Congraaaaatulations!

Winter is kidding and lambing season in the goat pen at Ramat Hanadiv, but this doesn’t stop the goats and sheep from working: each day they go out to the field and play an important role in preventing fires, while our staff looks after the kids and lambs that stay behind in the pen.

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Winter is the busiest season in the pen – it’s kidding and lambing season.
From late November to late March there will be a number of births each day; between 100 and 200 kids and lambs will be born here. The pen will become a particularly lively nursery. As in previous years during this period, Dr. Tzach Glasser, who manages the pen, is very satisfied. The kidding and lambing season, in which beautiful, healthy kids and lambs are born, is the greatest test of the hard work put into the pen throughout the year. ‘Many things can hinder its success’, says Dr. Glasser, ‘[such as] poor nutrition, disease, overcrowding. Now we are reaping the fruit’.

Sheep – they mainly eat the herbaceous vegetation, which serves as the ‘wick’ in the event of fire

Eating the ‘fuel’

The pen at Ramat Hanadiv was established in 2002, with a slightly surprising purpose: fire prevention.
The great fire that burned here in the 1980s led us to the conclusion plants such as mastic tree (Pistacia lentiscus) and spiny broom (Calicotome villosa) are very flammable and serve as fuel for fires.

At Ramat Hanadiv we decided to use the ancient solution of goat grazing to solve this problem, taking the goats out daily to eat the vegetation. In 2016 we added some sheep – they mainly eat the herbaceous vegetation, which serves as the ‘wick’ in the event of fire. We also established a milking facility in the pen.

Working round the clock

In addition to Dr. Glasser, the staff of the pen includes Mor Kupferberg and Najah Halabi and a number of diligent volunteers who are crazy about goats and sheep. Each day, including Saturdays, holidays, and lockdowns, they come for the morning milking at 5:30. At 8:00 they take the goats out to graze until the afternoon, when there is a second milking.

In early winter, when kidding and lambing begins, they work round the clock: as well as taking the goats out to graze, they look after the kids and lambs. And sometimes a goat or a sheep needs help giving birth. In the evening they return to the pen to see the animals and check whether there have been any more births.

Although they live in a herd, goats are individualistic animals – each one has its own personality, or rather, caprices. It turns out that the Latin word for goat, Capra, is not coincidental!

Dr. Tzach & the pen. Photo by Moshe Shai

The caprices of the goats

Although they live in a herd, goats are individualistic animals – each one has its own personality, or rather, caprices. It turns out that the Latin word for goat, Capra, is not coincidental! There is a range of behaviours in the pen, says Tzach: there’s the goat who wanders around after being milked, the goat that pushes, the goat that scratches, and the goat that ignores her kids, who then need to be matched up with an adoptive mother.

Yonit is the oldest goat in the pen, born in 2011. She tires easily and spends most of her time resting. Yulia is an alpine/baladi cross. Some say she is the most beautiful goat in the pen. ‘The volunteer’ – when setting out to graze, she is always first in line for the GPS device. Brownie is a 3-year-old goat that was born prematurely, and until today she is smaller than other goats her age. There are also Jumbo, Motek and many other goats, sheep, lambs and kids. You can stay in the pen for days, it’s addictive!

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From pregnancy to pregnancy

The goat is a seasonal animal that conceives when the days begin to shorten – in Israel this begins in late June, and usually continues until late October – early November. The pregnancy lasts five months, so the kidding season is from November to March, in a number of waves.

A goat gives birth to 1–3 kids; after giving birth she is put in a special cubicle for 1–2 days to make sure that she and her kid(s) are OK. Afterwards, they are released back to the pen. The kids stay with their mothers to suckle.

At the age of two months, the kids and lambs are weaned off the milk and given dry food. The bucks are sold to goat and sheep farmers, and the does join the herd in the pen. When they are one year old they will become pregnant for the first time, from one of the five bucks that live here.

During your hikes around the nature park at Ramat Hanadiv you may see them, grazing somewhere else each time, enjoying their role.

And if you’ve come with a dog, we remind you to keep it on a leash so that it doesn’t scare the herd away.