JANSEN, Sask. — An Peischel sees the Canadian Prairies and its large land base as good ground for goats.
The small ruminant specialist from Tennessee State University has worked with the animals across North America and sees potential to place goats in prairie pastures alongside cattle and sheep.
“I think it’s amazing here. There’s so much opportunity here,” she said during a stop at Caprina Farm & Ranch near Jansen, Sask., on a recent field tour.
“I think it’s pretty unbelievable.”
Peischel has employed goats in large land restoration projects, strategically using them to remove undesirable plants while fertilizing the land and building better soil. Others may see the animal differently — as a destroyer, aggressively mowing through areas while consuming anything and everything.
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“The limiting factor of the goat is you. Goats are opportunistic. You have to be able to have the vision of being able to understand them,” she said.
Part of Peischel’s work is to educate producers on the potential that a controlled and well-managed herd has as a land enhancer. The basic methodology she described will be familiar to cattle producers.
“It’s all based on plants — resting the plants,” she said. “You rest the ones you want to maintain and you overgraze the ones you want to take out.”
A better understanding of plants will not only help mindful landowners but also the goat meat producer looking to attain an ideal body conditioning score.
While a goat will eat a lot of things, that doesn’t mean it should.
Peischel said producers need to closely manage and watch their herds, finding the right breed and understanding their behaviour and the makeup of the plants the animals are eating.
She used the shrub scotch broom as an example, which can influence estrogen levels and pregnancy development when eaten three weeks before flowering,.
“We need to know what are the toxic factors that come along with all the different plants,” she said.
Young green leaves and stems are best for the animals. They provide better crude protein content and are more easily digestible, which means the goats eat more and receive better nutrition.
Dead leaves and mature stems are worse nutritionally and take longer to digest.
“They can’t eat enough because they can’t get it out and there’s not enough quality for them to absorb,” she said.
“So you’re really stressing their microorganisms.”
