LAS CRUCES, New Mexico – Nature’s weed eaters have been particularly busy this year due to the monsoon rains.
Jake Perrault of Green Machine Environmental Goats tells ABC-7 there are benefits to using goats instead of landscapers to clear vegetation and weeds.
“You can’t do what these guys can,” he said. “They’ll filter the ground when it’s all done, they’ll keep going over and fetching every little bit they drop.”
The goats help control vegetation in water retention basins, canals, dams and public and private properties. Perrault said the goats are typically used in hard-to-reach areas without the equipment normally needed by humans.
He said that unlike horses and cows, which eat mostly hay, goats eat almost anything and it doesn’t hurt them to do so.
The Trails West senior community is one of Perrault’s clients who urgently needed to clear their weeds after the monsoon season flooded their pond area with vegetation.
Reuben Zamora, project manager for Trails West, told ABC-7 that the goats were able to clear approximately 2.3 acres of the pond area in just two weeks.
The residents of the community are thrilled to have them there.
“I prefer the goats over lawnmowers who use the machines and they went into town – they cleared the area quickly,” said Jeannette Bucklin, a Trails West resident.
Perrault said the cost depends on the size of the land and the amount of weed being removed, but in general it is cheaper than manual labor and the equipment cost of traditional removal.
He encourages landowners with several acres of land to “goat-scaping” weed control.
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