Goats on this NC farm are helping control the invasive Kudzu weed

When Ron told me that we were going into the goat business, I said you are nuts. I'm Cheryl. And I'm Ron Searcy. And our home is in Horseshoe, North Carolina. That's a nice looking one there, that red one. That's one of my favorites. It's a big wither. I want that little brown one. People ask me, I say, well we rent goats. Do what? Rent goats, for what? I said for The federal government made an estimate a few years back that there's seven and a half million acres in the United States that's unusable because of Kozo. We specialize in taking them into areas that are difficult with machinery and manpower, places that are kind of steep and hazardous. Yeah, she's a good goat. That's her kid right there, that brown headed one. They seem like they like to be in a group. Yeah, they're a herd animal. If a goat's in there by themselves, they'll really get panicky. But you go to a Kozo area and they're just annihilated. It goes from head high to the ground and everybody's just, wow, you know, they just can't believe it. I mean, they have it made. They get to eat. They just love to eat. They do. They love to eat. Up in the morning, we'll have a few goats to feed. Get it ready to go out. I always let Ron put the nipple on because they're hard. And that's our third bottle. We're ready to go feed. We had tried a little bit of everything from tobacco to row crops. We dabbled a little bit with cattle. This farm was bought by my grandparents in 38. We have about 250 adult goats. The babies, they're kind of increasing by the day, so that usually will bring us up to around 300. We had moved back to the farm here and it was kind of overgrown and a little out of hand. And the guy said, you know, he said, you need to get you a gang of goats. He said, you wouldn't believe what they can do. And that's kind of how we started. We started with a few and then a few more. And then we bought a Billy. And next thing you know, our son said, it's dad's hobby that's gone wild. There's a lot of maintenance. People think they can take a group of goats and just put them out. That's as far from the truth as it can be. The guy that helped us now is named Jake Dorner and he's worked and helped us for about six years now. When you take those goats somewhere and then you come back to see what they've done, what is that like for you to see? We do like a dividing fence on some jobs and you can see the 10 foot high kudzu on one side and dirt on the other. And it's only been a couple of weeks. The wilder and rougher it is, it seems like the more they like it. They leave no leaf unturned inside that fence. Do you really get emotionally invested with these goats? You do as much as you don't want to. You know, you try to keep it separate. This is a business. This is what we do. But it's hard because they all have a cute personality. And then every once in a while, you know, you have one that's just real stubborn and that's okay too because we all have that streak. Is there a lot of goat humor that goes along with? No, not really. Like you've got to be kidding me. No buts about it. No, not really. Okay. No, I haven't heard anything like that or very little. The first thing we have to do is go in and get fencing built. So we'll have to go in and clear and cut fence line. And then we'll get everything ready for them. Then we'll bring the goats back in. This is the Crowder Mountain State Park located in Kings Mountain. This is the only track in the whole state park that's got kudzu on it. And they'd like to get control of it before it, I guess, gets out of hand, gets the rest of the park. It'll completely consume areas. I mean, if you stop long enough, I believe it'd grow up your pants length. How long will it take you guys to kind of get the goats into place? How long does it take usually? If it's a conventional place that we can back up to, we're probably there and gone in an hour. But this is a little unique where we're going to kind of shuttle them in. There's 50 plus goats in here. This will take about two weeks, two and a half weeks. For the first few days, they won't eat long before they lay down because there's just so much here. And as time goes on, the vegetation will get less. They'll have to work longer and longer, you know, to get full. Makes me feel good because, I mean, it really gives me a lot of pride when somebody says, I never seen nothing like it.