Oregon City Fires Landscaping Goats | Animals | Forums

Oregon City Fires Landscaping Goats

Admin

Forum Posts: 31782

Member Since:
15 Feb ’12

Offline

27 Feb ’16 - 10:02 am

poor little fellas, all they want to do is graze

The city's experiment with getting goats to do its dirty work has failed the smell test, literally.

It seemed like an environmentally good idea at the time: Set 75 rented goats loose on 9.1 acres of city park to chomp and chew invasive plants such as Armenian blackberry and English ivy that were choking native flora out of Minto-Brown Island Park.

So the city, responding to community interest, launched a pilot project last October, contracting with Yoder Goat Rentals out of Molalla to remove the invasive species. But in a report submitted this week to the Salem City Council, the public works department revealed that the six-week project cost the city almost five times what it would normally have spent had it removed the vegetation using more conventional, and less odoriferous, methods.

According to the report presented Monday, the total cost to the city for using the nannies and billies, which were "universally welcomed by park users as a pleasant pastoral addition to the scenery," was $20,719. Ruminate on that, if you will.

This amount included paying the contractor a $11,375 flat rate for the goat rental, $2,560 for goat monitoring and $540 to remove weeds in order to erect temporary fencing to contain the goats.

The city had to clear a perimeter path, rent a portable bathroom for the contractor, who remained on site, and bring in potable water, which cost $4,203. It also paid $2,041 for an inmate crew to remove blackberry canes after the goats ate all the leaves but left the bramble.

The city also had to deal with what the goats left behind, which was a "heavily fertilized area," said Mark Becktel, public works operations manager for the city of Salem. "If you know what I mean."

more http://www.statesman...../80860622/

Admin

Forum Posts: 31782

Member Since:
15 Feb ’12

Offline

21 Mar ’16 - 10:22 am

Minneapolis might want to contact Oregon

The Minneapolis Park Board is considering two new tactics in the battle against weeds and invasive species — less pesticide in neighborhood parks and, where there’s room to roam, goats.

A majority of commissioners favored those moves after getting an update this week on where and when park staff use herbicides, fungicides and insecticides plus a heavy dose of pressure to change course.

The proposed change to pesticide application in neighborhood parks would end the use of the compound glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and half of the most commonly used herbicides in parks. But the most attention-getting directive is looking into the use of goats to graze back invasive species in two areas of the park system, a technique that’s been used previously by Three Rivers Park District.

“I very much appreciate the passion and commitment of the many who showed up last night to voice their concerns about the use of this herbicide in our parks,” Commissioner John Erwin said in a Facebook post this week. Erwin, a University of Minnesota professor and floricultural and horticultural specialist with U Extension, proposed the changes. “Roundup has been considered safe in the past, however, recent research raises some concerns as to whether this is true.”

more http://www.startribu.....372632591/