# Goat Rental



## Dobish (Jun 4, 2018)

I just got a quote for a goat rental. This has been a year long process, and finally the company is ready to bring their goats by to clear away some of my brush. I'm pretty excited about this, since I haven't been able to get to the back back yard as much as I would like. I also feel much better about feeding goats than dumping this stuff into a landfill! 

Does anyone have experience with goat rentals?

Also, not sure if this should go in the GEAR forum


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## begreen (Jun 4, 2018)

Good for you. Goats are great at clearing a lot. They are quiet and entertaining. We've had a local goat rental person here for 14 years. She has expanded it into a pretty good sized business, even doing work for the county and city of Seattle. She now has a few hundred goats I think and can the can tackle serious acreage. A neighbor hired a small squad of her goats (maybe 10?) and I'd walk by and greet them daily. They decimated a thicket full of blackberries in about a week. The other cool advantage is they work long hours on rough terrain that equipment would have a hard time with.

She's been in articles locally, in Newsweek and even on the Colbert Show. Her goats have even be used in commercials.


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## brenndatomu (Jun 4, 2018)

I've heard about this...mainly government entity's renting them to clean up ROWs.
Hafta give us some before and after pics...


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## Dobish (Jun 4, 2018)

i will surely do that!


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## Ashful (Jun 4, 2018)

This is funny, I was joking about creating a goat rental business with some friends a few years ago, I didn’t know it was actually a thing.  My reasoning was the same, trained to a wireless system, they could be tracked, monitored, and contained while trimming alongside highways, under high power lines, and other such danger zones.



Dobish said:


> I also feel much better about feeding goats than dumping this stuff into a landfill!


Where will the goats dump it?  ;-)


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## begreen (Jun 4, 2018)

Ashful said:


> Where will the goats “dump” it? ;-)


That's a great side benefit. They fertilize the land while clearing it.


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## Doug MacIVER (Jun 4, 2018)

begreen said:


> That's a great side benefit. They fertilize the land while clearing it.


everything you gain, looks like more Co2?


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## Doug MacIVER (Jun 4, 2018)

Doug MacIVER said:


> everything you gain, looks like more Co2?


since I brought it up, doesn't include industrial or recreational use of small ruminants?
Table 6. Global production, emissions and emission intensity for small ruminants Species Production (million tonnes) Absolute emissions1 (million tonnes CO2-eq) Average emission intensity (kg CO2-eq/kg product) Milk2 Meat2 Milk Meat Milk2 Meat2 Sheep 8.0 7.8 67.4 186.9 8.4 24.0 Goats 12.0 4.8 62.4 112.5 5.2 23.5 Totals 20.0 12.6 129.4 299.4 6.5 23.link, did not see a date?http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3461e/i3461e04.pdf


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## MikeK (Jun 4, 2018)

http://www.goatsonthego.com/


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## Dobish (Jun 5, 2018)

for a while, amazon was saying that they were going to be offering a goat rental service. There are a couple of companies around here, but they don't really do small areas like my yard. 

I would love to have goats, but the city says that I cannot due to my location.... Also, i'm not really sure the sheepdog would be very happy either. 

I had to get back there with the string trimmer to try and mow it down a little bit so they could even get back there to where i wanted them to start. I did leave quite a bit of the super tall grass around the fort, so it is still over my son's head when he heads to his secret hideout


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## Ashful (Jun 6, 2018)

Well, this whole goat rental thing sounds too fun to not try it, just once.  But if that doesn't pan out, have you considered just buying or renting a 3-point rotary mower, a.k.a. "brush hog"?  I just picked one up for $300 in rough shape, that needed a little rehab, but you can pick them up for $500 - $600 in really nice shape.  Mine will mow down saplings, rose thickets, and anything else you run it over.

This assumes you have a tractor... but there are also self-propelled smaller walk-behind brush hogs, if you don't have a tractor.


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## Dobish (Jun 6, 2018)

No tractor,  and i have a walk behind string trimmer that does a decent job. It would take a lot of work to get a tractor on the other side of the creek anyway.  The yard hadn't been touched in 20 years,  so some of the roses are 20ft around. And 15 feet tall.  Once it's cleared out a little bit. I can get to it to maintain it.  There are a ton of rocks and concrete chunks that are poking out, which i can't see until i hit them.... we will see how this goat rental works.  It won't be a regular thing i don't think...


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## begreen (Jun 6, 2018)

It's hard to beat goats in rocky, uneven terrain where a brush hog blade would be messed up quickly.


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## CincyBurner (Jun 6, 2018)

Watch out for the coyotes and coy-dogs.


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## Dobish (Jun 11, 2018)

well, they brought it 2 goats, and 2 goats tried to escape. They had issues with the electric fence because there was so much brush that it was shorting out i guess. They are going to think about some other options, but they will be back next weekend!


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## Dobish (Jun 11, 2018)




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## sportbikerider78 (Jun 13, 2018)

I have done a bunch of land clearing.  All I can say is that after all the work, I wish I had just rented a bulldozer.


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## Dobish (Jun 13, 2018)

sportbikerider78 said:


> I have done a bunch of land clearing.  All I can say is that after all the work, I wish I had just rented a bulldozer.


i am pretty close to buying a big kubota (i have a good lead, but still not sure if i really need it), but the problem is I have no good way of getting across the creek to where I need to clear! I can probably reach some of it with the boom, but the majority of it is too far back.


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## Ashful (Jun 14, 2018)

Anyone watch Shaun the Sheep?   The goat episodes are always my favorites.


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## brenndatomu (Jun 14, 2018)

Ashful said:


> Anyone watch Shaun the Sheep?


Hilarious!


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## sportbikerider78 (Jun 21, 2018)

Ashful said:


> Anyone watch Shaun the Sheep?   The goat episodes are always my favorites.


My kids love that show.  No words, so it makes having it on in the background tolerable.


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## Ashful (Jun 21, 2018)

sportbikerider78 said:


> My kids love that show.  No words, so it makes having it on in the background tolerable.



If you are describing that show as “tolerable”, you really need to sit down and watch it with them, sometime.  I think I enjoy it more than the kids, half the stuff goes right over their heads.

Find the episode titled “mower mouth”, to keep this one on-topic.


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## Dobish (Jun 21, 2018)




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## Dobish (Jun 25, 2018)

i now have 2 nigerian dwarf goats in the back yard. We gave them some toys to play with:


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## Ashful (Jun 25, 2018)

If your car keys go missing, start hunting for shiny poop.


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## begreen (Jun 25, 2018)

Dobish said:


> i now have 2 nigerian dwarf goats in the back yard. We gave them some toys to play with:
> View attachment 227465


Give them a teeter-totter or spring board to play on. They will entertain themselves (and you) for hours.


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## Dobish (Jun 25, 2018)

i almost gave them a teeter totter yesterday. i might do that this afternoon when i get home.


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## Dobish (Jun 27, 2018)

This seems to be not meant to be. My wife got home yesterday and as she was driving down the neighborhood said "those look like funny dogs... actually those look like goats.... those actually look like our goats." 

They had escaped, and went wandering around the neighborhood. Fortunately neighbors helped out.  

Today, the city decided to start work on putting new liners in the sewers, and there is a geyser in the neighbors yard and the goats are super scared!


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## Ashful (Jun 27, 2018)

Dobish said:


> This seems to be not meant to be. My wife got home yesterday and as she was driving down the neighborhood said "those look like funny dogs... actually those look like goats.... those actually look like our goats."
> 
> They had escaped, and went wandering around the neighborhood. Fortunately neighbors helped out.
> 
> Today, the city decided to start work on putting new liners in the sewers, and there is a geyser in the neighbors yard and the goats are super scared!



Playing hobbyist farmer is always full of entertaining moments.  You should have seen me dealing with a particularly stubborn broody chicken, last month.


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## Dobish (Jun 27, 2018)

the last broody chicken I had to deal with was turned into a roast...


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## Ashful (Jun 27, 2018)

Dobish said:


> the last broody chicken I had to deal with was turned into a roast...



This one got awful close.  It didn’t help that it took place over the two weeks leading up to a family vacation, and I didn’t have her fixed until literally the night before we hopped on the plane.


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## Dobish (Jun 27, 2018)

Well, the goat rental woman just pulled the plug. It got to be too much for her, as she is used to smaller easier to manage yards. I guess I will have to go back to the chainsaw, tarps, and pieces of twine...

it was fun while it lasted....


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## brenndatomu (Jun 27, 2018)

Got your goats repo'd...
...not something you hear everyday
Too bad it didn't work out for ya, would have been a good solution. 
Could buy your own I suppose...they can be cheap to buy. Heck, I bought a young wither goat for $1 at an auction years ago...made a pretty good pet


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## Dobish (Jun 27, 2018)

brenndatomu said:


> Got your goats repo'd...
> ...not something you hear everyday
> Too bad it didn't work out for ya, would have been a good solution.
> Could buy your own I suppose...they can be cheap to buy. Heck, I bought a young wither goat for $1 at an auction years ago...made a pretty good pet


the funny thing is, she is trying to sell these goats


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## begreen (Jun 27, 2018)

Dobish said:


> Well, the goat rental woman just pulled the plug. It got to be too much for her, as she is used to smaller easier to manage yards. I guess I will have to go back to the chainsaw, tarps, and pieces of twine...
> 
> it was fun while it lasted....
> View attachment 227517


That's too bad. Was this with Mutton Mowers? If not, maybe give them a call.
http://muttonmowers.com/


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## Ashful (Jun 27, 2018)

Dobish said:


> the funny thing is, she is trying to sell these goats


Why not buy them?  "Goat flipping" could have a whole new meaning.


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## Dobish (Jun 27, 2018)

I don't need goats right now... they are really cute,  but they wake up super early.


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## Dobish (Jun 28, 2018)

begreen said:


> That's too bad. Was this with Mutton Mowers? If not, maybe give them a call.
> http://muttonmowers.com/


it was a small local farm. Muttonmowers never got back to me (we are a bit farther south of their normal area).

I did spend about an hour yesterday with the clippers and the tarp, and tackled one pile of rose thorns.


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## Ashful (Jun 28, 2018)

Dobish said:


> I don't need goats right now... they are really cute,  but they wake up super early.



Things always look easier from a distant armchair, but I think I’d be tempted to just buy two of them, and use them for as long as it takes to clean things up, then sell or give them away when the job is done.


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## Dobish (Jun 28, 2018)

Ashful said:


> Things always look easier from a distant armchair, but I think I’d be tempted to just buy two of them, and use them for as long as it takes to clean things up, then sell or give them away when the job is done.



we are about to embark on a major garage project with a lot of moving parts, so I don't want them to be frightened the whole time. my other thought is that the effort I would put into getting fencing and a structure for them would be better spent clearing the thicker brush and putting it in a place where the demolition guy can just put it in his truck with heavy equipment and haul it away!  There is so much deadfall and brush in 1 corner across the creek that it will take a while just to be able to put the fence up....

its roughly 50' long x 20' wide of this:


and its a hill where they just dumped a ton of old concrete chunks....

We are also technically in city limits, so we would have to get permits, yada yada yada.


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