If one wishes to clear brush land, he should confine the goats to a
comparatively small tract. The goats kill the shrubs by eating the
leaves and by peeling the bark from the branches and trunks of the
trees. The brush thus deprived of lungs, soon dies and the roots rot. As
fast as the leaves grow they must be consumed, so it is well to allow
the goats to eat most of the leaves off of a limited tract, and then in
order to give the goats plenty of feed, they should be moved to another
field. As soon as the leaves on the first tract have regrown the goats
should be again confined to this land. In this way the leaves are
continually destroyed. This process can be continued as fast as the
leaves regrow. By this method it is estimated that a bunch of one
hundred to one hundred and fifty goats will clear forty acres of thick
brush in about two years. In countries where the grass grows as the
brush dies, goats will eat some of this grass, but they prefer the
browse.
On some of the older goat ranches, where the Angora has been raised
exclusively for the mohair and mutton, it has become quite a problem to
prevent the goats from killing out the brush. The goats have done well
where other kinds of livestock would have starved, but as soon as the
brush is killed the land produces almost nothing, and even the goats
cannot make a living. To prevent as far as possible their killing the
brush the flocks are moved frequently from one range to another, so that
the shrubs have a chance to recuperate between visits. In this way
brush can be kept almost indefinitely for the goats. On some of the
western ranges, where cattle and sheep have, by continual cropping,
killed much of the grass, good browse remains. These ranges would have
to be abandoned if it were not for the goat. Goats do not in any way
interfere with the pasturage of cattle or other livestock. Cattle feed
contentedly on the same range with the goats, and this fact has led many
southern cattle men to invest in goats. The goats are herded on the
brushy lands, and the cattle range over the same territory and eat the
grass. Horses have a great fondness for goats.