Sprucing up a goat’s diet
January 1 not only marks a new year but another season of real Christmas trees put to the curbs of suburbia for pickup by town and village maintenance crews. For an ol’ farmer, with granddaughter goats, there’s opportunity among the snowbanks like picking fruit off the vine.
Yes, it’s a bit weird to traverse the streets and cul-de-sacs in a pick-up looking for green goat food, but I thrive in frugality. Oh, you get a curtain drawn back from a curious resident wondering “What the heck?” I usually give them a quick shout-out, like “I’m not casing the joint, just looking for your Christmas trees.”
I like visiting with a random shoveler about harvesting the Christmas fruit for goats to eat. Sadly, most haven’t talked with a farmer in years. It invariably leads to our century farm story and the next generation’s enterprise and the hope that they’ll buy the future chèvre products. It’s like recycling and farm marketing rolled into one. It’s a pretty good story that tastes great.
It turns out goats are fantastic Christmas tree recyclers. If you don’t believe it, type “goats grazing Christmas trees” into your internet browser and you’ll see a plethora of piney goat pun examples, especially from small farms near populated areas looking to reduce feed costs.
A conifer is said to be a natural dewormer for the deer “wannabes,” although research suggests the trees be offered as a supplement, and in moderation, to the daily hay and grain winter diet. The pine needles contain a wealth of nutrients such as vitamins A and C and minerals like manganese and zinc. The goats also strip the bark looking for beneficial tannins for digestion.
Chowing down on a yummy novelty interrupts the daily routine of eating hay and is a fun enrichment activity too. When my granddaughters, Hadley and Emerson, “let them loose” to play in the snow, they wander over to the garden and glean the standing Brussels sprouts, chard and raspberry bushes and nibble on random tree leaves. These complimentary feed sources, such as “tree hay,” are timely alternatives to reduce feed costs and provide added nutrients.
Feeding fodder to livestock is an age-old practice but it’s gaining popularity in feedstock procurement, where these animals can turn forage sources into human protein. Even though pine needles are collected for tea, culinary uses and aromatherapy, I prefer to eat my pine via chèvre.
So there you have it, another way a local farm helps the community add value to the recycling system. It might resemble a Hallmark movie where Christmas trees grown and harvested locally are placed in a home and adored with holiday memories, then taken to a farm where the next generation farmer feeds the magical fodder to the animals. In typical Hallmark fashion, maybe a budding romance starts over some conversation and goat milk fudge.
These spruced-up actors produce milk, meat and fiber while providing “pelleted” nutrients back to the soil and new seedlings, and finally the trees are either bunched together for wildlife habitat or chipped for bedding and the compost is fed back to the underground livestock to start the whole process over again.
Film directors take note!
French author Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Christmas tree-eating goats? Good as it ever was, even in 2026.
by Troy Bishopp, NatGLC
