By Jeff Labine

Grazing goats could help with P.A. weeds

Jun 24, 2017 | 11:03 AM

The City of Prince Albert could be looking to add goats or sheep to the payroll.

Monday, the Prince Albert Food Coalition will present a series of ideas to city council from community garden projects, urban chicken coops and developing a framework for food waste management. The big idea to be thrown out is researching the possibility of using sheep or goats to help manage the city’s weeds and unwanted brush.

Other cities have adopted this practice including Candle Lake and major centres like Calgary, which launched a pilot project last year.

Chris Manderson, urban conservative lead with Calgary Parks, said the city had been interested in bringing in animals to graze for a while as prairie land relies on this to stay healthy.

According to Manderson, the city ultimately settled on goats because unlike sheep, they tend to browse around an area and go after broad-leaf weeds. 

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He said the project, so far, is going well.

“Can you bring 100 goats into a very busy park in Calgary – that was actually during Stampede – and not have bad things happen. That was really the goal last year,” he said. “Any chance we have to try to do weed control and reduce our dependence on herbicide, we’re interested in evaluating that.”

Manderson explained the goats became a minor attraction for the city with visitors wanting to see the animals graze in the parks. The project received so much success that there is going to be discussions at city council to expand the practice.

Although he suspects using goats is cheaper than more conventional methods of dealing with weeds, a cost assessment has yet to be conducted, though Manderson said it was coming.

He believed goat grazing could be more easily utilized in a smaller community. In Calgary, he said it was a challenge to figure out how to move 100 goats from park to park. He suspected motorists wouldn’t enjoy being stuck behind a herd on their way to work.

“Goat grazing was certainly not invented here in Calgary, as much as we would like to think that,” he said. “It has been happening in cities throughout North America for years.”

Manderson added the only surprise behind the project was how open and welcoming people were to the idea. 

jeff.labine@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @labinereporter