Biotope management with goats and sheep

Background and Objective

Many agri-cultural landscapes in Europe are created by sheep. Due to the fact of intensification and abandance of livestock, many of the biotopes are endangered and protected as nature reserverse. They need grazing / browsing by sheep or goats to prevent the invasion of shrubs and high grass cover.

Particularly goats can help to control shrubs.

Goats can tolerate a big proportion of leafs in their diet, like to climb and can even reach feed, where sheep, other livestock or machines have difficulties. With their special browsing behavior they can select good fodder in marginal environments.

At the Thünen-Institute of Organic Farming special questions have been further elaborated, particularly the fodder value of shrub leafs, the behavior of goats in shrub dominated environments and the utilisation of kids without mother in biotop management have been developed. 

Goal of the research was the development of practicable systems of biotop management, which a) reach the goals (shrub control, prevention and improvement of the biotop-indicators), b) are economically for the society (costs of biotop management) and profitable for the animal holder), and c) be acceptable for animal welfare (health, productivity, behavior).

Approach

The system of biotop management with goats was developed by Prof. Dr. Gerold Rahmann at the University of Kassel in the 90s. 

At the Thünen-Institute of Organic Farming open questions left in the system development have been answered: feeding values, grazing/browsing behavior, special system approaches. The dairy goat herd on the experimental station in Trenthorst as well as pratice farms throughout Germany have been used for the research.

Results

• Goats can be used for biotop management up to a level of 60% shrub invasion.
• The fences should be wire and nets. The fence power should have 6000 V.
• Meat breeds (Bure goats) or crosses between milk and meat goat breeds should be used. Pure breed milk breeds suffer due to limited fodder availability and quality.
• Suckling lambs should be done. They can gain 100-150 g per day.
• Goat keeping can reduce the biotop maintenance costs considerably (50-75%).
• The management schemes must pay the difference between ordinary profitability and reduce biotope profitabilities (about 350 Euro/ha and year in Germany).
• The deforestation with goats needs 3-5 years. 
• Manual cleaning has to be added. Roughly 10 h per ha and year with a motor trimmer.
• Parasite and weather conditions have to be controlled to keep livestock healthy.
• Leafes of shrubs can have high quality of nutrients (up to 20-30% of protein, high rate of minerals) and are liked by goats.
• The digestion of leafs is low (below 60%), but depends on seasonal status.

• Schlussbericht - Landschaftserhaltung mit Nutztieren im sozio-ökonomischen Kontext dargestellt am Beispiel ausgewählter Dörfer im Biosphärenenreservat Rhön

Thünen-Contact

• Rahmann, Gerold Institute of Organic Farming

Involved Thünen-Partners

• Georg, Heiko Institute of Organic Farming

Involved external Thünen-Partners

• Universität Kassel
  (Kassel, Witzenhausen, Deutschland)

Funding Body

• Bundesland Hessen
  (national, öffentlich)
• European Union (EU)
  (international, öffentlich)

Duration

7.1993 - 12.2012

More Information

Projekt type:
Funding program: EU - COST Action
Project status: finished

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