What fruit/nut trees to plant to shade goat pens?

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

We have one medium sized goat pen, and this weekend will make headway on the 2nd one. The first is to be for boys (but has a preggo girl right now) and the 2nd one for the girls and their kids.

We planned the goat pens, keeping in mind the very hot summers we get here on the Colorado plains, so that there's room to plant trees just outside the south side of each pen. Between 8-12 trees per pen.

Question: what kind would be best? The thinking is that the trees would provide lots of shade, and when it comes time to harvest, the most ripe fruit or nut would fall into the pen and the goats would eat them. Assuming we don't harvest it all first!

My choices:
-apples
-pears
-almonds
-hazelnuts
-combination thereof

Are there any of these that goat's can NOT eat (possible poisoning, etc)? They would probably gnaw through the outer shells for the nuts. Oh, and there would be chickens in these pens too, from time to time.

Thoughts?

 

[Wannabefree]

Goats will eat the bark off of any tree. The most important thing is that you put guards on your trees to keep the goats from killing the trees rather than the trees killing the goats

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Right. That's why I'm planting them just outside the pens, by about 1-2 feet. The welded wire won't allow them to get to the tree trunks, I don't mind losing some lower branches that hang over the fence.

 

[Wannabefree]

Right. That's why I'm planting them just outside the pens, by about 1-2 feet. The welded wire won't allow them to get to the tree trunks, I don't mind losing some lower branches that hang over the fence.

AH! I thought they were going IN the fence. None of the fruit trees should hurt the goats. I have heard wild cherry, but that's really just an issue for cows. www.fiascofarm.com has a list of goat unfriendly plants and i don't remember seeing trees on that list...but that doesn't mean they aren't there

 

[the funny farm6]

I know wild cherry is bad for horses also. I have been told to make sure there are no walnut trees in the gully when we fence it for the goats, and not to put walnut trees in the horse pen. Wasn't told why though.

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

We've got an English Walnut tree that'll overhang the boy's pen to the West. Since those grow 30-50' tall, hope it'll provide the most shade. Wonder if I should worry about those nuts. I know that black walnut roots are toxic but we're only sticking with english.

 

[Denim Deb]

I know wild cherry is bad for horses also. I have been told to make sure there are no walnut trees in the gully when we fence it for the goats, and not to put walnut trees in the horse pen. Wasn't told why though.

It's just in case you have to cut it down. Walnut sawdust can cause a horse to founder. I haven't heard of any other problems w/walnut and I know people around here who have them either in their field, or right next to it.

 

[pinkfox]

english walnut SHOULD be ok...

In terms of trees along the fenceline id go for apple and pear over nuts id sitll put nut trees in, just not along the fenceline for the goats, most of the nuts woudl go to waste.

 

[MyKidLuvsGreenEgz]

Ok. So we'll keep the English Walnut where planned.

Along the south side, we'll put
3 red apple
3 yellow apple
3 pear
... and if there's more room, whatever we can fit. Since they are dwarf trees, we'll just keep planting every 7 feet until we've run out of room/hit the space allotted for the walnut.

Then for the girl goat pen, there's room for only about 4 trees on their south so we'll just do 4 apples there but there's lots of room for more trees south of those so basically, we're gonna have several trees of many varieties

Thanks for your help.