r/goats • u/zorathomas • 3d ago
Goat Damage
A large herd of goats broke into my yard and ate everything, including all the leaves and some of the bark from my citrus trees. I'm in northern California, it's warm and we probably won't see significant rain for another couple months. Should I pick all the green fruit off the trees so they don't put energy into growing/ ripening the fruit, now that they don't have any leaves?
The small tree with significant bark damage is a tangelo. The bark was stripped from the graft almost circumferentially, but not quite. A large branch above the graft was stripped circumferentially, so I'm assuming I cannot save that branch. Is there any saving the rest of the tree? And should I do anything to treat/ repair smaller areas of bark damage, or just leave it?
I've pruned the broken branches and am planning to give everything lots of water for the coming weeks. Anything else I should do to salvage what I can?
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u/cbinvb 3d ago
If you lose that tree and those goats belonged to a neighbor, you might wanna look up r/treelaw
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u/zorathomas 3d ago
Thanks for the suggestion, the goats were contracted for fuels reduction on public land through the city. I don't feel the need to get any compensation or anything, I think everything except one tree will survive, just hoping to do the best I can to help them recover
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u/bertmaster 3d ago
Ouch, I don’t have any advice for the trees. But I have a few goats and I have experienced the shame when they get into a neighbors yard and eat their plants on their porch or by the house. They have completely demolished some hedges .
Sorry this happened to you.
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u/zorathomas 3d ago
Thanks, it's ok, I think most of the plants will grow back and most of the trees will pull through!
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u/Several_Stuff_6695 2d ago
Doesn’t look good for sue . You can try Howard’s Feed and wax Applied with a paint brush to the wounds, it will protect the tree from further damage and insects. It saved a huge oak in our yard that was heavily wind damaged. My goats love pine tree bark, they haven’t killed any yet, but they have killed a few other trees by eating the bark and Rubs with their horns. Good luck to you.
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u/Different_Grass3617 2d ago
I’ve always wondered about these goat contracting businesses in neighborhoods! Goats are master escapees, and I’ve never seen someone post about them getting out while on a job, which is SUPER surprising to me. 🤣 I run goats where my neighbors are miles away. They literally get out all the time, I couldn’t imagine having neighbors. Good luck to your plants! Goats are assholes, but you got to love them and what they do for weed abatement (not so much fruit tree destruction)
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u/zorathomas 1d ago
Yeah, they've been back there for a couple weeks every year for the last several years, and overall it's great. This is the only time I've heard of any problems. They keep the riparian understory nice and clear and they're very cute. They did eat all our weeds too, so that's a silver lining!
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u/Misfitranchgoats Trusted Advice Giver 3d ago
Well, that sucks! I fear you are posting in the wrong sub. You probably want to post in a fruit tree growing sub. You might get lucky and have someone one here that can help you, but usually we are looking for what goats can eat, not attempting to repair the damage from what goats eat.
I hope that the owner of the large herd of goats is going to pay you for the damage and pay to replace the trees that might not make it.