However, the goats preferred to dine on fresh grass.
You either love them or hate them, but goats seem to fall in and out of favour with farmers.
They are fine if they stay where they are put, but goats seem to have a roaming nature and they live by the old saying, “the grass is always greener on the other side”.
An unusual cargo
Arrives at Napier Railway Station.
Two Hundred Goats
Daily Telegraph (Napier), 19 February 1926,
A train arrived in Napier with a most unusual cargo on board a load of goats, about 200 in number.
They came from Stratford, Taranaki, or more correctly Kiore a district about 25 miles east of Stratford, where goats are extremely plentiful.
They were bound for Eskdale, where they will be used, it is stated, for the purpose of destroying tutu, which is very troublesome in the rough country there.
The load, which took up four sheep trucks, was of a very nondescript character.
There were big billies and little billies, big nannies and little nannies, and a fair sprinkling of pretty little kids, while there were white goats, black goats, yellow goats, tortoiseshell goats and goats of no particular colour at all.
A local railway officer described them as a “very strong cargo, especially when a westerly was blowing.”
Catchment Board Seeks Control of Goat Menace in Backblocks
Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune, October 27, 1949
The menace of goats on Hawke’s Bay’s back-country areas was commented on by members at the Hawke’s Bay Catchment Board this morning, when they decided to urge that legislation be brought down for more effective control of goats.
Discussion arose from advice from the Department of Internal Affairs that a campaign against deer, goats, wild sheep and wild pigs throughout the watersheds of the Ruahine, Kaimanawa, Ahimanawa and Urewera Ranges would begin during the first week of November.
Mr. R. J. Lawrence said that an officer in charge of such an expedition had been perturbed over hunters being sent off farms by farmers who wanted to keep the goats to control blackberry.
“The damage done by goats in the back-country is enormous,” Mr. Lawrence declared.
“The harbouring of goats is not in the interests of preventing soil erosion. There are far too many goats being kept for the amount of blackberry to be controlled, and goats will eat blackberry for only a few months of the year.”
Mr. E. H. Beamish said that nothing should be left undone in dealing with the menace.
Goats as well as deer were responsible for opening up natural boundaries in remote areas.
His own experience was that goats placed on land especially to clear blackberry grazed less on blackberry than on grass.
Mr. C. Thomson said that in Central Hawke’s Bay goats penetrated into the State forest region from the surrounding properties, and this was where their real menace began.
“The day will come when goats will be declared a pest, and farmers will have to have a permit to keep them,” said Mr. H. Worsnop.
He referred to a 12,000-acre block on which it was reported that there were 1200 goats, but nothing like 1200 bushes of blackberry.
“Even if the State forest areas were cleaned out, goats would soon come in again from adjoining properties,” said the chairman, Mr. C. Lassen.
“I defy anyone to farm goats and prevent them from spreading,” said Mr. Beamish.
“They will climb over anything.”
At Mr. Lassen’s suggestion, members decided that the clerk, Mr. H. B. Smart, and Mr. Lawrence should confer with departmental representatives when they arrive on soliciting the co-operation of land-owners in the campaign.
They also agreed that the move for legislation providing for greater control of goats should be the subject of a remit to the annual conference of the Catchment Boards’ Association.
- Source: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/
