FOREST AND RANGE RESOURCES OF UTAH 



19 



GOAT RAISING IN UTAH 



Goat raising has been increasing during the past few years until 

 it has now reached a point where it must be recognized as an im- 

 portant phase of the livestock industry. (Fig. 7.) In 1928 a few 

 hundred goats were being raised in Duchesne County, several thous- 

 and in Salt Lake and Davis Counties, about 11,000 in Tooele 

 County, from 15,000 to 20,000 in the neighborhood of Price, and 

 about 32,000 in southern Utah. Southern Utah had in 1927 an 

 output of about 125,000 pounds of mohair. 



Most of the goats raised in Utah are wintered on the sage and 

 juniper types of range and are summered on the lower portions 

 of the mountains where browse and water may be found. The 

 management of the goats' is 

 much the same as the manage- 

 ment of sheep. 



Any class of livestock in too 

 great numbers and improperly 

 handled can rapidly deplete a 

 range, leaving it denuded and 

 eroded ; goats can bring about 

 these deplorable conditions as 

 surely as either sheep or cattle. 

 Goat producers should be 

 especially alert to guard 

 against the ranges being de- 

 pleted by overuse. 



RANGE PLANTS AND THEIR 



REQUIREMENTS FOR 



GROWTH 



Range plants are frequently 

 roughly classified as grasses, 

 weeds, and browse. (Fig. 8.) 

 With the grasses are associated 

 such grasslike plants as sedges 

 and rushes. The weeds are 

 annual and perennial herba- 

 ceous plants (those that die 

 down to the ground each year) 

 other than the grasses and 

 grasslike plants. Browse includes all the woody stemmed or shrubby 

 plants, such as snowberry and sagebrush, whose leaves and young 

 stems are eaten. 



GRASSES 



As forage plants the grasses are extremely valuable. They are 

 very palatable and nutritious. Many of them cure well. By this 

 is meant that when the herbage is dry it is still nutritious and pala- 

 table, like cured hay. For this reason dried grasses make good late- 

 fall and winter feed, and frequently furnish an appreciable amount 

 of forage during the spring. 



Grasses are more permanent than other forage plants because 

 they are not so easily affected by adverse climatic and grazing 



Figure 7. — Goats grazing on the Dixie Na- 

 tional Forest. Goats can utilize a rough, 

 broken range 



