Farms.com Home   Ag Industry News

Goats pre"fir" Christmas trees

Goats pre"fir" Christmas trees

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.

 


Trending Video

How the corn-soy diet transformed swine nutrition

Video: How the corn-soy diet transformed swine nutrition

At the 2026 ASAS Midwest Section meeting, Dr. Robert Easter, professor emeritus of swine nutrition at the University of Illinois, spoke at the U.S. Soy sponsored Swine Application Symposium, offering a historical perspective on one of the most important developments in modern pig production: the corn-soybean meal diet. What today is considered a foundational feeding strategy was not always obvious or even accepted.