[Sca-cooks] Goats

[Daniel Phelps]

Was written:

> A little tip for getting rid of vine type plants that you don't want
> around... get a goat.  They love briars, blackberries, etc... and they
will
> eat them down to the point of killing them off.  Speaking from experience,
> we lost several blackberry bushes  and honeysuckle to goats, as well as
the
> pleasant loss of briars, poison ivy, sumac, etc.  Unfortunately though,
they
> also like saplings.

While I think them tasty as kid and will bow to their prowess in removing
unwanted vegetation goats do occasionally present problems.  What problems
you ask?  Well a neighbor of my folks when I was growing up ran a country
garage... read garage/junkyard/car storage lot.  He always had cars parked
all which a way and the grass would grow up between them.  He decided to get
goats to keep the grass trimmed.  Big mistake.  Very big mistake.  Goats
climb and they have hard sharp little hooves.  Dents... lots and lots of
tiny little dents over time not unlike that produced by good hail storm.
Need I say more?

Daniel