Weed eaters: Goats come to Wascana Park

When you have a weed problem, who are you going to call?

Well, you could get a lawn care guy, but the folks who take care of Wascana Park have a solution that might surprise you.

The Provincial Capital Commission has brought in 100 goats to eat the noxious weeds on the Goose Island Overlook, a beautiful hilly area overlooking Wascana Lake.

The animals are eating like kings, munching away at the weeds. Each goat is expected to eat up to 10 pounds of weeds per day during a 10-day grazing period. A second grazing period is set for early August.

Florentine Maathuis is the herd’s shepherd. She helped bring the animals up from a pasture in Elbow, a small town just off of Diefenbaker Lake.

These goats are the GOATs. They're brought here to the Goose Island Overlook to eat weeds and clean the place up! pic.twitter.com/m1avrkgszi

— Dom Lucyk (@DomLucyk) June 2, 2022

“They are usually grazing in a big flock in Elbow on the community pasture. They have a big flock of 1,500 goats over there. Their goal there is to graze the leafy spurge,” she said Thursday.

So what’s the problem with leaving the ground as is? Well, the weeds there are pretty serious business.

“(The goats) are very good at grazing invasive weeds. We brought them in here last week to graze the absinthe and alfalfa, basically. There’s also some Canadian thistle they have to graze,” she said.

It’s not the first time something like this has been done. Wascana Centre has tried it before with sheep, but it just didn’t work that well.

“Goats are really good at this because sheep tend to eat grass first while goats like to nibble on weeds. What they do is they pick up the tops and eat the flowers, so the plants won’t go to seed and won’t spread anywhere,” Maathuis explained.

And the animals have quite the appetite.

“This is around half an acre and they do it in a day,” Maathuis said of the area the goats were in Thursday. “We don’t want it all to be bare. They have to just basically graze 50 per cent and they’re doing that in 24 hours, basically.”

Maathuis, who’s originally from Holland, works a pretty interesting job. It’s not every day you meet someone who watches over a herd of weed-control goats, but it makes her happy.

For her, it started with the dogs needed to help control the herd.

“I really liked working the dogs and I really like the relationship between the shepherd, the environment, the dogs (and) the animals and how you can manage everything together,” she said.

Overall, she thinks it’s a great alternative to spraying the ground with pesticides, and not just because it’s fun.

“(There’s) no noise. I wouldn’t say it’s carbon-friendly per se — I haven’t fact-checked that — but it’s way more sustainable, of course. It’s a double function: It’s fun and effective,” she said.

The goats are surrounded by an electric fence that keeps them in. Anyone who comes to look at the goats is asked to keep their distance for their own safety, as well as to keep their dogs on a leash.

But visitors are still encouraged. Two teachers brought their class of young kids to see the herd on Thursday.

“The goats are so smelly. I don’t know why,” one kid said with a grin and a giggle.