I just got my first goat and was wondering if evergreens are poisonous for them and if they will stay away from them. I've heard of people losing their sheep because of this. I have arborvitae trees, and climbing euonymous, (not sure of spellings) but they're evergreen type shrubs. Any other type of plants or weeds I need to be careful of?

-- Lenore (archambo@winco.net), June 28, 2000

Answers

Goats are browsers rather than grazers; like deer rather than sheep, cows, or horses. Our goats loved pine trees (especially cleaning up our Christmas trees).

I would guess that yours will know which browse is OK for them to eat. Whether you approve of their choices is another question!

-- Mike O (olsonmr@yahoo.com), June 28, 2000.

I have read that the following plants are toxic/deadly to goats: yew, oleander, water hemlock/poison hemlock, azaleas/rhododenron, mountain laurel, members of the lily family, wilted wild cherry leaves. We bought our goats last spring. As a precaution, we checked our pasture for any of the above-mentioned plants with the intent of removing them. When summer came, I paid my sons to pull out all the poison hemlock in the pasture. It is easily identified during the summer by its showy, small white flowers in umbrella-like clusters. The roots look like white carrots. It is relatively easy to pull out.

-- Liz Rhein (merhein@shentel.net), June 28, 2000.

Our goats have girdled and stripped the bark off our big pines out back. I finally wrapped the remaining trees with chicken wire, but the ones they got already will die, and I'm not happy about that. My boys & I cruise the neighborhoods after Christmas and scrounge all the Christmas trees we can find, and the goats gobble them up. However, I brought some over to my friend's place for his goats, and they wouldn't touch them!

-- Shannon (Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary) (gratacres@aol.com), June 28, 2000.

Our goats love the cedar trees and have all the greens stripped as high as they can reach standing on their back legs.

-- Deb (andersland@webound.com), June 29, 2000.