Grazing Patterns

The horses graze in a new enclosure while alpacas wander on as-yet-untouched grasses.

This year our front acreage is getting methodically trimmed as animals move about the space in a random assortment of ever-changing enclosures. Very soon it will all have been mowed at least once.

The horses are rough on pasture. Left too long in any one place, they will turn a pasture into close-trimmed earth, or even into a mud pit--as has happened with our recent rains.

The goats' browsing behavior is easier on a pasture overall, but they like to mow down plantings I want to keep. They have an uncanny ability to zero in on those few plants I would like them not to eat, and make the foliage--or the entire plant--disappear in short order. I need to set up something like those dog runs with overhead wires. This could make it easier to move these bigger goats to specified areas. (In past years we would tie out the little goats, anchoring them to stakes or logs or fence panels. The big goats manage to get into trouble much faster, though.)

The goats are browsing this spot for the third time already.

The alpacas are kindest to the earth. Except for the burned-out spots where they position collective toilets, the grasses and forbs recover most quickly after alpacas have grazed the area.

Ideally, we should rotate the different animals through various pastures, but with the different fencing requirements of each type of animal this can be labor intensive. While horses are easily contained with a few strands of electric fence, the alpacas would not feel a shock through their thick coats of fiber. Both horses are alpacas respond well to the five-foot tube panels, but the goats slip past these quite easily. The goats do best behind tight woven-wire fence or cattle panels reinforced by adequate t-posts. For the most part, time and energy dictate which animals go where when.