THE VALUE OF GOATS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2515, 17 December 1927, Page 6

THE VALUE OF GOATS.

NOXIOUS WEEDS CONTROL. ELIMINATION OF BLACKBERRY. EXPERIMENTS IN TARANAKI. (By R. Wright, Live-stock Division,' in the Journal of Agriculture.) A most practical and successful demonstration of thd complete elimination of blackberry, gorse, and fern by means of goats in conjunction with heavy stocking, chiefly with sheep’, has been given by Mr E. J. Carthew, of Barrett Road, near New Plymouth. This work—which has been under departmental observation for some years I has resulted in the conversion ot a blackberry and gorse infested holding of 131 acres into one of the cleanest farms in the district, and its maintenance in a weedi-free condition during the past three years. The outstanding feature in connection with tins matter is the fact that the land is being) and can be permanently maintained in its present clean condition at extremely small cost, while its stocil c-carrying capacity has immensely increased When the holding was acquired by its present owner its carrying capacity was some thirty cows, while during the past three years or more the farm (of which an area of about- 100 acres is m pasture, and the remainder in bush, etc.) has carried a flock of sheep numbering six hundred wethers during the summer months, with reduction to four hundred during th-j winter season, as well as several horses and a score or more of cattle. This is in addition to the goats, some two hundred of which were kept on the place for the first year or two. At the time of my latest visit of inspection, in January last, the number of stock on the farm was six hundred wethers, eight horses, twenty-three cattle, and forty goats, all of which had been grazing for some months on the 100 acres of pasture. A systematic inspection of the entire holding has been made on each visit. On the first occasion, within two years of Mr Carthew’s entry into possession of the property, it was found that the old! growth of blackberry, gorse and bracken fern was apparently dead; a subsequent inspection confirmed this view, it being found that all such growth was down and had been burnt, the old stems and root csowns being then completely dead and the crowns covered with an abundant sole of grass. Odd seedlings of both blackberry and gorse continue to make their appearance in many places, the ground yet being well supplied with seed from the past heavy infestation, and it is necessary to still keep a few goats (now limited to forty) on the farm to destroy these seedlings as they appear —which work the goats attend to most effectively. Though I had not been on the area before the attack on the noxious weeds commenced, there was on my first visit clear evidence that practically the whole of the 100 acres of bushfree country on the place had been infested with blackberry and gorse, with some fern—but chiefly with blackberry. Mr F. W. Sutton, Inspector of Stock, New Plymouth, who has an intimate knowledge of the district generally and of this farm in particular, states that when acquired by the present owner the property was so overrun with noxious weeds that its value had been lowered in a few years by more than 50 per cent. Its present enhanced value is due to the cleared areas, and not to any general rise in land-values in the locality. On acquiring the farm the present owner made an attempt at hand-clear-ing, but found this a very slow and costly method, without any guarantee that the cutting and grubbing would have a permanent effect. The land is of a broken and ridgy nature, intersected with steep faces and gullies, and is therefore to a. great extent unproughable; thus control by means of tillage could not he adopted. This being the case, after having cleared and burned the roughage of gorse and blackberry on some of the more accessible portions of the ridges, a change in plan of operations was made. It was decided to try the effect of a large herd "of goats, commencing, as already stated, with two hundred of these animals. The method adopted was to first put on in one paddock forty or fifty cattle for. a day or two to clean up any grass roughage and trample down some of the growth of rough weeds. As the cattle were moved on to another paddock several hundred sheep were brought in immediatly following for one day, and as they in • turn were moved a paddock farther on the goats were brought in to the first paddock (by then bare of all paaturue) to set to work on the blackberry and gorse, etc. This process was continued through the whole series of paddocks—first cattle, then sheep, then goats, one following the other from paddock to paddock day after day and month after month. After some preliminary experience Mr Carthew found that for early success small paddocks were essential, and the farm was then further subdivided into fifteen paddocks. A regular routine was followed of moving the stock forward one paddock each day, the four hundred to six hundred wethers, together with a number of cattle, being followed one day behind by the herd! of two hundred goats. Each paddock had fourteen clays’ spell before the stock plot round to it, and therefore a far growth of fresh young pasture, etc., for the cattle and sheep in each field as it was reached, but little or none for the goats following after. These animals therefore made a sever© attack on the weeds, with very effective results. The good work of the goats was early apparent, and in a very short space of time it was evident that the complete elimination of all noxious plants was assured. After carrying on this system for some time Mr Carthew decided to run all the stock together, with the usual daily shift of one paddock ahead, and lie states that the results of this later method were ecjually satisfactory. On the farm to-day there is not a gorsebush nor a blackberry vine to be seen, all having been cleared out of even the steepest and most inaccessible creek-beds. Mr Carthew firmly holds that there need bo no separation of the pjbats and sheep—that there is no need to have the goats following one paddock behind the sheep. My own opinion, however, i» that better results and earlier riddance of blackberry, etc., .

will be effected by having each paddock eaten bare of pasture before the goats are turned in, as then they must devote the whole of their feeding to the vines and shrubs, there being practically nothing else left for them. The subdivision of the area into smal.'er paddocks was done by tho erection of temporary fences, all the lower wires being barbed;. Barbed wire was also put round the boundaryfences of the farm in order to confine the goats to their domain. The goats were obtained at an average price of about 5s each, the total cost of the two hundred being about £SO, and this expenditure was recouped to the owner by additional profits from the sin cep in a very short space of time. Contrary to expectations, tine sheep were found to be in excellent condition, many being fit for the butcher; each autumn, as a matter of fact, a fair draft of fat wethers has gone from the farm to the meat-freezing works. The wool-clip has also been very satisfactory, and! though damage to fleeces from th,e barbed wire fences might have been expected there was no evidence of any injury from this cause. Good fences are essential to success, and experience has proved to Mr Carthew that wether goats are best workers, though a certain number of nannies and billies require to be kept to maintain the supply of goats, unless they can be cheaply obtained from outside. Mortality among! the kids is heavy when the goats are being continually moved). For breeding purposes the proportion of the sexes is much the same as with sheep—one billy to forty or fifty nannies. Mr Cart lie w proposes to top-dress the farm with fertiliser at an early date, and if this is done its carrying capacity should be still further improved; though it is hard to-imagine much increase on the quantity of stock now carried.