Goat Rental – Hire Goats
hiregoats.com
hiregoats.com
Moral of the story - keep an eye on the goat.
We don't expect the fox to be any good at guarding the chickens, but the goat could plausibly start out as a good gardener ("mowing" the grass and eating the weeds). But then through enthusiasm and love of the work end up ruining the garden...
The fox is malicious. It knows it will destroy the property, whereas the goat is happily oblivious to the destruction it brings.
That made me think it was more. And anyway, as much as the fox does with chickens, the goat knows it will set about to kill and eat plants. There's no real reason to call the fox knowingly malicious and the goat not.
I think we imagine foxes to have a level of cunning that a placid goat lacks.
Even some sheep like to sneak up and attack from behind. Goats even more so..
But sure most goats lack that bravery, but some have it and the cunning to attack and get to places they are not supposed to be.
«To let the billy watch the sack of oats.»
A billy/buck goat is a male goat.
Meaning, I'm guessing it's about happy incompetence and thoughtlessness?
I have three, and the only incompetence at play is when I accidentally don't contain them well enough. From my last event: https://fractaldragon.net/posts/2022-05-09_bloody_goats.html
I wonder if that works with goats, instead of the gate? I guess not.
Maybe also doesn't work with smarter cats, hmm.
(I suppose it's not your boy in the video?)
> the stripped area can be bridged with thin shoots embedded into the bark on each end of the open wound
Didn't know, I was surprised to read that it actually worked :-)
The bridge grafting worked great! The tree never lost any leaves or flowers, now has plums on it. For what it's worth, the shoots I spliced are now brown on the outside like the regular bark.
And no, not my kid, but made me laugh.
Bold assumption there. As they say, "if it doesn't hold water it won't hold a goat."
Not a goat farmer so not sure if goats do that. Anyone know?
What she does not tell is that our brother-in-law is a chef and happily makes rabbit stew of the returned rabbits. If there was ever a win-win situation, this is it.
Say what? She lies via omission to the parents, forcing them to make an uninformed choice.
Instead of letting a rabbit loose in the wild, they might have sought another home for it, because they didn't want it to die. Your sister's lies mislead them into thinking they can safely return the rabbit.
They're food. Rabbits. People eat them.
It's not better for the rabbit to be turned loose to be mauled to death by a housecat or eaten by a coyote. A shelter is going to euthanize, wasting good meat.
This is squeamishness masquerading as morality.
I do hover, object to lying. Like OP said - they(everyone in fact) have the right to make an informed choice. By omitting this information, people who are returning a rabbit aren't making an informed choice. It's a trick, a ruse, if money was involved I'd call it a fraud.
Nothing to do with squeamishness.
There's a difference between being technically correct, and being moral. While the language used is technically correct for the situation, omitting the information about where the rabbits end up is immoral.
Clearly OP understands that if the whole truth was told, they wouldn't be getting a free source of rabbit meat...
No of course not, it's none of the seller's business. If they say "hey we're vegan please don't eat our rabbits" that's a different matter, it would be at the very least polite to respect those wishes.
Why on Earth would returning a rabbit to a farm where they eat them be any different? In this case the possibility is perfectly clear.
If the person returning it knows that, then sure. The OP implied pretty heavily that they don't know the ultimate fate of the rabbits.
As far as these people know its "A farm where they sell breed and sell rabbits as pets", not a farm that raises them for meat.
In this case, the parties are close relatives, so I would argue that their threshold of duty to disclose such facts is somewhat higher than in case of complete strangers.
So there is no legal duty or obligation, but morally, the expectation on both parties are definitely not the same. Otherwise they would tell them that they would cook them when they return them. The fact they are hiding this information shows that expectations are not aligned.
That's an outright lie, since they aren't letting the rabbit loose to live on the farm -- they're eating it.
I ride right past a dog on a rotisserie.
I stopped to talk to the guy and he showed me his sign that said Dog Meat. After learning the words for dog meat in Vietnamese, I saw the signs everywhere.
Is there a culture where eating rabbit is taboo?
> They're food. Rabbits. People eat them.
Well people eat dogs and pigs so then by the same logic they are food.
Most people think rabbits are “natural” when they may actually be invasive. So they let them go. Finding a new home is the last thing on every one of these owners mind.
On the other hand, there is very real urban legend of a salt water crocodile that was captured in early 2000s in the Hongkong wild. It was hunted for months. Authorities have no idea if was a release, or travelled from nearby (more tropical) region. Read more about Pui Pui on Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pui_Pui_(crocodile) She is even on show at the Hongkong Wetland Park. But if you want to see salties in the wild without too much effort or stress, you can do that in Singapore at a wetland reserve near Kranji.
The odds that it manages a litter first are higher, especially if it escapes pregnant, which rabbits generally are if they're able to be. Those pups are feral, not domestic, and have moderately better odds. Given enough generations, the domesticated neoteny is selected out by predation and now you have an invasive population of feral rabbits which can survive in the wild.
Rabbits are good as prey, great as pests, bad as pets.
You cannot release them into the wild, just like you can’t release penguins from the zoo into the wild. We spend most of our adult life teaching our children how to survive. Most people don’t teach their pets how to survive.
No offense, but your question makes no sense in the scope we are dealing with. But fwiw, most people released from prison don’t do so well with reintegration. Some don’t survive, some end up going back, and very few thrive.
Have you seen how much litter people throw on the ground? I think you might be giving the average person too much credit.
Unless you're talking about litter as in garbage.
But if you think dumping helpless animals under your care to fend for themselves is morally equivalent to littering, I'm not even sure what to say to that. It's not even in the same ballpark.
Without commenting on the amount of badness, the point is that they're both bad things that people nonetheless manage to regularly do.
I'm really not sure what is so objectionable about asserting that animal abuse is not the same thing as littering.
It’s the first part in the HN guidelines for comments:
“Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.”
I own a Norwegian forest cat he was a stray and then found and neutered as an adult. I pretty much know that he could survive just fine on his own by hunting rodents, which he sometimes does anyway. But I still wouldn't leave him to fend for himself because I know he's much happier as a pet and I also just don't want him to leave. That's the part I don't really get. And I'm not some bleeding heart animals should have human rights type person either. Even though squirrels are cute, I'm not shedding tears while cleaning one up that the cat brought in. It's a wild animal that got killed by a predator. That's just nature.
I don't understand the emotional calculus of doing thing to an animal you've lived with and taken care of for months. And I really don't think that is normal at all.
Be less concerned with your internet points.
Good point, I've been mildly about about that me too in some cases (I'm sbd else)
I have a friend who just acquired a ball python because the frat house behind her left the snake tank, with the snake inside it, out with the trash can. Many people have no regard for animals and even less regard for their impact on the world around them.
where i live there are wild rabbits and in previous years the population has literally exploded.
The Rabbits are smart, they build a den under my deck knowing the dog cant reach them and the dog keeps other predators away.
Then a red tailed fox moved into the area... and now instead of finding whole rabbits roaming the neighbourhood, you find the odd rabbit component. Maybe a rear quarter here, or a front limb there.
I suspect you may be falling to overconfidence there.
Also, single goat? That's tough, I've done it by running the goat with a pack of dogs and treating it as a dog, but witha lone goat, who doesn't feel they have herd, keeping them happy is difficult.
The latter are toxic to (AIUI) all monogastrics, same as potatoes and other Solanum family plants - you may want to reign that behaviour in, assuming the animals are still alive.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruminant
TIL: So that's from where the word "ruminate" comes :-)
Apparently they find it super tasty, but it's not vegetarian, so they shouldn't eat it. The chickens get into much less trouble and can roam mostly unsupervised; but we've got a lot of aerial preditors to watch out for.
Two friends meet in a bar.
Says one: "I've bought a goat."
Says the other: "A goat? Where do you keep it?"
"In the bedroom."
"In the bedroom? What about the smell?"
"Well, the critter will have to get used to it."
if you don't have any problems, buy a goat
I love these types of bugs. If these guys are going for a "Goat Simulator" vibe (notoriously buggy, part of the charm), they've nailed it.
Hiring goats is one of the best methods to fight bush growth, especially if you clamp the high ones so the goats can reach everywhere. Sawing down on the other hand only gives more sprouts and stronger roots for the next years.
Unfortunately, for smaller lots, it just isn't feasible - the way the pricing is structured, the setup fees get you. They are really for multi-acre lots where they set up significant fencing and leave the goats for several days.
I'm pretty sure people do this, but it's the "it's common" part that bothers me.
It's like saying Indians are vegetarians. All Indians aren't.
A friend of mine runs "https://www.scapegoats.net/"
And the head of HPE Sales has something like several hundred goats, but I dont know their site info.
What more previously do they do then? (When in petulant children mode)
Like the iframe and the parent are sending each other a message to match the heights of the content document and the iframe element but it miss-calculates producing a vertical scroll to appear, which then posts another message back to adjust again and so on, back and forth.
I've often seen this done. The Hetch Hetchy pipeline operator uses it to clean up their right of way, which goes up, down, and through hills. Someone puts up a temporary electric fence around the right of way, and they truck in about a hundred goats. The goats graze everything down to bare dirt, and are then moved on to the next section.
I've seen this done with sheep, too. Those are easier to herd but not as agile on rough terrain.
If you're talking about the Listings page, it'll probably display as blank if you have Javascript disabled. It loads a rather large accordion list per-state after the page loads.
https://www.rotterdam.nl/wonen-leven/grazers/
I'm kind of surprised someone would use goats for this purpose instead of sheep. Sheep are dumb, docile and easy to manage. Goats are impossible to manage.
https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/business/local-goatsc...
(A nice example of comments drifting away from the putative topic)
But there were 2 problems: Sheep can be somewhat picky eaters, so they let some grass stand. But the bigger problem was, that while his prospective customers liked the idea of having their lawn cut "biologically", they pretty much did not like the sheep droppings the sheep left behind in practice.
There's truth that goats will put most things in their mouths. Almost every time I bring something new into their pen, they check to see if it's food. They'll even check me every now and then just to be sure I haven't become food in the past week. So, sure, you might see a goat pick up a tin can for a brief moment, but you'll also see it spit it out 5 seconds later.
I agree goats are picky the point that if you keep an on them you can catch them before they tear up anything you want to keep(apple/peach trees). Another thing is goats are just dang fun. Pigs and cows are friendly in a dull sort of way, goats have character & personality. One of my goats will come out of his pen nightly just to hang around with me and the kids. When it gets tired of us he puts him self back in the pen.
If you're using goats to clear land, you put more goats per space than the land can sustain, but just for a few days or weeks. The goats will eat their favorite things first, but then also other paletteable stuff. They'll also trample things down pretty good.
Not animals you want around flora you care about.
Yes. Many grazing animals are like this. It's like they have no "feeling full" in their tiny brains. Grass and leafs are not very calorie dense so they kind of have to.
Cows or horses can easily eat themselves sick if they are let into high grown grass fields. Where I live the horse owners will sometimes cut the grass in the fields before they let the horses go to it in the spring.
In Germany, I came to realize that many cities have unpaid "employees" to tame the city gardens, namely wild ducks, gooses and rabbits.
Thankfully people leave them be, back home they would have been snaped in less than a week.
However as they are used to humans, it also means they make themselves invited guests to any picknick if one doesn't pay attention to the "teams" taking care of the grass.
And, yes, my cousin's goat business is listed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32191666
They have an amazing home in Auburn, and they have a LOT of goats. My friend, who is married to the ex chief of staff for Cisco also bought a ranch in auburn and they have ~100 goats or so. They rent them out for ~$800 per acre to clear bramble and what not. I spent a week helping them move goats between projects earlier this summer and its a hell of a lot of work.
There are a lot of tech people that went and bought land with goats and have started goat businesses.
If you put them in a small space, you'll pretty much get bare earth either way though.
And cities are starting to do this more regularly too. E.g. NYC's Riverside park was cleared with goats this year. (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/goats-released-new-york-cit...)
The problem with goats for your nice landscape is that they will nibble at everything including your trees and any shrubbery.
It does seem a bit like bee torture though.
> It does seem a bit like bee torture though.
Agreed. Though I'm not sure how simple a brain has to be before I can stop caring, I prefer to opt on the side of caution.
The only thing I wonder about is whether the weed seeds would regrow. But I’d imagine clearing it on the second round would be easier.
You're welcome!
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sheep-and-goat-keepers-how-to-re...
(Yeah, I'd once looked into using a 'goat and cart' as a from of transport!)
Pesticides are dangerous and still leave a dead plant, machines jam (and lop off fingers,) doing it by hand takes a long time and can risk major rashes from poison ivy or cuts from thorns.
Part of my back yard is impenetrable from the kinds of plants goats eat.
I'm not saying they are bad, I'm just saying you're being a schmuck if you pay someone to have their goats graze on your land.
Get your own grazers or let them do it for free.
Where I live they get used a lot on highway embankments.
(Also, because their method of destruction is eating, they also go for root systems and clear them whole; this is a very important feature in my area, as they’re used to kill blackberry, which does not die if you leave the roots.)
You prefer two stroke gasoline engines (Very environmentally unfriendly) vs goats because???
I've never seen city employees using "electric mowers"??? Probably because the battery life is simply useless for anything beyond a small yard?
On top of this, you prefer to pay unionized city worker wages to remove weeds instead of an environmentally friendly goat do it for almost nothing?
I saw 2 city workers trying to clear an area the other day. 3 hours later they were still there, gasoline burning trimmers screaming away. I'd say they had at lest a day of work left. Two workers, there all day - probably a few tanks of gas as well...
Personally, i'd prefer they had Goats as an option.. but that is just me.
You'd just have to compare the cost per acre per month of machine maintenance vs the cost to maintain a well fed flock for a month; including land costs and property taxes if you own the land.
Not really - the cost of food for goats is fairly marginal all things considered. For this kind of service you have to account for transport, setup (usually fencing of some sort has to be put up), etc. as well as ongoing medical and shelter costs for when they aren’t working.