Menomonie Public Library has long struggled with invasive plants growing on the banks of the adjacent Lake Menomin. To deal with this, they recruited help from a local goat farm. Not only that, but the library made an event out of it, inviting people to come and watch and even pet some goats.
The event, simply titled, “Watch the Goats Eat Our Weeds,” ran on Sept. 14 and was free for all ages. The participating goat farm was ScapeGoats Farms, a ranch based in Spring Valley, founded by Dana Myers in 2007.
ScapeGoats is primarily an invasive plant removal service, allowing the rental of their goats in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan to mitigate buckthorn and other invasive weeds.
ScapeGoats also brought a few “ambassador goats” to the event who were only a few months old and not part of the weed removal service, but for visitors to pet. Among these goats were two Australian Cashmere goats and ScapeGoats’ iconic kid, Totality, a New Zealand Kiko.
Before founding ScapeGoats, Myers had no prior experience with goats.
“I had a property in Somerset that was overrun with buckthorn, and I had heard that goats do a good job of mitigating that, so my partner at the time and I got four goats, and that’s how it started,” Myers said. “The neighbors saw what we were doing, and they wanted to rent the goats, but we only had the four, so we got a few more goats and started renting them to the neighbors. Next thing you know, I got a full-on ranch and 600 goats.”
ScapeGoats is an eco-friendly weed removal service compared to traditional chemical based companies, and it offers a lot of advantages.
“One huge thing is we’re chemical-free, there’s no chemicals used at all with our restoration services,” Myers said. After using goats to get rid of smaller unwanted vegetation, they use hand tools to pull out any invasive plants too large for the goats and then seed the area with native plants.
ScapeGoats was the recommendation of Menomonie’s City and Street department. “I had been after them to try to help us with buckthorn mitigation and getting rid of some invasives for the last couple of years, and it’s just not practical to get heavy equipment here because of our steep slope,” said Joleen Sterk, director of the Menomonie Public Library. They suggested getting some goats, and I happened to find ScapeGoats as a local resource, contacted them, and they said ‘absolutely.’”
Along with invasive plant mitigation, ScapeGoats is popular among locals for disposing of certain holiday decorations.
“In the fall here, especially right after Halloween, we let folks come and bring pumpkins over to feed the goats,” Myers said. “We also have what you could call a tree recycling program. Christmas trees are high in nutrients – there’s a lot of nice vitamins in them – and it’s a natural dewormer as well. So we let folks come from near and far to drop their old Christmas trees off, and we usually get anywhere between 200 and 400 trees a year.”
By getting rid of their invasive plants, the library hopes to draw more visitors and create a better experience for those visiting according to Sterk.
“I am hoping that, by addressing this, it will allow the natural beauty of our library to shine through, and to work into the development of our outdoor space around the library, so that people can better enjoy the lake view and the property, and really have a great visit when they come here,” Sterk said.
McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
