A Natural Solution: Goats Eat Phragmites

For years crews have been spraying phragmites reeds with glyphosates and tearing them out with mowing machines but nature may have provided the ideal cure: goats like to eat them.
A CBS Sunday Morning story last week showed Larry Cihanek, of Green Goats, of Rhinebeck, N.Y. He rents goats to eat acres of phragmites and other pesky weeds such as poison ivy. He had goats grazing in New York City for five years
Freshkills, a former landfill on New York’s Staten Island, was seeking a way to kill phragmites without mowing every year, said Cihanek. They wanted to know if goats would eat phragmites.
“We finished a test plot in Freshkills and the goats not only ate the 10 and 12 foot tall phragmites but they kept up with the 5 feet of growth that occurred for re-growth in the seven weeks they were there,” he said.
The objective was to measure the effectiveness of 20 goats on a given amount of land in seven weeks, said Cihanek. He said he looked up phragmites on the Internet and found there were more nutritious than some types of hay.
While a final decision has not been made, Cihanek said Freshkills sounds as if they are considering “using goats in a major way” for not only phragmites removal but landscape maintenance in the park.
Goats are grazers and if placed with green growing things, if they haven’t eaten in two or three hours, they will graze on it, he said. Goats eat as much food as possible in 30 minutes to an hour and then lie down and chew their cud, said Cihanek.
After the goats eat the phragmites, the area is raked and sand is brought in and natural grasses planted. He said phragmites will not grow in sand.
Even without bringing in sand, if the goats are left on property with phragmites for a long period of time, the reeds are killed.
Two studies found goats do the job for 25 to 50 percent less than employing people to do the same work, said Cihanek. The jobs are often in spots where machines cannot be used.
While Cihanek has Nubian goats, he said other goats will eat phragmites. He said he started with a dairy goat herd as a hobby in late 1970s and by 1991 had the second largest milking herd in the nation.
Cihanek places a fence around the area where his goats are eating phragmites. He said they do not try to escape unless there is a hole in the fence and they spot better food outside the fence.
Goats will not try to climb over a wobbly fence, said Cihanek. He said it is assumed they will eat everything in the enclosed area. He has only lost two goats in five years.
“Goats are very people oriented, they’re as friendly as dogs,” said Cihanek. “They love to be petted and scratched and fed, they’ll eat carrots, they’ll eat your peanut butter sandwich, if you stand there with a sheet of paper reading a script, they’ll eat your script.”
For a dairy or meat herd of goats, the animals are bred once a year producing on their first birthday. He said twins are normal and triplets as common as one kid.
The goats travel in a large trailer to their grazing location. They spend their nights outside and require little more than clean water, said Cihanek.
Cihanek has also taken his goats to Fort Wadsworth Park in Staten Island where people have come to see the goats in action. The park had a Civil War gun emplacement being damaged by the roots of trees and thickets of poison ivy.
The park sent an email to 400 goat owners in the State of New York. Cihanek was the only goat herder that responded.
He retired from working in the advertising business in Manhattan seven years ago and purchased a farm in Rhinebeck, NY where he sold goat milk and cheese.
By accident, he got involved in grazing.
“I started out with seven goats, now I’ve got 40,” he said. “This time next year I’ll probably have close to 100.”
Cihanek has a website: www.green-goats.com and can be reached at 845-876-4438.
Asbury Park Press reported Seaside Park was considering using goats for three weeks at a cost of $15,000 to $20,000 to clear poison ivy between parking lots and beaches.