Mesa, Arizona is putting a herd of 80 goats to work to do some heavy duty landscaping in place of polluting, gas powered tools. Mesa’s Utilities Department has recently approved a contract with Eco Goats to clear out 30 acres of brush surrounding a local waste water treatment plant. Goats are well known as the ravenously hungry, non-discriminate eaters of the animal kingdom, which is why they are perfect for this project. The goats are able to navigate the difficult terrain of the plant’s retention pond and get at hard to reach places that power tools couldn’t normally reach. They are also extremely thorough, eating the seeds which mowing and pesticides leave behind, preventing unwanted vegetation from returning next year.
[via Treehugger]
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Not a good idea. Goats are mental. They can climb anything and the can and will eat everything .
January 15th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Thanks for including the goat article. I never would have seen it otherwise. It made me smile.
My father brought home a goat one fine day to my parents’ back yard in the suburbs. (He was getting way up in years.) He claimed he would use the goat for lawn maintenance and the goat poop for fertilizer. It was a little goat. Dad assured my mother that the neighbors would think it was a dog. He must not have considered the climbing factor.
January 16th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Having had goats myself, they make the perfect rotational pasture mates for horses in that they eat down weeds and allow the grasses to grow through (they are not really interested in the grasses) and then are moved on to another pasture where the horses have eaten all the grass and there is nothing left but overgrown weeds.
Neither of these animals destroy the sub soil infrastructure of the grasses but cattle do — which is why our nations open lands — having been overtaken by millions of heads of cattle — have decimated the natural flora and fauna and the delicate grassland balances but isn’t is astonishing that the cattle industry insists that it is the wild horse which number in the 20,000 or so thousand range that are responsible and must be removed?
Back to the goats…they for years were the the levity in my life as they are comical and spunky and have the sweetest personalities. I hope EcoGoat knows that these sweet creatures need a farrier for hoof trimming every 8 weeks.
Nice article…terrific site
jtkaufmann
Human Factor
jtkaufmann@humanfactorinc.com
January 17th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Thanks for sharing this article. While I don’t agree with the goats, it’s definitely interesting to say the least. Myself? I would have gone with a Xeriscape :)
February 16th, 2009 at 1:11 am