City of Las Cruces using goats to clear out vegetation

We all know goats can eat, but how about clearing out an entire lake?

The city released goats two weeks ago at burn lake, which is right off the 1-10. The lake has been dried up for years now and over time a lot of vegetation has grown that needs to be cleared out in the event that it rains.

80 goats are roaming around burn lake, doing nothing but eating and sleeping for the next 120 days. The city says the goats are natural devourers of weeds so they’re being used to clean up all the excess tumble weeds and vegetation in and around the lake. They say using the goats is better for the environment and staff was relieved that the goats could get the job done.

“They’ll take out brush all the way down to the ground level and so we don’t have to use chemicals,” Mark Johnston, director of the parks and recreation department, said. “Don’t have to put my staff in areas that’s may be kind of unsafe and when the goats get done eating they’ve eaten the roots systems of many things so it saves us hours and hours of labor of grubbing.”

The entire project was supposed to cost 60,000 dollars, but the city says by using the goats, it’ll cost them only half of that.