Use of goats as biological agents for the renovation of pastures in the Appalachian region of the United States

Much of hill-land pasture in the Appalachian region of the United States is dominated by herbaceous weeds and brush. Low cost, low input and environme ntally acceptable reclamation procedures are needed to maintain the product ivity of these pastures. This experiment evaluated the effectiveness of usi ng goats (Capra hircus hircus) alone (30 mature, brush does/ha) or cattle ( Bos taurus) with goats (17 mature, brush does/ha + two to three steers/ha - 225 kg average live weight) to reclaim a pasture from an abandoned, overgr own 5.9 ha orchard left untouched for 15 years. Over four grazing seasons, managed defoliation resulted in a substantial increase in herbaceous vegeta tive cover in plots grazed by goats alone (65 to 86%) and by goats with cat tle (65 to 80%) while vegetative cover decreased from 70 to 22% in the cont rol plot. Similarly, the cover by grass species increased in the grazed plo ts (goats: 16 to 63%; goats + cattle: 13 to 54%) while averaging 10% in the control plot. Multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora Thumb.) bushes were practic ally eliminated after four grazing seasons as quantified by an average redu ction in height from 2.1 m to 0.6 m, and by the number of dead canes (stems ) in both the goat (100%) or goat + cattle (92%) treatments. Results indica ted that the foraging habits of goats resulted in the elimination of multif lora rose bushes and in a significant increase in desirable forage species.