Feed your leftover tree to a goat this Christmas

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The rumors that goats will eat just about anything are unconfirmed as of yet. But what has been confirmed is that a herd of goats in Port Townsend is looking forward to eating your leftover Christmas trees.

That is, if they (the trees) haven’t been sprayed by chemicals.

The Chimacum Corner Farmstand embarked on its first year of selling Christmas Trees this December and rapidly sold out of their trees sourced from Beerbower Christmas Tree Farm in Elma.

“We chose Beerbower because of how they grow the trees, spacing trees further apart so they don’t need to spray,” said Katy McCoy, owner of the Chimacum Corner Farmstand.

Many tree farms use herbicides to keep down weeds and also spray trees against pests.

“Most of us have thought about how our food is grown, but not how our Christmas trees that we bring into the house are grown,” McCoy said.

Once McCoy realized she wanted to sell only trees that were not sprayed, the Farmstand was too late to reserve any Noble Firs from Beerbower. But they plan to expand their Christmas tree sales next year.

“We sold out quick this year,” McCoy said. “Partly because it was the first time dipping our toes into selling trees, and we underestimated the demand. This year we offered only Doug Firs. Next year we’ll definitely order more trees and have both Doug and Noble Firs.”

But beyond thinking about sourcing spray-free trees, McCoy and the Farmstand’s nursery manager Peri Robin wondered what their customers would do with their trees after Christmas was over.

That’s when Lydia Vadopalas, shepherdess at Bowman Goat Farms in Port Townsend, came to the rescue.

“I’d been on the lookout for tree trimmings for the goats to diversify their diets in the winter when their diet mostly consists of hay,” Vadopalas said. “When I saw the Corner Store had spray-free trees I got super excited.”

Vadopalas had seen other goat producers feed tree trimmings and Christmas trees to their goats before, but she’d been warned off Christmas trees because some tree farmers use herbicides to beat back grass and weeds as well as pesticides to kill aphids.

“Since the trees aren’t a food product, the herbicides are much less regulated, or so I’ve heard,” she said.

Vadopalas’ tree-eating goats belong to Mark and Nancy Bowman, of Bowman Goat Farms, who raise goats in both Jefferson and Clallam Counties. In Port Townsend, they have a herd of goats at the Natembea Northwest collaborative farm off of Discovery Bay Road, owned by Devon and David “Pablo” Cohn.

“As Mark was driving up and down Aurora, north of Seattle, he saw all the ethnic markets and restaurants and thought, what do they all eat? Goat,” Nancy Bowman wrote. “There is an unresourced by-product of the dairy goat industry to be tapped.”

Each year goat dairies must breed all their does for lactation. The kids produced by goat dairies are of little use to the dairy farmers. Nancy and Mark Bowman acquire the goats and raise the boys for meat and the girls long-term for a breeding herd. They sell the Port Townsend-raised goat meat at the Chimacum Corner Farmstand.

The meat is heart-healthy, a good source of healthy fat, protein, Vitamin B and is organically grown on the clean, small scale farm with a minimal carbon footprint, Nancy Bowman said.

“The herd is very people-oriented and moved around our properties to forage based on that relationship and some sunflower seeds,” she said. “Now, in our second year of breeding our herd, the babies born to our doelings are fed by their moms and naturally weaned, making for the largest, healthiest babies.”

What will make these goats even healthier is a little Christmas tree in their diet.

“The trees add trace minerals to the goats’ diets and are a mild natural dewormer,” Vadopalas said. “In our pastures, the goats often go for the low hanging Douglas fir branches before anything else.”

Once the goats have eaten the greenery, the farmers will turn the trunks and thicker branches into biochar—a charcoal-like substance that’s made by burning organic material from agricultural and forestry wastes and used for improving soil quality—to spread onto their fields.

Because it is vital that the goats not eat any sprayed trees, the Chimacum Corner Farmstand will only be taking back trees that it sold. The nursery will be collecting these trees from Jan. 3 to Jan. 10.

For those who do not know if their Christmas tree has been sprayed or not, play it safe and recycle your tree at Port Townsend’s Biosolids Composting Facility at the Jefferson County Waste Management Facility at 325 County Landfill Road, off of Jacob Miller Road, for a minimum charge of $5.