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About the Location
Kolter and Marisa Schuebel live just outside of Vermilion, Alberta, but started their goat business while still living in town. Pearman Farms Inc. allowed them to winter their animals at their farm for the first three winters of their existence.
About the Farm
In 2022, Marisa called the Town of Vermilion to ask if they were interested in using goats for landscaping. They said they had been discussing having goats to graze so the timing was perfect. They set up a contract and hauled their goats in.
The Schuebels have two small children and the goats are an ideal species due to their size. Their children can be in the pen with the couple while they works and they do not worry they will be hurt.
Acknowledgement
Marisa says she enjoys including people in her experiences and she loves to have people help. Joanne Dickson has been pivotal in their operation because she can step in and completely replace her. The Schuebels have built a community of people who love to help with goat moves and they couldn’t do it without all their supporters.
Agronomic Details
Livestock
The Schuebels currently have approximately 50 does and 65 goat kids. They are boer kiko cross as the boer breed provides growth and the kiko breed provides hardiness. They also have some Spanish which they like for the winter hair.
They have strict culling for fence crawlers and also cull low body condition score animals that can’t keep up with their management system. They are a low-input system and try and feed as little grain as possible. They kid in June in the nice weather out on pasture and sell wethers the following June.
Dogs
The Schuebels have one Pyrenees livestock guardian dog who lives with the goats. With the number now, they are in the market to get her a partner to help her. They also have border collies for herding.
Equipment
The Schuebels use electric net fencing with premier 1 being the best. They have a total of 1,720 feet of fence, about enough to fence in four acres. They also have a solar fencer with a remote that turns the fence off from anywhere along the fence. Having a fence remote for each truck is ideal so anyone accessing the goats always has the ability to test the fence and turn it off and on conveniently.
The Schuebels mostly use a fenced-in strategy, but there are some locations where it’s more suited for herding so there is less of an intense impact on the plants and soil. For example, a sandy hillside is better to herd across and graze rather than parking the goats there as they can be quite rough on the hills because they like to climb so much.
It’s a requirement for their locations that they have a water source they can use there so the Schuebels haul water. For the town, they have a code for the bulk station.
There is some concern that the animals are unsupervised in town. However, it’s probably more of the opposite problem that they are over supervised in some areas. There are always people around and there is a sign where people have direct access to the Schuebels on their phones
To move between sites, they sometimes haul and they sometimes herd. Their vehicles include a pick-up truck, a smaller trailer they own and a larger trailer they borrow.
Project Overview
Long Term Goals
The Schuebels’ goals are to run their business entirely on cash inputs and keeping land costs low.
Grazing
The Schuebels do two kinds of grazing with their goats: targeted weed control and fire control.
Targeted weed control
Targeted weed control grazing is done at a very specific time of year by prioritizing the areas for weed control every year because most weeds need to be grazed at the same time to have impact. This is ideally 95 per cent defoliation on weeds and then move on before they are forced to eat grass. The Schuebels only want 40 to 50 per cent defoliation on the grass. This just tramples the grass and stimulates the soil so the grass can come back and compete with the weeds.
Fire control
Grazing for fire control grazes down the area to reduce the fuel load. For this type of grazing, they want 90 per cent defoliation.
Urban grazing has a huge public relations component. People love to see the animals working so it is necessary to pause working tasks and take time to interact with the public. The Schuebels say this is part of the job, but it also works in your favour because the next time a goat is out or there is some sort of problem, they already know you and are willing to help and react positively.
It is important to make sure water is always available for the goats and that they always have shelter and feed. Remove any lame or sick animals immediately.
Locations
What happened
The Schuebels wanted to eventually contract grazing but wanted to gain experience first. They used bits and pieces of unused land and brought out a portable fence system and moved their animals around for two years.
It’s been a successful three years so far and they have increased their budget to accommodate more goat grazing days. The Schuebels have done some smaller projects on local ranches for fire control and have a few more booked for the 2025 fall season as well.
The outcomes of the project are dependent on the goals for each area. Currently the Town of Vermilion gives the Schuebels freedom to decide how to improve and manage the areas they have given them. They work with the town on prioritizing weed control and fire control and they make sure they have lots of time where the fences are close to where people walk so they can enjoy the goats too.
The Schuebels also want people to be happy they have livestock in town as a method of landscaping. Some grazing projects don’t like to have kids younger than six weeks, but they bring theirs in at two weeks and graze in a high visibility spot because people enjoy them.
Challenges
Due to being in town and grazing very close to people’s gardens and flowers, the Schuebels are on call all the time. If the goats get out, it’s declared an emergency.
Wind is a main issue because it blows the fences over. Bears frighten the dog and the goats. There has been death loss because of fence tangling and possibly from the goats eating garbage. They also watching for poison hemlock.
Gaps
The Schuebels are slowly learning plant identification as they graze their goats. Marisa likes to take bouquets of plants from their locations home so she can remember and study them. Weeds are frequently put into separate books for identification and there is not a lot of information on their nutritional content.
They would like a camera at the waterer so they don’t worry about the water running out, but they also don’t want more things to move around.
They currently use portable horse shelters for the goats that are meant to go on panels. They need skids added and the tarps are already ripping due to climbers so they will have to put tin on soon. They also enlist the help of people with knowledge of running border collies for the herding parts of the job.
Funding for this project in part has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through the Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund.