When you need to do some serious spring cleaning, why not call in the GOATs? In this case, literal goats.
This spring, DTE Energy partnered with Michigoat, a local business that provides furry staff members to clean up brush and other natural waste without resorting to pesticides or mechanical means. The company brought more than a dozen goats to DTE’s Shelby Service Center in Shelby Township in April to clear a retention pond of grass and reeds – including invasive phragmites – as the center gets ready for spring rains.
“It’s an alternative for vegetation management at some of the sites,” said Jessica Scavo, owner of Michigoat. “It’s gaining popularity and helping the environment.”
The goats were hard at work, munching away on plenty of plants that could cause flooding if not removed, for more than a week. While the goats were happy to do their part, the solution is one that takes plenty of planning.
Before a site can really be considered, the goats need to sample what’s on offer. DTE’s environmental team took samples from the Shelby site to the goats to allow them to get an advanced taste to make sure it offered plants they would want to eat. The area was also tested to make sure nothing was harmful to the goats in the vegetation. Then, the team at Michigoat showed up on site the day before the goats really get to work to set up a temporary electric fence to help keep the hungry animals where they’re supposed to be.
While it took plenty of work, it was worth it for the team at DTE.
“We’re always looking to be innovative and find solutions with an environmental mindset,” said Collin O’Shaughnessy, an environmental supervisor with DTE. “When it was brought to us, I thought of this application immediately. We took a waste and turned it into a resource for the goats, which is a win-win for all of us.”
The goat solution is effective in other ways, too. Phragmites, an invasive reed, is especially hard to remove – at least it is if you’re a human. For the goats, they chow down and digest it, killing any chance the reed has to regrow where a human might just dispose of it.
“The phragmites can choke out the vegetation that are supposed to be here,” said Colin. “It’s important for us to get rid of that and it impacts the environmental compliance work we do, so this lets us get rid of it and do our work.”
As neighbors walked past the temporary pen filled with goats who were hard at work, taking a moment to say hi to the furry landscapers and giving their dogs a chance to scope things out, another reason that the partnership is so valuable was clear.
“As a utility, you’re serving your community anyways,” Scavo said. “If you can serve them in a better way, in a way that makes people happy and is cool to see it be done and without herbicides and machinery, that’s important. It’s returning back to the natural way of doing things.”
To learn more about Michigoat or to see if the goats are available to clear vegetation where you live, contact Jessica at mymichigoat@gmail.com or follow them on Instagram to see the goats hard at work at @mymichigoat.