BUSINESS MATTERS

Greedy Goats venture just grazing the surface of landscape services

When configured just right, the interior of a 1997 Dodge Caravan has room for about a dozen normal-size goats.

If 12 goats inside a minivan seems like too many, well ....

"They have no have concept of personal space," Connie Rieper-Estes said during a recent chat to discuss Greedy Goats, the vegetation management business she runs with her husband, Jason Estes.

Greedy Goats garnered attention in Northwest Arkansas last week when those dozen goats were loaded up and taken to Wilson Park for a cleanup mission. They'll be working at the park through Friday and have shown a knack for not only clearing brush, but drawing a crowd while they do it.

Admittedly, owning a goat vegetation management business wasn't any sort of lifelong dream for Rieper-Estes. She got into into it thanks to some difficult personal circumstances, and the, um, proclivity of goats to make more goats.

Rieper-Estes was a stay-at-home mom running what she described as a 5-acre "hobby farm." Last year the family added a couple of goats, Cecily and Joe, to a menagerie that included dogs, cats, chickens and a miniature donkey.

A month later Taffy joined the family and in a relatively short period of time that trio of goats had grown to 18. They ran out of brush to clear at home around the same time that Jason Estes, a local artist, lost his job as a chef.

"We needed a job," Rieper-Estes said. "We had goats."

After some online research, Rieper-Estes found that goat vegetation management services have been popular on the coasts for a while. A YouTube video posted by a goat vegetation management service business owner led Rieper-Estes to figure, "why not?"

Greedy Goats is currently operating within about a 20-mile radius of the family's property in northwest Fayetteville. They really enjoy feasting on bush honeysuckle, English ivy, Bradford pears, poison ivy and blackberry bushes.

Contrary to what you might think, grass and tin cans are not a preferred menu item for the Greedy Goats.

As with any landscaping service the cost varies by job size and time required. Goats do take their time on the job. They'd need about a week to properly clear a 4,000-square-foot area of leaves.

That same area, if you wanted stems, branches and root balls, would require "intensive grazing 2 times per year for three years," according to the Greedy Goats website, greedygoats.com.

Renting the herd comes with a 5-cent per square foot fee, plus $100 mobilization fee and a $25 fence setup fee. The fence is to keep the goats out of landscaped areas. Frequent customers are given penny discounts for herd rental with each trip.

Greedy Goats is only breaking even right now. A proper trailer for the goats is thousands of dollars away, but Rieper-Estes thinks they're on to something.

Farmington Hills, a suburb of Detroit, recently hired goats to clear brush, and, according to one report, Boston is paying $11,000 for goats to clear poison ivy and other unwanted vegetation from its city parks for a second year in a row.

Amazon.com, in fact, began offering goat rental as part of its Home Services options. Rieper-Estes has reached out to to the online retailer in hopes of becoming a certified vendor.

Goats are touted as a cheaper, more environmentally friendly option for clearing brush. They're also able to take on poison ivy and work in terrain that isn't accessible for humans or machinery.

Like any employees, though, goats do present headaches for management.

"It's not so much that I manage them, but they manage me," Rieper-Estes said. "They tell me when they're ready to do something. Sometimes it's early. Sometimes it's late. I can't give an exact arrival time in the morning. I'm never sure when I can get them to work. Everything is on goat time."

SundayMonday Business on 06/28/2015

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