There is a lot of this white-flowering, leafy plant growing along the side of the road near my house and every time I pass it I think, “Someone needs to get some livestock down here to take advantage of this great forage!” If you’ve got it, here’s what you need to know about it.

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About the author

Kathy Voth

Publisher, Editor and Author

Kathy worked with the Bureau of Land Management for 12 years before founding Livestock for Landscapes in 2004. Her twelve years at the agency allowed her to pursue her goal of helping communities find ways to live profitably AND sustainably in their environment. She has been researching and working with livestock as a land management tool for over a decade. When she's not helping farmers, ranchers and land managers on-site, she writes articles, and books, and edits videos to help others turn their livestock into landscape managers.

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2 Comments

1. Paul Nehring says:

   June 18, 2013 at 6:19 am

   Kathy,
   Have you done any work with cattle to train them to eat goldenrod? I am currently leasing a farm with a field that is infested with it. The cattle will nibble on it, but will eat everything else to the ground first. I am reluctant to push them to hard to eat it, as I have read that goldenrod can cause abortion in livestock.

   • Kathy Voth says:

     June 18, 2013 at 9:02 am

     Hi Paul,
     The trainees I’ve worked with have been eating goldenrod with no ill effects since 2004. I didn’t train them to eat it. They learned to eat other things and then added it to their diet on their own. I’ve always thought of it as a very palatable plant as a result.

     I pulled out all my plant books this morning and have found nothing about goldenrod causing abortion. There are some indications from back in the 40s that certain species were problems for sheep. But even those instances didn’t clearly implicate goldenrod.

     How about dropping me an email at kathy@onpasture.com with your phone number and we can chat about solving your problem.

     Kathy