permaculture

[MARTHA ANNE BOYD <boyd@students.wisc.edu>]

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