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  • From: "K Q" <kumquat@operamail.com>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Fruit Tree and goat care
  • Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 07:16:19 -0800

Dear Mr. Moyer,

I have read accounts of folks who make a thickish slurry of goat manure and
water. They then coat the tree trunk with that perhaps from ground level to 5
feet up. Word has it that goats absolutely will not bother the trunk after
this treatment. Wholistic, organic, and it recycles something!

I had a chestnut seedling of around 6 feet tall once that the cat had used
for a scratching post, then a baby puppy tore strips of bark up to around 4
feet from ground level. Really sickened me. Imagine half the bark gone from a
tree like this. I read on the net to do nothing for the wound, that nature
would not like it, real arborists do not recommend coatings, etc etc. So for
the first 3 years that is what I followed. However, the winter rains would
wet the wood and it started growing fungus and tiney mushrooms. I knew this
was not good, so I coated the whole wound, from ground level clear up to the
top with a good grade of silicon caulking rated against UV radiation, it was
clear in color. Did it when the wood was bone dry in the summer. Last winter,
the wood was not whetted, there were no more signs of fungus and mushrooms
growing, and the long wound is slowly growing back together as I keep the
tree well watered during the summer months. I would advise you to let that
wood of yours dry for a year, and next summer (2007) give it a generous
coating of silicone caulk. Works real good.

Kenneth Q.

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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 10:41:42 -0400
From: "Richard Moyer" <ramoyer@gmail.com>
Subject: [NAFEX] Fruit Tree and goat care
To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
Message-ID:
<619330e60607110741hd84bd01u105e49ddbd3f202b@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Advice requested:
We just bought 2 Nigerian Dwarf does, who are meeting our fresh milk needs.

One went from the milking stand this morning to eating some weeds and
hanging grapeleaves, which is what we like.

When I looked up again, she had just pulled 2 big hunks of bark (4-5" long)
from a 3" persimmon sapling, which we had recently topworked. That tree and
two others like it are on my to do list to protect today, with 2"x4"
fencing--somehow she knew! (She, so far, had avoided debarking all other
saplings in their woodlot.)

I put the goats in their fence, wrapped the persimmon trunk in parafilm and
shaded it with cardboard.
Any other advice on care of this trunk? 1/3-1/2 of the bark is gone in 2
spots on the south side.

Second question, for those with goat experience:
Do we assume that goats will strip bark, anytime, any season, on any tree?
If there an age/size of fruit tree that is ever avoided when plenty of other
browse and concentrate is around? Or do I assume that any fruit tree, any
size, may be debarked at anytime, thereby always fencing them out?

Thanks,
Richard Moyer
East TN

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