Prescribed Goat Grazing

Prescribed Grazing: Restoring Balance Through Biological Management

For thousands of years, large herds of grazing animals shaped the prairies, savannas, and woodlands of the Upper Midwest. Native plants co-evolved with this grazing pressure, while periodic browsing kept woody brush in check. When these natural grazers disappeared from the landscape, invasive species like buckthorn, honeysuckle, and multiflora rose filled the ecological void, creating dense thickets that shade out native vegetation and reduce habitat quality.

Diversity Landworks brings carefully managed goat herds to properties throughout southeastern Minnesota, western Wisconsin, and northeast Iowa to restore this essential ecological process. With over a decade of specialized experience—we were among the first companies in the Midwest to develop prescribed grazing as a vegetation management tool—we've refined our approach through years of trial and practical application.

How Prescribed Grazing Works

Our goats target invasive woody species preferentially, eating leaves and bark from the top down. This forces plants to draw on root reserves to produce new growth. When we return for subsequent grazing sessions over multiple seasons, we continue depleting these reserves until the plant's vigor collapses and it eventually dies. As invasive species decline, sunlight reaches the forest floor again, allowing dormant native seeds and root systems to flourish.

Drawing from our herd of more than 1,000 goats, we carefully select our goat roster for each site. For rugged, remote locations we choose independent, self-sufficient animals. For metropolitan areas we select calm, people-friendly goats. Our herds maintain healthy social dynamics with a balanced mix of ages and genders, and our animals carry refined conservation genetics from generations of restoration work—they're highly adapted to the task and remarkably reliable.

When Prescribed Grazing Is the Right Choice

Prescribed grazing excels on properties where:

• Terrain makes machinery impractical—steep hillsides, wetland edges, or rocky bluffs

• You want a chemical-free, biological approach to land management

• Long-term, sustainable results matter more than instant transformation

• Scale ranges from neglected urban lots to hundreds of rural acres

Depending on invasion severity, grazing may be your primary restoration method or work in combination with mechanical clearing or prescribed burns. The process honors nature's timeline—restoration that took 150 years to degrade won't reverse overnight, but with patient, repeated grazing, the land steadily returns to ecological balance.