Rent-a-goat.com and Others Bring in Herds to Trim the Yard, Get Rid of Weeds
By GWENDOLYN BOUNDS
Recently, the patch of weeds behind Steve Holdaway's Chapel Hill, N.C., home grew so unkempt that he hired
outside help. For six hours, the crew's members tackled tall grass and thorny blackberry plants and toiled
without a break—other than to chew their cud, that is.
His workers: seven hungry—and carbon-emission-free—goats.
As more homeowners, businesses and towns seek to
maintain land with fewer chemicals or fossil -fuel-powered
machinery, a growing number are trying goats to get rid of
unwanted vegetation. Internet rivals Google Inc. and Yahoo
Inc. hired herds to clear around their Northern California
headquarters this year. So did the Vanderbilt Mansion, a
national historic site in Hyde Park, N.Y. And this April,
nannies and billies were deployed at the U.S. Naval Base
Kitsap Bangor in Silverdale, Wash., to annihilate pesky
scotch broom plants.
While predators, poisonous plants and peeved neighbors can
test goats on the job, the small livestock are well-suited for
such labors.
Easy to manage, they relish prickly brush and weeds and
their agility makes them "popular employees" for navigating steep slopes that can thwart humans and
machines, says Brian Faris, president of the American Boer Goat Association in San Angelo, Texas.
It cost 55 -year-old Mr. Holdaway $200 to clear a 1,700- square foot swath on his land with goats, pricier than
the weed-whacking he's been doing himself for a decade with a gas -powered trimmer. "But like many organic
practices, you are going to have to pay a premium sometimes," Mr. Holdaway says.
Livestock owners and towns plagued with brush fires or invasive species like kudzu have rendered goats'
services for years. Now new interest among the eco-conscious is giving rise to a cottage industry of rental
operations —since unlike lawn mowers, you can't just buy a goat and park it in the shed come wintertime.
Some owners say business is so good, they're angling to license and expand with sheep, which do particularly
well trimming grass.
In Vernonia, Ore., Lewis Cochran started Vegetation Management Services Inc. with his dad in March after
he lost his truck- driving job. He studied goat management online and is now the boss of nearly 50 critters,
charging between $6 and $10 a head per day.
Back East, 22-year-old entrepreneur Matthew Richmond teamed up in June with a retired livestock owner he
found on Craigslist to launch rent-a-goat.com in Chapel Hill. "It's more of an upper-middle- class fad that we
are seeing," Mr. Richmond says.
Generally, companies truck goats to work sites (some gas
required) where the animals munch inside portable fencing
or electric netting, often powered by solar panels. Prices can
range from $200 a day for a dozen goats to upward of
$1,000 for larger herds of 100 or more. On bigger projects,
animals may stay overnight supervised by the business
owners or specially trained guardian dogs.
At Vanderbilt Mansion, where a small herd currently grazes
on seven hilly acres, the job's $9,000 annual price tag is
about two-thirds what hired manpower would run, says
Dave Hayes, the estate's natural- resource program manager.
"And the goats are a lot more popular."
They're also gentle. Casey Brewer of Duvall, Wash., hired The Goat Lady LLC to clear half an acre overrun
with salmonberries. The tally came to just over $1,000 for three days, and Ms. Brewer says the goats didn't
harm her cherished old-growth cedar stumps.
"It's a wonderful alternative to bulldozing the property," she says.
There can be snafus. Josh Farmer, 49, runs The Goat Lady with his partner Jill Johnson, an eighth-grade
schoolteacher. While electric netting and an Anatolian shepherd dog protect their goats from predators or
household dogs, neighborhood children pose a unique threat. "There are those who think it's fun to unplug
my electric fence just when it gets dark, letting goats escape," Mr. Farmer says.
And some plants are toxic to goats including ornamentals such as azaleas, oleanders and rhododendrons.
Lois Anne Keith paid about $14,000 to bring in 130 goats from Rent-A- Ruminant LLC for several weeks of
clearing around her 25 -acre Woodinville, Wash., property. The experience went smoothly, except one
evening when four goats got sick munching old rhododendron stumps because they were hidden by
blackberries. Fortunately the owner, Tammy Dunakin, was sleeping on site in a truck and had medicine to
give the goats.
"It's not a simple line of work," says Ms. Dunakin, who expects to gross just over $100,000 this year, her
sixth in the business, and is developing an "affiliate" model to train others in goat brush-clearing. From
setting up fencing to giving goats shots, water and mineral supplements, she says, "there are a lot of mistakes
people can make."
Town and city rules about livestock vary. Often animals can't be raised on property not zoned for agriculture
use—but are allowed to visit. In 2004, some residents of the Pacific Palisades, Calif., enclave Marquez Knolls
complained, unsuccessfully, to city officials when a resident temporarily parked a trailer with her brush-clearing goats on the street. At night, coyotes circled the truck, recalls Haldis Toppel, president of the
neighborhood association. "This is a residential area with dogs, cats and kids and there is a safety factor," she
says.
And then there's the poop factor. Some research shows
reduced viability of weed seeds ingested and passed by goats
in tiny pellets. Owners say some cities have waste
requirements. Chattanooga, Tenn., requires property owners
"remove and dispose of droppings" as needed to avoid
health or sanitation problems.
Still, for many homeowners, goats are worth the cost and
occasional mishap. Pamela and Dennis Holst banded
together with neighbors last summer to clear a dense patch
of brush, including poison oak, around their Santa Barbara,
Calif., homes. The couple, whose house burned in 1990 from
a brush fire, paid $495 to Brush Goats 4 Hire for their one-
third- acre share. Despite a goat getting loose one night, Ms.
Holst, who has watched her husband "slip -and- slide down
the hillside" with a weed-whacker and herbicide, declares
the animals "well worth the expense." (The owners came and
retrieved the fugitive goat.)
For his part, Mr. Holdaway of Chapel Hill says the goats did
a fine job on his property, and that the neighbors "were
amused." Still, given the tall grass in his yard, the goat
company returned with a scythe to neaten up. "What you
end up with is not a lawn-cut look," Mr. Holdaway says. "It's
a munched look."
Write to Gwendolyn Bounds at wendy.bounds@wsj.com
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