You might remember how L.A. recruited goats to clear plants from land for commercial development. Now Maryland has got the goat idea—for lawn mowing, that is. Mowing lawns isn’t just tedious and fuel-intensive: It also poses a threat to bog turtles, a threatened species that makes its home in the grassy areas along a highway project in the state, according to officials.
That’s why they’re starting a two-year, $10,000 experimental project to use goats to trim their grass, instead of noisy, gas-guzzling lawnmowers.
Goats are cheaper and lighter than cattle, which could also stomp the bog turtles to death. And, of course, there’s a side benefit: The goats do the job of a blade-wielding machine without gobbling up precious fossil fuels.
We’re not sure how much the goats will charge for their services, but we’re guessing they have pretty competitive rates.
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Image: flickr / ynskjen
May 29th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Seattle passed a law a while ago that allowed people to keep miniature goats in the city limits – part of the arguement for the goats was that they were an environmentally friendly way to manage yards. This is especially appropriate since Seattle lawns get overwhelmed by blackberry bushes, and very little will kill the bushes except for harsh chemicals. Or hungry goats.
May 30th, 2009 at 3:47 am
Hopefully this common sense solution will not go the way of common sense in general in the
US, i.e. into the litigation quagmire when the first person slips and twists an ankle on goat
droppings or the first child crawls along and test ingests some.
May 30th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Um, “slips and twists an ankle on goat droppings”? Lol, that would be difficult!!!!!! goat droppings are much more like rabbit droppings than cow patties!!!! And more scattered.
May 31st, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Yes. Points to you, you know more about goat s***.
At any rate, it does sound like a cool idea. I do get frustrated with our waste-water-so-we-can-waste-gasoline model of lawn care in this country. Now I think the real question is, will the goats unionize?