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Multi-Species Grazing
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Bonnie and Stan Jensen rent
goats to graze persistent weeds in Idaho.– Photo by Ron
Daines |
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Promoters of multi-species grazing love to discuss the environmental benefits
of managing vegetation for increased forage production, reduced fire fuel loads,
better wildlife habitat and noxious weed control. However, some ranchers are
now making money by offering their livestock grazing services.
While herbicides are an effective front-line weapon in the war on weeds in
most areas, weed warriors decline to use them or hold back where the agri-chemicals
might contaminate water or are too expensive to apply. In Idaho, in areas where
herbicides are not traditionally used yet, noxious weeds are spreading rapidly.
Cashmere goat producer Bonnie Jensen charges $1 a day per goat to graze spotted
knapweed and leafy spurge, typically providing herd sizes of 250 goats.
During Jensen’s SARE-funded pilot project, the goats ate all of the knapweed
buds and blooms on the Salmon City Water Works, the town’s water source
where herbicides are banned, in four days. Fewer than 5 percent of the plants
bloomed again that year. Then the goats moved on to a 40-acre Bureau of Land
Management test area and ate 90 percent of the leafy spurge. The spurge grew
again that year, but did not flower.
Jensen employs a herder on horseback with two dogs. The herder moves the goats
to the weeds so they consume a higher percentage of weeds instead of eating
grass and shrubs.
“Most noxious weeds are not the problem, they’re a symptom of how
the land has been managed,” says Don Nelson, project director for another
SARE-funded multi-species grazing education project in Washington. “Cattle
like to graze grass, but sheep also prefer forbs and goats prefer woody browse.
If you know these preferences, you can inventory a site and create a future
landscape using them as tools.”
After Nelson introduced 30 grazing professionals to multi-species grazing techniques,
one participant teamed up with a local rancher to clear 600 acres of knapweed
and potential fuel for wildfires using sheep and goats. Another participant
helped a ranch manager use goats to control young Russian olive trees –
thorny sprouters that are hard to control with herbicides and fire. The ranch
manager also used goats and cattle to graze bulrushes in standing water. The
goats opened up the bulrush patches enough to dry them out, then the rancher
grazed cattle there to knock down the rest of the “tules.” Prior
to the goat grazing, he never could dry the ground enough to drive a tractor
through the bulrushes.
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Goats tackle perennial pepperweed
as part of a SARE-funded project testing the effects of multi-species
grazing on invasive vegetation at Barker Ranch in West Richfield,
Wash. – Photo by Craig Madsen |
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“We wanted to demonstrate a method of managing rangelands that would
positively impact the triple bottom line – the environment, the ecosystem
and society – by reducing input costs, increasing productivity and enhancing
the ecosystem,” Nelson says. “This includes conversion by ruminants
of undesirable plants to marketable products and a reduction in herbicides.”
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