Farm owner Anne Stoner said this year is the first time she’s taking trees from the public. In the past, she has collected a few trees from friends and neighbors, but now her goat herd is large and old enough that they can handle more trees.

Stoner posted on the farm’s Instagram page last weekend that she was collecting trees, and as of Wednesday, 15 people had already signed up to deliver some this coming weekend.

People who are interested in dropping their trees off at the farm can get in touch with Stoner through Instagram or the farm’s website.

The goats can eat through a tree in about an hour, devouring the needles and stripping the bark off until only a smooth trunk with bare branches remains, Stoner said.

The pine trees help supplement the diet of the goats, which Stoner tries to make as diverse as possible.

“It’s a treat for them,” Stoner said. “It does help us out quite a bit.”

In the Livingston area, goat farmer Susan Tiftick is willing to pick up discarded trees if you message her on Facebook.

Tiftick said Wednesday she is still accepting trees and has four so far. She typically takes 20-25 in a year for her goat herd.

She doesn’t accept trees that have been treated with flame retardant or flocking or that have been adorned with tinsel because they are toxic to goats. But any other trees are fair game, and goats will still eat trees that are dead and died out.

The goats eat a variety of forage, brush, trees and grasses, but the pine trees are a treat to them and “they devour them like piranhas,” Tiftick said.

Still others like Gallatin County Commissioner Jennifer Boyer are limiting their tree collection to just friends and neighbors, but feed the discarded pines to their herd as a treat, too.

There are other options for discarding trees aside from the goat farms, which can only handle so many.

People should make sure to remove all decorations before dropping off trees, and only discard real trees, not artificial ones.

In Bozeman, the Forestry Division will compost Christmas trees to use as organic mulch at various sites. They’ve asked people to not cut trees into small pieces as their equipment can more easily manage whole trees. Wreaths and garlands are not accepted.

There are three drop-off sites, including at the Gallatin Valley Regional Park (drop trees in the southeast corner of the parking lot near the BMX bike area); Softball Complex (enter off Haggerty Lane, not Highland Boulevard, and drop trees in the southwest corner of the parking lot) and Christie Fields (drop trees east of restrooms).

In the Gallatin Valley, L&L Site Services has bins for free tree drop-off through Jan. 5.

The L&L office at 100 Russell Ln. is the drop-off spot for Belgrade, East Railroad Avenue is the drop-off site for Manhattan and the market side of the rodeo grounds is serving as the the drop-off for Three Forks.