Last week, we had to say goodbye to one of our goats. The goat, Splitnæs—also known as Splitti—got caught in the electric fences that are strung around one of our tree circles. We assume she strangled herself. Perhaps being trapped in the fence mesh, combined with the mild electric shocks, was too much for her heart. The electric shocks, however, couldn’t have been very strong, since the day before I had watched the little goats trying to crawl through the mesh in the fence to get to the sunflowers and other tasty plants in that very same tree circle.

Splitnæs had gotten stuck in a fence around a circle of trees once before. But we spotted her early enough back then and were able to free her. This time, unfortunately, we were too late. Splitnæs was one of the four goats I milked every morning and every evening. So she was one of the animals with whom I had a very close bond. When a terrible tragedy like this happens, it can really throw me off balance.

Since Splitti died, the milk yield has dropped significantly. The day after she died, we had less than a liter of milk in total. With Splitti, it was over two liters, even though she didn’t produce any more milk than the other goats. Only Anna, our „old lady,“ generally produces less. It’s hard to explain why there’s suddenly so little milk. A slight decrease could be due to the fact that the animals are now on a pasture where there isn’t as much clover growing. But perhaps the other goats are still under stress. After all, they witnessed their half-sister’s—or daughter’s—agony up close.

We hadn’t anticipated that our tree circles, with all the delicious plants inside them, could turn into dangerous traps. We’re now considering other ways to protect the tree circles from browsing. In any case, the circles connected to the electric fence circuit should no longer be enclosed by double fences. Until now, we’ve had the tall blue fence with the larger mesh on the inside, facing the trees, and the lower red fence with the tighter mesh on the outside, facing the animals—the same one we use for our daily fencing.

We now want to try out various other options to avoid using the red fence while protecting the trees. One option would be to use a non-electrified boundary fence with very small mesh openings (15 x 15 mm) inside the circles—that is, on the inside of the blue, electrified fence. This would provide some privacy and prevent the animals from getting inside the circles with their hooves and mouths. The risk of getting caught in the blue fence is significantly lower because the netting is stiffer and has larger mesh openings.

Another option we want to try out—especially for individual trees—is using willow mats as a privacy screen.

Last but not least, we also want to try using picket fences around individual trees.

Since the last two options are quite expensive, they are not suitable for our tree circles, some of which have a circumference of 50 meters.