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  • From: MARTHA ANNE BOYD <boyd@students.wisc.edu>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Re: more goats in cities
  • Date: Thu, 01 May 2003 10:15:07 -0500

HI all -
I went to Beyond Pesticides conference in Austin TX last weekend -
presentation by Lani Malmberg of "Ewe4ic Ecological Services" - she contracts
out her 1000 head of Cashmere goats to eat weeds throughout the West.
Travels with them, doesn't put them in any kind of barn, doesn't feed them
other than what they graze. They use a flexible mesh electric fence to
protect desired plants and contain the goats (more to keep out dogs). They've
worked in Denver, Boulder, Vail, CO Springs, Jackson Hole, Grand Teton
National Park, and are proposing a big project in Owens Valley CA (in't that
the valley the LA metropolitan water district destroyed?)

Her goats have pretty much eaten it all - thistles, leafy spurge, reed canary
grass, cholla, bindweed, poison hemlock, salt cedar - in combo with
revegetation projects. She views goats as self-propelled weeder - fertilizer
- irrigation - organic matter recycling machines. Her philosophy is to
improve the competitive advantage of whatever plants a land manager sets as
goals and to resist chasing symptoms.

I didn't know that because of the way goats chew, they crush most seeds -
some skeptics in a community garden tried sprouting goat-doo soil from a
leafy spurge field and found a 0.02% germination rate.

For more info contact Lani at ewe4icbenz@aol.com
Also www.goatapelli.com

Martha




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