Goats will solve Perry’s vegetation-management challenges along the riparian zone of Frog Creek if the city follows through on a proposal made at Monday night’s meeting by City Administrator Sven Peterson.
“Something we’ve been talking about a little bit, kind of an off-the-wall idea, is using goats to take care of some of the overgrown vegetation in our public spaces,” Peterson told the city leaders at their regular meeting. “Particularly we’re looking at the Frog Creek corridor in Pattee Park. That could be a project that we see coming. It’s an interesting thing, a nice green alternative to spraying and chemicals.”
Peterson explained the notion of “goat rental services,” a notion drawing chuckles from the council. Targeted-grazing companies, such as the Ames-based Goats on the Go, offers several different packages, he said.
“They can do a deal where they come and train some of the city employees on how to check the goats, to make sure the fences are in order and all that,” Peterson said. “Then they offer full-service goats rental where they come and check every day.”
He said the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has funded some of its own goat projects, Peterson said, and has given some money toward it in other parts of Iowa.
Michelle Reinig, park ranger with the DNR, took the innovative step in July of hiring goats for service at Prairie Rose State Park near Harlan because “it just made so much sense,” she said.
The outcome was positive, Reinig said, and the non-native honeysuckle and other nuisance vegetation threatening to crowd out native plants in the park’s woodlands have been brought under control.
“Our resource is looking rather ‘sick,’ being overtaken by the woodland fugitive honeysuckle not to mention a few other invasives,” said Reinig. “The goats will help us get a handle on this overwhelming problem while loving the work that they do. This is a more ‘green’ approach than other methods of invasive control, and we like the idea of conservation and agricultural working together.”
Goats on the Go provided a herd at Prairie Rose for about 10 weeks.
“Goats are amazing creatures,” said Aaron Steele, co-owner of Goats on the Go. “They like to eat weeds and brush more than grass, and many of our biggest nuisance plants are at the top of the goats’ (dining) list.”
The peculiarities of goats’ tastes have significant implications for conservation groups that manage complex properties, he said. Goats can be put to work controlling noxious honeysuckle, poison ivy, buckthorn and multiflora rose without the use of chemical herbicides or gas-powered machinery.
They also happily work in areas that would be uncomfortable and even dangerous for human workers – like steep slopes and dense woods.
The DNR has successfully used goats in land management projects in other parts of the state, most notably on the steep slopes in northeast Iowa.
Both Steele and Goats on the Go co-owner Chad Steenhoek admit to taking some ribbing about their oddball enterprise but after three successful years, they are no longer “sheepish” about touting their business.
“We can’t take ourselves too seriously,” says Steele. “They are goats, after all. But once you see the good they can do, it’s hard not to talk about goats with everyone you meet.”
Perry City Council member Chuck Schott welcomed Peterson’s ruminant recommendation, saying the proposal was “not an off-the-wall idea at all. I’ve read several reports of places in Iowa and around the United States and in Europe where they’re taking goats and putting them into areas that are very difficult to maintain, and they just do the job. They do it well and without any problems.”
“Particularly along the creek,” Peterson said, “I think it will be good not to spray with chemicals.”
This is a wonderful idea that I hope is implemented!