Goats pre"fir" Christmas trees

Jan 03, 2022

Goats will eat old Christmas trees for digestive system health.

By Andrew Joseph, Farms.com, Photo by chris robert on Unsplash

Now that holiday season has come and gone for most of us—comes the tiresome job of having to dispose of the ol’ Christmas tree.

But wait! Why not feed it to your goat? Goats, sheep, pigs and even chickens.

Feed’em if you got’em.

As an intriguing way to upcycle and to provide a treat for your goat and other farm animals, the yule tree provides them with a tasty treat and digestive health with some fibre intake.

The old trees, with their drier falling needles provides a bit of acidity for the creatures—helps to clean out the system.

The goats, especially, will eat the needles, bark and twigs. Of course, the creatures won’t eat the entire tree, but with what’s left over—the wood—is used by some farmers to heat their barn. Waste not, want not.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.