Why Grazing?

Goats Are Greener

Common solutions to overgrown vegetation and invasive plants, like herbicides or mechanical mowing, just aren’t cutting it these days. People are looking for sustainable answers to their land management problems, and grazing offers the most environmentally friendly way to get rid of unwanted weeds, grasses and brush.

Goat grazing doesn’t produce pollution or use any hazardous chemicals, and offers an herbicide-free way to effectively cut down on fire risks. In riparian areas along waterways, or in organic agricultural areas, chemical-free plant control is especially important, so goat grazing offers a tool for fire and plant management in these spaces.

Grazing is the natural way to manage open spaces, and also adds benefits like aeration, thanks to the goats’ hooves, and fertilizer, thanks to the manure they leave behind.

Fire Fuel Reduction

Our goat herds are used all across Northern California to reduce fire fuel loads on public and private lands in advance of wildfire season. Goats can graze on even the steepest and rockiest terrain, clearing shrubs, underbrush and tough plants more easily than human workers can with mowing equipment. Western Grazers can help by grazing an area down to bare branches ahead of prescribed burns, or by grazing in areas unsuitable for burning.

Besides clearing grasses and undergrowth at ground level, goats also will stand on their hind legs to eat leaves from bushes and trees, which helps to reduce fire fuel even further than traditional mowing can. Our goats typically clear up to two acres each day, depending on terrain and herd size needed. They’ll create firebreaks where needed, and carve out buffer areas around housing or other buildings to protect them from wildfires. Plus, mowing and burning can carry their own risk of fire during drought or dry seasons, whether it’s a stray spark from a mower blade or an out-of-control burn.

Invasive Plant & Weed Control

Grazing for weed and invasive plant control is an area in which goats excel — they love eating weeds! Goats make excellent invasive plant fighters, because they will eat a plant starting with its seedhead, then eat it right down to the ground. Since very few seeds make it through a goat’s digestive system alive, they can stop the spread of invasive plants in an area and help the native ecosystem recover.

Goats are happy to eat tough bushes and problem weeds like blackberry and star thistle, and they’ll eat around the clock until the job is done. More plants they are successful at removing safely include poison oak and ivy, young palms, wild rose, Japanese knotweed, kudzu, bittersweet, Scotch brooms, and many other unwanted weeds and invasive plants. Grazing for plant control is best done at different times of the year depending on the problem weed; talk to us about the best options for your land and specific vegetation issues.

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