{"id":142,"date":"2015-11-16T14:53:32","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T14:53:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/?p=142"},"modified":"2020-01-07T14:57:32","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T14:57:32","slug":"goats-more-than-living-lawn-mowers-to-chesterfield-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/?p=142","title":{"rendered":"Goats more than living lawn mowers to Chesterfield woman"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Originally posted by Rex Springston in the Richmond Times-Dispatch<\/a> on November 16, 2015<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kristi Orcutt often carries her work home with her. Sometimes her work sits on the couch and watches TV with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orcutt, 50, raises goats, which she hires out as living weed whackers for places being overtaken by unwanted plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to Orcutt, her 20 goats are more than livestock. They are pets, and it\u2019s not unusual to find one in the house. The work they do, she said, is not just a business but a boon to the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello, darling. Oh, I love you,\u201d the sandy-haired Orcutt cooed into the ear of a goat named Clover the other day as the affectionate animal ran up to her in a temporary pen at Richmond\u2019s Bryan Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Clover and 11 other goats were doing a chomp job at the North Richmond landmark, ridding it of Japanese stilt grass, English ivy and other invasive species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anecdotal evidence suggests goats are becoming increasingly popular as weed controllers, said Scott Greiner, a Virginia Tech professor of animal sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people prefer goats to herbicides, but Greiner said both can be used safely and effectively. \u201cI think it\u2019s more of (a) philosophical thing\u201d that leads people to goats, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Richmond alone, goats have been deployed in recent years in places including James River Park, Byrd Park and the Church Hill area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Orcutt and her crew are different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The leaf-chewing, head-butting, stump-jumping goats draw onlookers, to which Orcutt, a longtime environmental educator, spreads the word about caring for the natural world. She\u2019s sort of a bleating heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to foster stewardship,\u201d Orcutt said. \u201cProfit will probably never enter into it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Hains of North Richmond often bikes along an old road in northwestern Bryan Park, which was weed-choked before the goats arrived. \u201cI think they\u2019re a great idea,\u201d Hains said, watching the animals. \u201cThey add a little color to the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goats had nibbled the weeds to the ground and were awaiting transfer to another section of the park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Friends of Bryan Park, a nonprofit group, hired Orcutt to clear about 2.5 acres for about $3,000, said John Zeugner, the group\u2019s president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s about what the group would\u2019ve paid to hire people to spray herbicides or remove plants by hand, Zeugner said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe like the idea of a kind of holistic way of attacking the invasives,\u201d Zeugner said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zeugner\u2019s group is investigating how to keep the bad plants from taking over again. Options include trimming by hand or perhaps bringing back the goats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orcutt, a Fairfax County native, holds a biology degree from Virginia Commonwealth University. A former educator and interim manager at Rockwood Park\u2019s nature center in Chesterfield County, she works developing children\u2019s programs at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of Orcutt\u2019s goats have even put their plant-removal skills to work at the garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At home, Orcutt runs Bright Hope Farm near Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield with friend Harlan Williams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s the top goat herder,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI\u2019m the lackey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the farm, Orcutt also raises bees, chickens, a rescued Jack Russell and a rescued corn snake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been one of those nerdy people who loved nature and found refuge in it,\u201d Orcutt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goats are her favorites. She takes the animals jogging with her \u2014 one on a leash, the others following. Sometimes Clover comes in to watch TV with Orcutt from the couch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orcutt\u2019s goats are Nigerian dwarfs and pygmies, two of the smaller breeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI chose them because I knew nothing (when getting into goats two years ago), so I figured I\u2019d better start off small,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In folklore, goats and their cloven hooves are often associated with the devil, but Orcutt\u2019s animals couldn\u2019t be sweeter. The smallest goat working at Bryan Park was a young, fawn-sized pygmy named Daisy. Her contribution looked almost like child labor, but Daisy bore a contented look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The big-bellied goats are surprisingly solid and graceful, easily bounding over barriers or atop rocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orcutt said she is constantly learning about her goats and what they are trying to say with their body language. \u201cI feel like Jane Goodall with chimpanzees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an urban jungle out there, sure enough, but for the goats, it suits their taste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted by Rex Springston in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on November 16, 2015 Kristi Orcutt often carries her work home with her. Sometimes her work sits on the couch and watches TV with her. Orcutt, 50, raises goats, which she hires out as living weed whackers for places being overtaken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-goats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}