and such a treat to be awake to enjoy this first light!

I got the tractor out, started to take down and gather the first net fence so that I could load it into the tractor bucket and move it to the new area.  Millie, a sweetie and one of our momma goats, was paying attention and started getting excited. See, the goats LOVE it when I move them to a new pasture, and she knew exactly what I was doing.  Woohoo!!

Millie

The thing is, though, Millie is very vocal.  And persistent.  And very impatient.

And this week, moving the fences was a big job.  I needed to move six sections of fence, and because the pasture where we were going hadn't been used yet this summer, I needed to also mow a border before I could stand the fences up.  (Tall grasses touching the electric net kill the charge and make the fence ineffective.) This was a several hour job.

All of this was taking entirely too long for Millie.  So, her excitement turned to agitation, which then turned to sheer frustration. "WHY is it taking so long??"  She got the rest of the goats fired up, and they  all started calling to me.  Have you heard goats holler?  It sounds like babies screaming. You would have thought they were all being tortured!

All this noise was bad enough first thing in the morning...but our new bovine neighbors heard all of the goats' fussing, so they came to the fence to see what was going on.  "Those poor goats!  What are you doing to them?!"   So they started bellowing these great big, deep calls.  That got the dogs wound up, so they started barking.  And then the roosters and hens joined in.  Uugh.  What a cacophony!

So much for my peaceful morning chore.  My head was reeling.

Finally I was done, and to the delight of the goats (and probably my neighbors) they were moved into the new pasture.  Once the goats quieted, everyone else settled down.  Now all I can hear are happy chomping noises.

Finally. Happy goats.  Look at the size of Sophie's mouthful!

Next time I'm wearing earplugs.  Right now I'm in search of Motrin.