Goats used to control juniper and restore rangeland

By JULIET BRISKIN | Staff writer

Dr. Charles "Butch" Taylor, professor and superintendent at the TAMU Experiment Station in Sonora, discusses the use of goats to help manage juniper during the San Angelo Sheep and Goat Field Day. -Staff photo by Briskin

September 18, 2003 -- Education and research are the cornerstones of the Texas A&M University (TAMU) Agriculture Research and Extension System. On any given day across the state, TAMU specialists are doing their part to teach farmers and ranchers how to run more successful operations. One of the tools these specialists use to pass on information to the agricultural community is the field day.

For the past 30 years, the TAMU Research and Extension Center in San Angelo has hosted a sheep and goat field day for the state's producers. This year the event was held on Sept. 4, and featured experts discussing such topics as using goats to help control juniper (cedar) and restoring degraded rangeland.

Dr. Charles "Butch" Taylor, professor and superintendent at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station in Sonora, addressed participants on the role goats can play in controlling juniper through consumption. According to Taylor, the key to controlling juniper with goats is timing. It's important to give the goats access to the plants at seed-germinating time. "This will do a lot to help remove the seedlings," he explained.

For many landowners a major concern is how the goats affect wildlife management and the deer population. Taylor explained that removing goats from a pasture does not necessarily improve the wildlife habitat and when the goat herd is properly managed it can peacefully coexist with the deer population.

"To me, trying to stay in the ranching business boils down to economics," he stated. "If you look at mechanical and chemical treatments they will allow you to control cedar, but they are very expensive. Fire and goats are the two most sustainable and cost effective ways to manage cedar."

Not all goats will eat juniper and Taylor explained the first step in using goats as a cedar control tool is to identify which animals in the herd have a taste for the juniper berry. "We have done heritability studies in an attempt to identify which goats are prone to eat juniper voluntarily," he said. "By identifying these types of goats, developing them and using them effectively in cedar pastures, they will not put as much pressure on the good browse that is needed to sustain a healthy deer population."

Currently Taylor and his colleagues are studying Angora and other "hair" goats in an attempt to develop super juniper eaters. "Our initial studies show that the Boer-Spanish cross is a goat that will consume more juniper than the Angoras," he explained. "The study has also shown us that there is a huge variation in juniper consumption with Angora goats. By looking at both breeds we are trying to develop a goat that will consume quite a bit of juniper."

Another challenge facing landowners is degraded rangeland and with periods of serious drought and/or grazing with sheep and goats, pastures can quickly become dry and barren. Dr. Darrell Ueckert, range scientist at the TAMU Experiment Station in San Angelo, addressed participants on methods to help restore degraded rangeland.

Ueckert explained that when the land is degraded, and there is not a good vegetative cover on the ground, even a good rainfall event will not draw much grass. Because of the original lack of vegetation there are no good barriers to runoff and the water is not allowed to soak into the soil to any great depth. One way to allow the moisture to get deep into the soil, once vegetative cover has been destroyed, is by using a technique called ripping.

According to Ueckert, ripping is a process using a tractor fitted with a ripper and a furrow opener or a ripper by itself. A ripper is a tool used for breaking up the soil and attaches to the hitch of a tractor.

"A less drastic mechanical soil modification technique is to use just the ripper," he explained. "Both of these methods create an uplifting of the soil and form a ridge on each side of the rip." When using the furrow opener, water storage capacity is increased and a considerably higher ridge of soil is created compared with using just a ripper.

"The value of this technique is found in the ridges of soil that resist runoff and slow the water down so it can begin to accumulate in the furrows," explained Ueckert.

In a study comparing degraded rangeland where the ripping technique was used with land that had not been ripped, the soil moisture concentration was considerably different. "Where we had not ripped, we had moisture only about 15 inches deep," he reported. "Along a rip where we planted mid-grasses and had a good stand, we recorded moisture 60 inches deep. Actually it went deeper than that, but our soil probe is only 60 inches long."

In addition, results of this study showed where the land was ripped and naturally colonized with native short-grasses, moisture penetration was increased but did not go as deep as in areas where the rips were seeded with mid-grasses. "Our goal for these mechanical treatments is not for them to last forever because we know it won't," explained Ueckert. "With hoof action from grazing, the mechanical treatments are going to settle in. Our goal is to establish a dense band of mid-grasses along the rips. After that rip settles back in and the soil gets packed down, nature will take over and help conserve water the natural way."