Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Pumpkin Lady <pumpkingal@clearwire.net>]

Zachary Domike wrote:

> "Morgan, who has miniature goats and lives in the land of acres per cow, not cows 
> per acre."
>
> I am certain Harvey supports riparian zones to keep cattle away from streams,

What streams? Playa lakes, maybe. Around here anyway.

> Environmental degradation at the hooves of big animals has brought 
> blight and erosion to millions of acres in my lifetime.  

That's because they are fenced in one area. When bison 
roamed the west they wandered in and wandered out, 
constantly moving. That doesn't work when people own land. 
They want their land for their use. If the animal constantly 
ranges, and I mean MILES, not acres, damage is minimal, in 
fact, I'm pretty sure that's why prairies were prairies, 
they were built by nature for the bison to come through, 
strip off the grass, fertilize it, and move on. That's the 
way the ecosystem works best for it.

The guy next to me has one pasture full of weeds that he 
plows constantly. There is almost nothing in it for his 
horse to eat, he has to truck in hay. The pasture is 2-3 
acres, but nothing good for the horse grows there because 
the horse wanders around eating whatever it can find that it 
thinks is edible. If he would cut it into 3 areas, his horse 
would need a lot less hay because he could control what it 
walked over and let parts recover. The horse couldn't erode 
it all.

My goats have small pastures and I move them from one to 
another to let the land recover from damage and also to cut 
down on worm load in the goats. I am trying out some movable 
electric netting soon that should basically let me never 
have to pasture them on the same spot more than once every 
year(or less) if I work at it and if it works out. I'm not 
precisely sure how long the grass will hold out in one area, 
if it is a month I won't have to touch the same area for 
years. Then again, my goats are 50 - 80 lbs and stand 18 - 
25 inches tall, I COULD have kept them on the lawn of the 
house I had in town if it was allowable. I don't water my 
pastures much, I'd rather move them and keep them from doing 
major damage in just one pen.

> It is still unclear who is responsible for the fences - the herder or the 
> farmer?

Well, since my goats are smaller than most dogs and since my 
goats are dairy goats and I NEED to see them at least twice 
a day or their udders might bust, I keep them close to home. 
They've never made it off my property, and afaict, they have 
no desire to. When they get out (which is rare) they come 
stand on the steps of whatever door is closest and holler 
for me to come see them. They WILL come in if I don't keep 
them out, and they don't go bugnuts when they are inside 
although I don't really WANT them inside. At least one of 
them was bottle raised and thinks she belongs in the house. 
(yes, you can housebreak a goat)

Meat goats (or other meat animals) do not have that same 
kind of relationship with their people. You can't do it. I 
have eaten animals I raised before, but you can't get that 
close to them or it will tear you up emotionally to eat 
them. It's different if they get killed and you dress them 
out so as to not waste the meat, but I can't raise a "pet" 
for slaughter.

As far as the fence issue goes, I am not sure legally, but I 
feel if I have animals I need my property fenced. However, 
if your animals come on my property and I can take pictures 
of them there, I can get damages for what they do legally, 
and if your dog/coyote/wolf/whatever comes on my property 
and kills my animals you owe me damages AND I'm within my 
legal rights to shoot it. I don't have to wait for it to 
kill anything, either. I've addressed this issue this year - 
a pack of wild dogs came in and killed a bunch of my 
pregnant does and boy was I devastated. Since that happened, 
though, the sheriff deputy took pictures and left me a sheet 
with my legal rights. He wanted it made clear to me I could 
kill the suckers if they were stupid enough to come back.

Morgan