{"id":145,"date":"2015-01-14T15:00:48","date_gmt":"2015-01-14T15:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/?p=145"},"modified":"2020-01-07T15:05:57","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T15:05:57","slug":"goats-eat-poison-ivy-yes-they-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"Goats eat poison ivy? Yes they do!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>By Jonah Holland originally posted at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lewisginter.org\/\">Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden<\/a> on January 14, 2015<\/em><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u00a0thought you\u2019d enjoy this video of 9-day old Solstice is showing off her stuff last week on the hillside behind the Conservatory \u2014 scroll down to see it! Earlier this week\u00a0she took her first bite of solid food (grass), but as she turns into a bigger eater, she\u2019ll help her mom with vegetation management here at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. \u00a0Using goats in is an eco-friendly alternative to using herbicides to control vegetation, and is especially helpful on steep banks (where the goats have been eating blackberries bushes), in remote wooded areas (where\u00a0goats\u00a0munch on poison ivy, kudzu, bamboo and other invasive plants), and along the edge of our irrigation lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Kristi-Orcutt-and-Solstice-goat-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-146\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Kristi-Orcutt-and-Solstice-goat-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Kristi-Orcutt-and-Solstice-goat-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Kristi-Orcutt-and-Solstice-goat-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Kristi-Orcutt-and-Solstice-goat-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Kristi-Orcutt-and-Solstice-goat.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Solstice and Baby are owned by Children\u2019s Garden Educator\u00a0Kristi Orcutt, and demonstrate the Garden\u2019s commitment to using sustainable and environmentally friendly options everywhere we can. Anytime we can show\u00a0the home gardener an easy chemical-free way to solve a gardening challenge, we consider it a win. Since our mission is education, sharing how we use the goats makes sense.<br>Orcutt\u00a0tells me that it takes three \u201capplications\u201d of the goats eating down an area before you can expect the plant won\u2019t return. But those three applications are also more effective than the chemical alternatives. \u00a0The goats have been working at\u00a0the Garden for several months now, but you aren\u2019t likely to see them, since our \u201cwild\u201d areas at the Garden are off the beaten path. \u00a0The Garden pays Orcutt a fee for their use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The goats also leave a trail of fertilizer that will help enrich the soil with nutrients, helping the non-invasive plants that remain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Baby &amp; Solstice  Goats helping the Garden\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qnApRu2LIyg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jonah Holland originally posted at\u00a0Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden on January 14, 2015 I\u00a0thought you\u2019d enjoy this video of 9-day old Solstice is showing off her stuff last week on the hillside behind the Conservatory \u2014 scroll down to see it! Earlier this week\u00a0she took her first bite of solid [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146,"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-145","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\/145","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=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvagoatsandhoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}