Scott Martin’s herd of goats clear out flammable vegetation for fire-wise clean-up efforts in Bend.
“When they come out of the truck, they go straight off eatin’…” Martin said.
The four-legged living lawnmowers were hard at work at The Parks at Broken Top near Cascade Middle School on Thursday.
The goats munch away on even the thickest foliage.
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Goats offer several benefits over landscaping crews or machinery. They thrive in difficult terrain, are cost effective, make less noise than mowers, weed eaters and blowers, are environmentally safe and extremely efficient. A single goat can eat 2-4% of its bodyweight.
For Martin’s goats, that’s about four pounds of vegetation a day.
For his 150-goat herd, it can clear a quarter to half of an acre in 24 hours, depending on the type of vegetation.
