Sheep and Goats are 'Garbage Gourmets'

Jun 01, 2023

Do you know any good goat songs?

I’ve known a goat song since I was in elementary school. It was included in my “John Thompson’s Modern Course for the Piano” beginner’s book.

The only lyrics I can recall include, “Bill Grogan’s goat, was feeling fine. Ate three red shirts, from off the line.”

As a third-grader taking piano lessons in the living room of Mrs. Bomberger each Saturday morning, I remember laughing at those words. But that was long before I ever owned any goats.

There have been at least a few sheep on our farm since my brother had “Bertha” and “Beulah” as his 4-H project animals decades ago.

My first sheep named Daisy was our farm’s alternative to herbicides for controlling dandelions in our lawn. Daisy wore a collar attached to a long leash that allowed her to be tied to different trees around the farmhouse yard and do what she did best — graze.

For a while, a neighboring farmer kept sheep in the small pasture that adjoined what had once been our pig stable. However, after I became an adult, I purchased a few sheep of my own.

The sheep made nice “pasture pets,” but since they needed annual shearings, I decided (for additional pasture control services) I’d invest in goats. That’s how Gilda and Gertie, Boer and Toggenberg crossbreds, came to our farm about 25 years ago.

I quickly discovered goats are quirky. They don’t get along particularly well with sheep and they’re great escape artists.

I also discovered they will eat almost anything — whether you want them to or not. While we haven’t had any red shirt dining incidents on our farm, we have found our goats to be useful as living garbage disposals.

Speaking of garbage disposals, in my previous career I helped manage senior citizens’ apartment complexes equipped with garbage disposals.

This was intended as a convenient way to reduce the buildings’ trash outputs. However, it was a learning process for many of these residents who hadn’t previously used a garbage disposal.

One of the cardinal rules was “always turn on the faucet before flipping on the garbage disposal switch.” That part was not usually problematic, but remembering what could and couldn’t be placed into the kitchen sink drain’s garbage disposal was.

There were plenty of maintenance calls for garbage disposals clogged by no-no’s like banana peels or small bones. Sometimes an errant piece of silverware even found its way into a disposal unit, causing lots of noise and turning forks and spoons into pieces of “modern art.”

I knew many of those apartment dwellers came from more rural settings like mine. Our farm doesn’t have a garbage disposal in the sink — instead we have surrounding fields and our goats for disposing of biodegradable leftovers.

Gilda and Gertie have both passed onto their final rewards and two Cashmere goats named Bianca and Remy are now our “goaty gals.”

I got them from a friend who enjoys fiber arts and thought I might like that hobby, too. But alas, weaving requires more patience than I possess.

The goaty gals also aren’t cooperative when their cashmere undercoat starts to loosen in late winter and their fiber needs to be combed out. I just glean what cashmere I can and provide it to my fiber arts friend.

My sheep Peter and Paul came here as twin lambs a little over a year ago. Remy — and especially Bianca — made the pecking order abundantly clear to them from the beginning. Goats are number one and sheep don’t count at all.

There’s come to be an uneasy truce between the four of them, though Bianca and Remy typically have little wads of wool on the ends of their horns from bossing around their sheepish stablemates.

Summer is a favorite time for Bianca and Remy because of all the fresh produce leftovers they receive. The sheep sometimes show a bit of interest, too, but usually get butted away and wander off quickly.

While all four of our ovine and caprine pasture pals enjoy snacking on our discarded Christmas trees in wintertime. (Allow me to share a run-down of the goats’ favorite menu items.) It’s surprising what they like and what they don’t.

First their “no thanks” list. Bianca and Remy could have plenty of potato peelings year-round, but don’t have a taste for them.

This is melon season, though watermelon rinds are not a favorite. Likewise, fruits such as grapes, peaches or citrus peels hold little appeal.

Fortunately, their list of likes is far lengthier. Cantaloupe rinds and sweet corn husks and cobs definitely rate “two hooves up” from the goaty gals.

They also enjoy the trimmings from sugar peas, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower. When fall rolls around, they find apples and apple peels much to their liking. They prefer all of these items to be handfed to them.

Similar to mechanical garbage disposals, my goats won’t eat banana peels ... and we’d never think of giving them bones and they would have no interest in silverware.

They also won’t have access to any red shirts — which in the last verse of the Bill Grogan song, his goat ironically coughed up to flag down a train.

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