FarmGirl10
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If anybody does this, I would like to know if you have had much luck with it. I'd like to know if it was worth trying.
Thanks.
Thanks.
I agree with this. The only problem I can see is the price of the fence. I have herd of electric fence doing a pretty good job. Is this true? A man told me he puts one hot wire about 6 in.'s off the ground and that is all he needs.Keren":3u26f2i6 said:No problems at all with running them together. It can be beneficial because we all know cattle cant graze right down to the ground, but the goats can. So the cattle leave enough pasture for the goats to eat. Also, if your pastures contain quite a few weeds, especially woody weeds that are unpalatable for cattle, the goats will preferentially eat them before eating the pasture. You can effectively increase your stocking rate and improve your pasture by doing this. We have found that the goats camp and graze away from the cattle, so we are able to muster a paddock and tell the dogs to only get the cattle or only get the goats. Another way you can do it is to rotationally graze, you send the cattle in first, then you send in a mixture of sheep and goats - the sheep eat the grasses down lower than the cattle could reach, and the goats eat the browse and weeds that the cattle and sheep do not like. Note that for this rotational system to work you have to have fairly browsey and weedy pastures, otherwise the sheep will out eat the goats.
novatech":3j29qcj6 said:I agree with this. The only problem I can see is the price of the fence. I have herd of electric fence doing a pretty good job. Is this true? A man told me he puts one hot wire about 6 in.'s off the ground and that is all he needs.Keren":3j29qcj6 said:No problems at all with running them together. It can be beneficial because we all know cattle cant graze right down to the ground, but the goats can. So the cattle leave enough pasture for the goats to eat. Also, if your pastures contain quite a few weeds, especially woody weeds that are unpalatable for cattle, the goats will preferentially eat them before eating the pasture. You can effectively increase your stocking rate and improve your pasture by doing this. We have found that the goats camp and graze away from the cattle, so we are able to muster a paddock and tell the dogs to only get the cattle or only get the goats. Another way you can do it is to rotationally graze, you send the cattle in first, then you send in a mixture of sheep and goats - the sheep eat the grasses down lower than the cattle could reach, and the goats eat the browse and weeds that the cattle and sheep do not like. Note that for this rotational system to work you have to have fairly browsey and weedy pastures, otherwise the sheep will out eat the goats.
KNERSIE":y5w44b6f said:novatech":y5w44b6f said:I agree with this. The only problem I can see is the price of the fence. I have herd of electric fence doing a pretty good job. Is this true? A man told me he puts one hot wire about 6 in.'s off the ground and that is all he needs.Keren":y5w44b6f said:No problems at all with running them together. It can be beneficial because we all know cattle cant graze right down to the ground, but the goats can. So the cattle leave enough pasture for the goats to eat. Also, if your pastures contain quite a few weeds, especially woody weeds that are unpalatable for cattle, the goats will preferentially eat them before eating the pasture. You can effectively increase your stocking rate and improve your pasture by doing this. We have found that the goats camp and graze away from the cattle, so we are able to muster a paddock and tell the dogs to only get the cattle or only get the goats. Another way you can do it is to rotationally graze, you send the cattle in first, then you send in a mixture of sheep and goats - the sheep eat the grasses down lower than the cattle could reach, and the goats eat the browse and weeds that the cattle and sheep do not like. Note that for this rotational system to work you have to have fairly browsey and weedy pastures, otherwise the sheep will out eat the goats.
I think the man was telling porkies, where daylight shine through a boer goat and a dorper sheep will also find a way through.
Keren":xz63r4tl said:KNERSIE":xz63r4tl said:novatech":xz63r4tl said:I agree with this. The only problem I can see is the price of the fence. I have herd of electric fence doing a pretty good job. Is this true? A man told me he puts one hot wire about 6 in.'s off the ground and that is all he needs.Keren":xz63r4tl said:No problems at all with running them together. It can be beneficial because we all know cattle cant graze right down to the ground, but the goats can. So the cattle leave enough pasture for the goats to eat. Also, if your pastures contain quite a few weeds, especially woody weeds that are unpalatable for cattle, the goats will preferentially eat them before eating the pasture. You can effectively increase your stocking rate and improve your pasture by doing this. We have found that the goats camp and graze away from the cattle, so we are able to muster a paddock and tell the dogs to only get the cattle or only get the goats. Another way you can do it is to rotationally graze, you send the cattle in first, then you send in a mixture of sheep and goats - the sheep eat the grasses down lower than the cattle could reach, and the goats eat the browse and weeds that the cattle and sheep do not like. Note that for this rotational system to work you have to have fairly browsey and weedy pastures, otherwise the sheep will out eat the goats.
I think the man was telling porkies, where daylight shine through a boer goat and a dorper sheep will also find a way through.
hee hee hee I like that one Knersie. The two that are often quoted around here are:
"Throw a bucket of water at your fence. If the water goes through, your goats will too." - Goat farmer
"Good fences make good neighbours" - Goat farmer's neighbour
But seriously, we havent had much trouble keeping ours in. Most fences here, be they for sheep or cattle, are made of ringlock/hingejoint with one or two plain or barbed wires on top. This keeps my angoras in quite happily. For the boers, all you need to do is run a hot wire about 6 inch off the ground and about the same distance away from the fence. They will push under rather then go over. Make sure the goats have been trained for electric fences. And make sure anything that consistently gets out is culled. This modification is not a great expense. Another modification which I have found handy is to add chook wire to the bottom 1/3 of the fence, so it is attached to the hingejoint but also laying on the ground. When the goats try to push under the fence, they cant because they are standing on the chook wire.