MARCH 2018 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
Environmentally- friendly weed control
Roving goat herds in demand to control noxious weeds
by MYRNA STARK LEADER WILLIAMS LAKE – Goats
can provide sustainable vegetation control and there’s more of that work to go around than there are goats to do it, says Conrad Lindblom, a long-time goat rancher in Beaverlodge, AB. Lindblom owns Rocky
Ridge Vegetation Control and spoke to students and producers during a seminar regarding the use of goats for targeted grazing at the end of January. The session was spearheaded by Gillian Watt, co-ordinator of the applied sustainable ranching program at Thompson Rivers University in Williams Lake. Current and past students attended the seminar, which was also offered via video conference. A third-generation rancher,
Conrad and his wife Donna have been in the goat business since they left cattle ranching behind about 20 years ago. When they retired (he, an electrician and she, a nurse), they crunched the numbers and determined they could make more money with goats than cows. They raise the goats for meat, but it’s how they raise them that’s unique. As far as Lindblom knows,
Rocky Ridge is one of only four ranches in Western Canada using goats for grazing and weed control. There is one other in Alberta, as well as one each in Saskatchewan and BC. All have set up in the past three years. “We’re not an alternative to chemicals,” he said. “[The goats and sheep] were here first. It’s the young people getting into it who are
concerned about the land and sustainability.”
Lindblom had lots of land filled with poplar growing so thick it would never develop into good timber. He went in with some equipment and knocked down the trees but clean up would have been expensive, so he let the goats go to work instead. “The goats gained weight on the leaves that were down. It was very cost-effective,” he says, showing pictures of how efficiently the goats cleared the area – so well, in fact, that the land is once more leasable pasture. “As ranchers, we can
diversify and improve the quality of the land,” he explains.
Goats work for several reasons “The last thing goats eat is
the grass,” says Lindblom. “Cows are grazers but goats are browsers. Cows eat from the grass up but goats eat from the top down.” Goats’ digestive enzymes enable them to eat many undesirable plants. They also refuse to eat pine and spruce, making them perfect for natural weed control in areas being reforested. “This is part of the industry that is wide open to anyone who wants to work for the summer,” says Lindblom. The other goat rancher in
Alberta had $100,000 worth of contracts last year, even though she had no prior experience with goats and operated on leased land with just a tent/tarp barn. When the forestry industry got into tougher economic times due to the pine beetle, Lindblom put his goats to work in urban areas like
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Goats are weedeaters and there is a growing demand for herds to help control noxious weeds – especially in areas that are hard to access. ROCKY RIDGE VEGETATION CONTROL PHOTOS
Kamloops and Logan Lake doing natural weed control. “We got a good contract to
do weed control along the river. They couldn’t spray and it was a dangerous area for people to work in,” he says. That contract paid $1,500
per day and kept 440 goats fed. “We find 300 is a really good number when they’re in a park. They cover a good area and aren’t too many to handle,” says Lindblom. “Goats
can eat poisonous plants as long as it’s not more than 10% to 20% of their diet. I’ve never lost a goat to weeds but I have lost a stallion.” Watt adds that research is
underway to put some science behind these eating machines.
Lindblom uses Quarter Horses and purebred Great Pyrenees and German Shepherd dogs to herd and protect his goats from predators when they work.
The more goats that are working, the more dogs. In his forestry projects, that was upwards of 1,500 goats. Lindblom kids his goats early so they’re about 40 pounds by summer and ready to feed with the flock. Typically, they graze for 120 days. After they’ve finished their summer work, the goats are usually 70-80 pounds and ready for slaughter.
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