Grazing business finds green pastures

Goats will work for food as owner collects the cash

What a difference a couple of days and 14 goats can make.

Two weeks ago, the strip of land between Mary Dorsey and Judy Luxford's driveways in Duke Park was a 20-foot by 50-foot jungle.

"Poison ivy and all kinds of mess," Dorsey said. "Over the past few years, it got to be too much."

When machetes won't cut it and you'd rather not RoundUp, who you gonna call? The Goat Patrol.

The Goat Patrol is a new Durham enterprise that employs four-legged brush disposals to clear away noxious vines, weeds and shrubs while leaving only organic fertilizer behind. It's owned by Alix Bowman, an MBA who came to North Carolina from the West Coast with the idea of starting an eco-friendly business.

"I was interested in turning slime into energy," she said.

After "dabbling in pig poop," she said, she became intrigued by the possibilities in "targeted grazing" -- as the practice of using animals to manage vegetation is called in professional and academic circles -- while trying to rid her own yard of some out-of-control English ivy.

"I always thought the idea was interesting," she said. She opened The Goat Patrol in July.

How it works is:

* Property owner contacts Bowman at info@thegoatpatrol.com or (919) 757-1850;

* Bowman comes to see the job site and presents an estimate;

* If agreeable, a date is set;

* A day ahead, Bowman sets up fencing to keep the goats on task;

* On the appointed day(s) the goats arrive bright and early and munch away until quitting time -- with occasional breaks for cud-chewing.

"I had heard about similar businesses when I lived in Portland, Oregon," Bowman said. They're not common in the East, but N.C. State University has run research projects using goats and sheep to clear land of unwanted growth -- like kudzu -- and found they do the job very well.

"Goats basically are browsers," said Jean-Marie Luginbuhl, a crop-science professor at NCSU. "They go after woody vegetation before grass.

"I think the goat industry has come a long way, and the general public is more attuned to these kinds of approaches than using pesticides," he said. "People just understand these creatures a little better."

Goats, Luginbuhl said, are also smart about what they eat. "They go after the best of everything, and ... from plant to plant to sort of complement the diet." Their bodies have also evolved chemical mechanisms to take care of toxins, such as tannic acids, that plants have evolved as self-defenses.

Even so, he said, some plants are bad for goats: tomato and potato vines, azaleas and rhododendrons, plum or peach branches, for example, as well as most ornamental plants.

But poison ivy, honeysuckle, wild roses, Virginia creeper, wisteria? Goats love 'em.

Dorsey said she met Bowman at the Northgate Dog Park and suggested to her neighbor Luxford they engage the goats on their problem strip. A date was set several weeks ago, but a problem arose with the city of Durham's animal-control rules.

"When I applied for a business permit, that's kind of where they raised their eyebrows," Bowman said. Eventually, she got a go-ahead from City Hall, as long as the goats didn't stay in town overnight.

"It was time-consuming," she said.

Approval in hand, she and the goats set to work last week. Dorsey had sent out notice on her neighborhood e-mail list to let the neighbors know what would be going on and invite them to come and watch.

"Everybody was really excited," she said. "Great idea, I need to get them over to my house."

Word spread. Spectators came by. TV crews came by. The goats would even pose for pictures.

"I was definitely inundated with calls and e-mails," said Bowman, who remains with the herd all day and, after work, takes them back to their home pens for the night. Watching them, she said, is "very calming." But she does bring other work and reading matter along to help pass her time.

Following Luginbuhl's advice, Bowman is starting small. The 14 goats (all of whom have names, and personal introductions on her Web site: www.thegoatpatrol.com/meettheherd.htm) are her "starter herd," she said, and she's limiting her operational radius to 15 to 20 miles -- traveling any farther is too stressful on the goats, she said.

But, being entrepreneurial, she plans to expand eventually to a 200-goat staff and serve the entire Triangle. Publicity from the Duke Park job brought enquires from hither and yon, she said, "so there's definitely expansion potential."

At Dorsey and Luxford's driveways, that was absolutely clear.