Clearing a Steep Hillside: Why Goats Work Where Machines Cannot

Hillsides are the reason many people call us. Tractors tip, mowers slide, and hand crews on a steep slope work slowly and at some risk. Goats are good at slopes. They have good balance, they are comfortable on uneven ground, and they will work their way up a hill grazing as they go.

What makes a slope hard

The goats are the easy part. The challenges are the things around them.

• Fencing. Temporary electric netting has to be set on the contour, and setting it on a steep slope is slow. The herder may fence along the top and bottom and let the herd work the face, or run narrower strips across the slope.
• Water. A herd needs water every day, and water is heavy. If the nearest tap is at the bottom of the hill and the herd is at the top, someone has to carry it or truck it.
• Access. A livestock trailer needs a road. If the only way up is a footpath, the herd has to be walked in, which takes time and may not be possible.
• Footing for the herder. The person who sets the fence has to be able to reach it.

What goats can do on a slope

Goats can strip the brush and weeds from a steep face without a single machine touching it. They are good at the kind of vegetation that grows on slopes: tangled brush, vines, thistles and weedy growth in places where nobody wants to send a person with a trimmer. They eat the woody growth that a mower cannot cut at all.

Several university and federal groups describe targeted grazing as a tool for fuel reduction on steep or inaccessible land, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service lists prescribed grazing as a recognized conservation practice. See prescribed grazing as a federal practice.

What goats cannot do

• Vertical rock and loose scree. There is a limit even for goats, and for herders.
• Large trees and thick woody trunks. Goats strip leaves and small stems. They do not remove a mature shrub trunk.
• Everything in one pass. On a hillside, one grazing pass rarely finishes the job. See why repeat visits matter.

A note about erosion

Bare slopes erode, and grazing leaves the root systems of plants in place, which helps compared with scraping or disking. But overgrazing a slope is a real risk, and that is why herd size and move times are controlled by the herder. The evidence is covered in can grazing help or hurt erosion on a slope?

What to expect from a quote

A steep job costs more than a flat one of the same size, because fence, water and herder time all go up. Do not be surprised if a hillside quote is higher per acre than a field. That is not a trick. It is the actual work. If you want to understand what goes into a quote, see how to read a goat grazing quote.