Successful brush control in pasture using grazing animals depends on good fencing, good management, and a development plan. The key is to have enough animals to defoliate brush repeatedly in the spring without severely overgrazing the grasses and legumes. A development plan for brushy pastures must also maintain soil fertility, promote desirable grasses and legumes, and minimize soil erosion as brush is eliminated. It is essential that landowners accept the complexity and challenge of grazing and build up experience by trial and error. They will then experience the satisfaction of working within a natural system.
Goats prefer to eat the leaves of brambles, hawthorn, and multiflora rose rather than graze pasture.
Underwood, Ohio State Extension. Programs and activities offered by the West Virginia University Extension Service are available to all persons without regard to race, color, sex, disability, religion, age or national origin. Rachel B. Tompkins, Director, Cooperative Extension Service, West Virginia University.