Common Weeds Noxious to Grazing Livestock

Grazing animals seldom eat poisonous weeds or plants but they will if there are other options. Cattle, sheep, and horses, however, can accidentally eat noxious weeds or plants as they graze.

Our goal is to augment Mother Nature’s restoration process

When you have a disturbance to any ground, Mother Nature is going to rush in and protect that ground. It could be a natural disturbance like a flood, hurricane, drought, or a fire that causes the ground to be bare. Or it could be a man-made disturbance like a land development project or new home construction.

Mother Nature sees the ground disturbance as a wound like people get a scab. A scab grows to protect the skin surface and keep the boundary of our skin intact. So it’s the same with Mother Nature, whose answer is to produce annual weeds. That’s their job – to cover that wound and protect the soil and hold the water in.

Next, if you don’t do anything to mitigate the growth of annual weeds, you’re going to see biannual plants and weeds. So you have bare ground, annual, bi-annual, then perennials, and then you’ll see grass. This is the natural progression if you don’t do anything to address the issue. And the reason some of these noxious weeds can survive is they have a tremendous root system. They can reach way down in the soil and get nutrients other grasses cannot get to. That is why goats are the most effective solution to weed and land management.

Call Goats Eat Weeds for more information.