What do goats, gardens, and birds have in common? Recycled Christmas trees, as it turns out.
As the holiday tradition of cutting down or choosing your very own live Christmas tree continues, so does the age-old question that comes at the end of the season: Oh Tannenbaum, what to do with you once Christmas is over?
There are many answers to that question, according to Christmas Tree Council of Nova Scotia executive director Angus Bonnyman, who says trees can be repurposed in a variety of ways, whether for protecting your garden, a winter feeder for birds, or as goat fodder.
You read that right – a snack for goats.
“We’ve heard of people taking their trees – once they’re free of all decorations – to wildlife sanctuaries and to goats in particular, who love to demolish a real tree,” he says.
Goat grub
Proving this theory is Hampshire, P.E.I. farmer Flory Sanderson, who says her Island Hill Farms’s 80-odd goats, along with its other animals like llamas, mini horses, chickens, and rabbits, love eating the needles and bark of fur trees.
But Sanderson says the goats gobble them up the most.
“Goats go crazy over it. They’re used to getting hay and grain, but in a natural environment, this would be what they’re browsing,” she says. “They’ll thread it right down, even pull all the bark off and everything.”
Sanderson first started accepting the trees about five years ago, and last year, more than 100 trees were a late Christmas gift for the animals.
The snack is not without its benefits, as Sanderson says eating these trees adds variety into their diet and acts as a natural de-wormer. But switching their diet and including these trees as a major diet ingredient is something Sanderson advises other farmers against.
“It shouldn’t be the main thing they’re eating and shouldn’t be substituted for anything, but it is a good addition to their diet,” she says.
Check with the farm before dropping your tree off to make sure they are accepting them. Any donated trees must be undecorated - with tinsel and garland removed - and at Island Hill Farms, at least, they begin taking the trees as early as New Year's Day and will accept them year-round.
Other uses
Canadian Christmas Tree Growers Association treasurer Matt Wright says another way for people to reuse or repurpose their Christmas trees at the end of the holiday season would be donating them to a local park or set of walking trails to aid in trail maintenance.
“By refreshing trail beds each year with cut up or mulched fur trees, you keep this nice, fresh trail on walking and running trails,” says Wright. “It makes a nice, low-impact cushion.”
This is but one of creative yet practical ways to reuse trees, according to Bonnyman, who, along with Wright, also suggests using the tree’s branches to create a winter bird feeder and shelter for songbirds.
“You can lay the branches out as shelter and dress them up with seed and suet, or various other things. Trim them properly so you don’t make it too easy for cats or other predators to get up and pounce,” he says.
“This gives birds another food source and a shelter from the elements.”
Another use that Bonnyman recommends in coastal communities like Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador, where sedimentary rock erodes quickly, is to use Christmas tree branches along shorelines to mitigate against bank erosion.
Whether it be tips on reusing trees as goat snackage, as a shelter for pond fish, or in potpourri satchets, Bonnyman says the number of ideas and methods of reusing trees online points to a consumer shift towards greener forms of consumption.
“I think in general folks are understanding that a real tree, once it’s been used, can be repurposed or composted for a variety of other things, whereas a false tree will take up space in a landfill forever,” he says.