Look we are in the paper!
By Angela Black
Chieftain columnist
Got weeds? Kade Goebel might have your solution: goats.
When he was six years old, Goebel's mom bought him two pygmy goats. "Since then it's been kind of like a snowball going downhill, picking up more all the time," Goebel said. Now at 19, he's finding ways to make his enthusiasm for goats pencil out through brush-management and organic meat production.
The niche this Wallowa resident is carving for himself wasn't obvious at first. Initially, he wanted to raise goats for show, but found that gas prices were too high for him to travel. He tried dairy goats, but found it was "too labor intensive" and sometimes the udders were cut on heavy brush. He tried raising Angoras, but "I'm in the wrong area to be selling fiber," he said, and the Angoras weren't as hardy as he would've liked.
"I wanted a breed that could handle itself and the kind of terrain we have," Goebel said. Then he found Boers.
"Boers are like the Angus of the goat breed," Goebel said, referring to their reputation for meat production. But it was their weed-clearing abilities that began drawing attention.
"A lot of people started asking about brush," he said. When he noticed thistle, leafy spurge and knapweed on a neighbor's property, Goebel offered to have his goats take care of the problem before the noxious weeds could go to seed and spread to his own pasture.
"It benefited me because I got free pasture and it benefited them because they got rid of their weed problem," he said.
After that initial success, Goebel was so excited about his goats' brush-management potential that he started researching the subject and circulating information around the county.
"I'm trying to get local cattle ranchers that are having problems with weeds to run goats on their pastures," he said. "Some places where the weeds are, you can't get to on an ATV (for spraying), or even on a horse."
Goats don't compete with other pastured animals for food, Goebel said. Horses, sheep and cattle are grazers, eating everything in their paths like lawn mowers, he said. Goats are much pickier, but in a good way. They browse for leaves and prefer the very weeds that Wallowa County ranchers are trying to eradicate.
For best results, Goebel recommends pasturing goats with cattle so the latter will eat the grass and encourage the goats to eat even more weeds. He also recommends grazing goats for multiple years for maximum effect.
Though brush management has become a passion for Goebel, direct meat sales and selling breeding stock remain his primary businesses. He recently added Scottish Highlander cattle to his livestock collection. The Highlander is a smallish, extra -urry, heritage breed of cattle.
"I went to the old heritage breeds because they take care of themselves," he said. The thick coat allows them to survive well in cold climates without needing to put on a big fat layer, so the meat is lean. And the smaller size works well for those with limited acreage, he said.
Goebel is also firm on selling only organic meat. This is a service to his customers that he provides because it's something he values for his own diet. "I wouldn't want to eat something that's got chemicals in it," he said.
For Goebel, a pesticide-free method of weed control and chemical-free food are both the right thing to do and just good business sense, perhaps not coincidentally.
"If you help your environment, it helps you back," he said.