The end-of-year holidays are now over, the Christmas tree must be recycled. In Savoie, some of these trees feed the breeders' goats, for their greatest pleasure.
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Every year, it's the same story. What to do with your Christmas tree once the holiday season is over? Very often, municipalities and local authorities provide collection points. But there is another solution. And it is found in the stables of our mountains.
In Pralognan-la-Vanoise (Savoie), it is possible to recycle your Christmas tree by giving it to goats. Every year, in January, the inhabitants of the town and the valley come to feed the Chavière goat farm.
“It must be cleared of all its Christmas decorations and there must not have been any snow spray or varnish. It really has to be natural, explains Sylvain Chevassus, breeder at the Chavière goat farm. Otherwise, it can poison them. They eat a little bit of everything, so they could possibly eat a piece of tinsel. You have to be careful.“
The Chavière goat farm recycles different species of fir trees, without decoration or artificial snow.
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© FTV
And as soon as the tree is placed in their enclosure, the goats jump on it. Nordmann or spruce, whatever the species, they love it. A New Year's gift that also benefits the farm's donkey named Samba.
The fir is said to have several virtues, notably that of being a dewormer or an effective repellent against parasites. “There is nothing verified but if they eat it, it is because for them it is good. And then it reminds them a little of summer. As they are locked up in winter, it gives them a little greenery. They are only better, even to produce behind”, confides Sylvain Chevassus.
In any case, at the end of the tasting, only the trunk remains. But this consumption of conifers raises a question. Do the cheeses produced from the milk of these goats taste different? Doubts that have no reason to exist according to Audrey Chevassus, cheese producer at the goat farm in Chavière.
“We will not feel it in the cheese because it is already well matured. And goat's milk does not have the same constitution as cow's milk.she assures. The flavors are therefore less felt than in cow's milk cheeses which are fatter.“
The taste of fir would not be found in goat's milk cheeses.
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© FTV
This useful and local recycling is a tradition in the Alps. The elders say that in their time, when they lacked hay, they went to cut fir branches in the forest to feed the animals.
