ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - A new technique for clearing brush at small farms near Ann Arbor is effective, relatively inexpensive, environmentally friendly and cute.
Christine Clisham stumbled across the solution while looking for a companion for her pet donkey, Rudy.
“I was looking for a goat because I’ve heard they make good pasture buddies,” she said. “And I was on Craigslist and saw this ad to rent them to help strip out the brush I have.”
Clisham has lived on her farm in Lodi Township for about four years. The combination of losing her horse that previously helped by eating and trampling down the weeds with big early-summer rains made keeping the plants at bay a nearly impossible task, The Ann Arbor News reported (https://bit.ly/1w8isIh ).
“With all the rain, I could hardly keep ahead of just the grass,” she said. “The pastures and the fence lines just got out of control.”
Milan farmer Mike Mourer first had the idea to rent out goats after he bought a couple to clear out poison ivy on his property.
“My son and I saw that in California they use them to help clear undergrowth to prevent fires and I said, ’Well that’s not a bad idea, let’s see if we can rent some,’” he said.
Mourer started renting out the goats in 2013, and he said that the demand was so great this summer that he hardly ever brought the goats to their home pasture. As far as he’s aware, he’s the only person in the region renting out the animals.
People have reached out to Mourer from the west side of the state inquiring about renting the animals but he tries to keep to a 25- to 30-mile radius so that he can check on them regularly.
“It’s a lot of small farms that rent them,” he said. “I’ve talked to some people from some townships that were interested in doing it, but I don’t have that many goats. I have about 30 goats, I can’t go in and do thousands of acres, but for stuff like this it works out well.”
When the goats are rented, Mourer first visits the site to set up a special electric fence to keep the goats in their designated munching zone. He also brings a trailer so that the animals can go inside at night or if the weather is inclement.
Twelve goats_which are rented at a cost of $10 per goat per week_were working their way through one of Clisham’s pastures in mid-August and the animals had done some serious damage in less than one week of work.
“They’re not lawn mowers, but they like to eat at their head or above. They’re good for clearing out brush and garbage,” she said.
“They’ll go right up to the fence, though, which is the hard part with a lawn mower or brush hog. Before they came, you couldn’t see the wooden fence at all, and when they got done it was like, ’Oh my gosh, here’s my fence.’”
Clisham said the idea of having goats clear her yard was attractive because clearing brush is one of her least favorite activities.
“It’s so hard to deal with because you can’t see the branch and other branches hit you and you get scraped,” she said. “When they strip the greenery away it becomes so much easier because you can just see what you need to cut down.”
The goats also provide a level of entertainment and a significant “cute factor” that goes beyond buying or renting a weed wacker.
“People really enjoy just watching them eating,” Mourer said. “One couple rented them and ended up having a big party and had people come over and they had a cookout and watched the goats eat.”
For Clisham, the goats provide temporary company for Rudy, and she’s considering buying one to be on the farm full time. She said that with the exception of one attempted escape, the goats have been ideal farm hands.
“They’re environmentally friendly. They’re just going to leave a bit of poop behind, not even anything I have to pick up,” she said. “And the other big advantage is the other day when it was raining I would not have been out there doing brushwork but they just kept on eating. They’re all-weather workers.”
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Information from: The Ann Arbor News, https://www.mlive.com/ann-arbor
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