We have quite a bit of Poison Ivy in our backyard tree grove. I am highly allergic. This makes me not want to hang out in our beautiful creek area.
But when you have it carpeting the ground like grass, taking over small bushes, and winding its way up trees in arm-sized vines, the task of getting rid of it seems daunting. Where would one even start in eradicating this invasive vine?
As it turns out, the answer is:
This year I learned that you can rent goats.
In case you’re curious, goat rental is priced by the acre, and a herd of 20-30 goats can eat about an acre of foliage in a week. However, since goats are goats and work on their own time schedule, you get the goats for as long as it takes them to do their job. They eat pretty much everything from the ground to about 5′ in the air. They get pretty creative for those higher-up leaves, too.
Some of the heard is very friendly – there are three goats who came from a petting zoo and those stooges will follow each other around like best pals. And of course every herd must have the wily one.
Not twenty minutes after the herd’s owner and tender had dropped off the goats and fenced them in, I get this picture from my neighbor:
So of course I send a photo of the goat to the herd owner so she can turn around and capture the rogue goat.
She knows immediately which goat it is.
“Oh, that’s Muu-Muu! She’s a such a punk. But she’s friendly and should be easy to catch.”
Muu-Muu just doesn’t like imposed boundaries, but was content to happily munch on grass just outside the fence until she was captured and placed back with the rest of the herd.
After about 10 days, they were done! And they did good work, cleaning up not only the poision ivy but also the scrub brush and weeds.
Now, this isn’t the end to our poison ivy journey – we will still have to eradicate or kill the vines and roots – but it at least gives us a clear picture of the space and makes it easier to avoid contact with the ivy.
And as a bonus, the goats were fun.
