05/16/2026
If you have goats this is worth the read!!
Toxic plants!
We are expanding the doe pen fence pretty significantly today, and unfortunately, this beautiful tree had to be cut down. I know, I know. Hear me out first.
Whenever you fence off or open up new areas for your goats, it is very important to be extra vigilant about potential toxic plants within their new bounds, and to remove these plants before the goats have access to them. My preferred go-to method of being good at this is to walk around the new area with a plant ID app on my phone, take pictures of everything, and just Google "can goats eat ###?". (Reminder: AI summaries are very frequently a blatant lie. Go to good websites like Fiasco Farms, or anywhere with humans discussing these subjects, not what AI says!).
Once I have my list of --safe-- and --unsafe--, I'll go through and eradicate the unsafe. Some of these require simple pull and toss methods, but others can be a bit more involved, so make sure to look at how to get rid of certain toxic invasives as well if needed.
"But Dani! Listen! My goats are smart and just dont eat the toxic plants!!"
Cool:) They probably will eventually. I view it as a ticking time bomb. Now, this method may work just fine and dandy for what I consider to be 'mildly irritant' plants - things like lilac, buttercup, yarrow, oak leaves... These plants can be pretty toxic in very large doses, but tend to have major side effects such as making the goats' mouths super ouchy or itchy prior to reaching a toxic dose, which keeps the goats away. Anyone who has ever seen our property knows that we have been overtaken by lilacs, which is a beautiful problem to have, but I still try to limit the goats' access to them when I can. HOWEVER, there are many, many plants that it only takes a couple curious chomps to be entirely deadly. These include but are not limited to: yew, azaleas, japanese maples, most ornamental trees/bushes, hydrangeas, oleander, practically any and all bulb flowers (hyacinth, iris, daffodil, lily, etc), any and all stone fruit trees like cherry trees, plum trees, avocado trees, etc.
So - if your method is to trust your goat herd's intelligence, especially with the highly toxic varieties, I truly cannot tell you enough that its a game of Russian roulette. One day, when hay or forage is a little scarce even if just for a short few hours, or a dumbo baby nibbles on the wrong thing, you will have a significantly bad time.
"But Dani! You mentioned stone fruit trees! Why did you cut down the pictured plum tree, but we all know you have a cherry tree in the pasture?!"
Here's where you all gotta hear me out. Understanding what parts of different plants are toxic and why is important. The cherry tree in our backyard is non-fruit bearing. It does not ever produce actual cherries. With stone fruit trees, there are two aspects that tend to be the most toxic.
1. The pits in the fruits are highly toxic. If a goat eats cherry, plum, avocado, whatever pits - a guaranteed not great time. Fortunately for our pasture cherry tree, it is non-fruit bearing, so this is also a non-issue for our tree.
2. Wilted stone fruit tree leaves are INCREDIBLY toxic. But... only when wilted. This is primarily a concern if the tree loses limbs, or falls. My goats eat the leaves straight off of the cherry tree just fine and dandy, but if we have a storm come through or Diesel rips a limb off of it, I am very diligent in ensuring those limbs and leaves are removed before any goats gain access to the tree.
I do have the cherry tree in its own gated area where I can block it off from the goats anytime. In the event of a problematic storm, or if I'm feeling a bit concerned about it, they lose access to the tree. Now, in the case of the beautiful plum tree we cut down, it is both fruit-bearing, not well established (so far more prone to losing limbs or falling entirely), and in an area that I am not planning to restrict goat access. While the cherry tree does have risks, those risks have been, for the most part, mitigated. For the plum tree, it is simply all risk.
Besides, I have a feeling these plum trees are pretty damn invasive anyway, since we have a line of actually a dozen+ adolescent plum trees along our forest treeline. In all seriousness, if someone wants to come dig them up and transplant them to their property, I am all for it. They are 5 gallon bucket root ball size.
When I go shopping at plant nurseries, I always spend waaaaay too much time on my phone looking up what is highly toxic, what is mildly irritant, and what is completely safe. I plan at all times for my goats to break out at some point and raid my garden, so I try to ensure if that does happen, they are as safe as I can make it. For pretty ornamental trees, I really want to buy some beautiful magnolias. Safe and even healthy for the goats, and I still get my pretty flowers. Its actually very fun to plan goat safe areas with plants!
