Turn Your Weeds into Cashmere
      By: Sarah Downs, WHS student.
           As you look across a wide-open range, you see a variety of colors.  You see some spots of purple, some of a green-yellow color, and some patches of such a variety of colors you couldn't name them all.  As you get closer you see that the purple and green-yellow colors belong to weeds, not ordinary weeds, but noxious weeds that are pushing those radiant patches of indescribable color right out of the country.  Some people use herbicides to get rid of them.  Some people use insects.  Some people use...goats?!  Tom and Ann Dooling, of Dillon, Montana, have learned that goats are probably one of the most efficient methods to get rid of your weeds and to make a little cash on the side, also. (1) After talking to them, I am convinced that they are on to something.
           I would like to give you some insight into: 1) how goats get rid of weeds, 2) the advantages of goats, 3) the disadvantages of goats, and 4) the three most useful products of goats.
           According to Ann, the only way that you can kill a weed without using herbicide is to use three tactics. (1) First, you have to prevent the weed from flowering.  Second, somehow you have to prevent the weed from producing seed heads or seeds.  Third, you have to cut off the plant's intake of carbohydrates.  (1) Just like everything else, if the weed can't get food, it will die.
           The way that the goats do this is that they strip the plant of leaves and flowers.  Then, all that is left is a stem, and stems don't photosynthesize.  (3) After the goats have eaten down an area, as much as is appropriate without wearing out the range, the goats are moved.  After a while, the goats are finally back in the first place and if the weed has rejuvenated at all, the goats re-strip the plant.  This happens until the weeds die.
           Some people might wonder, wouldn't the goats eat everything, including the range grasses?  Well, goats are browsers.  Unlike horses and cows, which are obligate grazers (meaning that they only eat grasses), goats nibble here and there.  They nibble on shrubs, weeds, and even trees instead of the range grasses.  Goats are even better than sheep, because even though sheep do browse somewhat, they still graze.  The fact that goats don't graze means that later on, other animals, like cows or sheep, can be run through the area and it still makes good grazing ground. (1)
           According to Nina Baucus, who runs the Sieben Ranch with John Baucus, "One of the biggest problems with the goats is predators." (2) Nina and John Baucus lease about 3,200 goats from the Doolings in an experiment to control the weeds and conifer encroachment on their ranch range lands. (2) She says that so far, since last June, there have been 100 to 150 goats killed. (2) On the ranch, the most common predators are coyotes and mountain lions. (2) When I asked Ann about using donkeys or lamas, she said that she had tried them both, but the goats just travel over too much of an area, even in just a day, to really allow any "care-takers" to be profitable. (1)
           Another thing that Nina says has been a pretty big problem is the lack of fences on the ranch. (2) The Sieben Ranch is huge.  Roughly, it encompasses around 100,000 acres. (3) They raise cattle and sheep on the ranch.  The few fences are enough for the cattle, and the sheep are with sheepherders. (2) The goats don't have anyone to watch over them as they try to tackle their first winter on the range.  Because of this, the goats can pretty much wander almost anywhere that they want to.  This means that the goats are able to get places, even where they aren't wanted. (2)
           The three most useful products from the approximately 4,000 goats that Ann and Thomas Dooling raise are the goat's ability to be useful for weed control, the goat meat, and the cashmere that the goats produce. (1) With the three combined, the Doolings are making quite a profit.
           Goat meat is the most profitable thing that Tom and Ann's cashmere goats have going for them. (1d) Each doe has two kids a year.  At 3-4 weeks, the kids are weaned.  If both of the kids are bucks, both will be sold.  For one carcass, the buyer that Tom and Ann sell to will pay about 60 dollars.  So, not counting the income from the fleece and counting the cost of hay, which averages about 15.75 cents per day, for four months out of the year, each doe brings in about 120 dollars per year. (1) Also, sometimes the does have triplets and sometimes even quadruplets. (1d) If you average this in, it is quite a profit.
           Goat meat right now has a better market than both lamb and cattle meat, especially in California. (1 & 3) For goat meat, buyers are paying about $2.19 per pound. (1) If a doe lives on the range, her average life is 8-9 years. (1) With an average of two kids per year, even if both of the kids are females, the profit just keeps pouring in.
       Because the goats are browsers and eat noxious weeds, people will lease the goats to get rid of their weeds.  With the goats eating other people's weeds, the Doolings don't have to feed their goats anything most of the year.  During the winter, the Doolings feed the goats grass hay, in addition to whatever else the goats can find, such as the bark from trees and some of the hardier shrubs. (1) With the food supplied from browsing, and from the hay provided, each goat eats 5-7 pounds of forage per day. (1) The reason that the goats aren't fed alfalfa hay is because it is more expensive, and it also has a lot of protein in it.  With too much protein, the goat's cashmere fibers can get too thick. (1) If the fiber is too thick, it won't meet national standards.  Also, with too much protein, the goats have some propensity to develop renal stones.  (1)
           The goats also enjoy canola vine. (1) This is the agricultural byproduct of canola oil.  The goats also sometimes consume barley and weed hay. (1) Down in more southern parts of the country where cotton is grown, cottonseed is commonly fed.  Basically, most agricultural byproducts are good feed to goats.  (1)
           Another thing that is really useful to the Doolings is the goat's cashmere.  Right now, the goat's cashmere isn't in the best of shape, but with some pedigree cashmere blood, the nannies will soon be producing twice as much as they are now. (3) Cashmere goats need to be sheared once a year. (1) The goats are easier to shear than sheep, because the goats will stand and let you clip them, while sheep you have to turn over, which is a lot harder on your back.  Another thing that makes cashmere more profitable for the Doolings is that they own the only knitting company in the U.S. that uses American Cashmere. (1)
           When I asked Ann about how hardy the goats were, she said that they were doing pretty good.  The goats are originally from Texas.  They were hauled up, four hundred at a time in sheep trucks.  Throughout the haul, they aren't allowed to have food or water.  Even through that, they were just more hungry than usual when they were unloaded.  Also, Ann and Tom only lose about 8-10 a year in birthing.  According to Ann, the reason that goats are so hardy is because there hasn't been a lot of manipulation in genetics by man. (1)
           Goats are hardy, can withstand the cold, and they can kid by themselves.  There might be a future for these hardy creatures.  Some think automatically that goats are pesky critters that eat anything.  In reality, they might be another piece to the puzzle of fighting weeds.
      Bibliography
      1. Dooling, Ann.  Dillon, Montana.  Phone number: 683-5445

      2. Baucus, Nina.  Helena, Montana.  Sieben Ranch.

      3. Baucus, Perry.  "Weedeaters with an Attitude".  The Montana Standard.  Vol. 124, No. 95.  pg. A1 and A7.  September, 1999.

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