Goats ‘delight’ at Hamilton property as they destroy invasive buckthorn one bite at a time

A goat's appetite is nothing to joke about.

That's what Natalie Feistauer found out last week when she called in a team of 50 goats to chew through two acres of invasive buckthorn bushes on her rural Hamilton property – with great success.

To clear the goats of buckthorn in two days (by mouth, no less), it typically takes Feisthauer and her husband weeks, if not months, to remove and cut them down by hand, she said.

“They are much more efficient than we could ever be,” Feistauer said. “And they're actually a real joy – an absolute delight. They're so lovely and very friendly and it's hard to stay away from them.”

Across southern Ontario, goats are becoming the GOATS, aka the greatest of all time, when it comes to controlling invasive plant species.

In recent years, property owners, environmental authorities and municipalities turned to “eco-herds” to eat not only sea buckthorn, but also phragmites, Manitoba maple, grapevine, vetch and Canada thistle, to name a few.

For about a decade, Feistauer and her husband have been playing a game of whack-a-mole with the aggressively growing buckthorn—clearing one patch of their 10 acres only for it to spread to another. Sea buckthorn is a problem because it quickly becomes dense, changes soil composition, blocks sunlight and stops native plants from growth.

The couple recently contacted the Hamilton Conservation Authority (HCA) to help manage it without herbicides, Feistauer said. We decided to focus on two areas with particularly dense thickets of sea buckthorn – and attract specialists.

Goat lover leads his flock

Goats in the City, a goat rental company based in King City, Ont., arrived on site last week with a trailer of goats ready to bleat around the bushes.

“It was their first job in Hamilton and they loved it,” said goat lover Ian Matthews, 58, the company's founder and president, who is also writing a book about everything he learned from goats.

Sea buckthorn is like candy to them, he said. “Little lawn mowers” seek out buckthorn by eating important native plants such as milkweed, preserving them.

Goats have another advantage.

Sea buckthorn spreads when birds and other animals eat its berries and then release the seeds, which then grow in new places, Matthews said. On the other hand, the digestion process of goats damages the seeds so they cannot grow once excreted.

“Our idea is to use nature to heal nature,” said Matthews, who owns a total of 126 goats.

His family grew up in Jamaica and raised goats. By age 11, he was managing about 50, Matthews said.

But as a child, he always wanted to be something other than a goat herder. When he and his family eventually moved to Canada, he pursued a career as a mortgage broker instead.

Then, years later, he started helping his dad take care of goats, this time in the GTA, and he couldn't get enough.

“All my childhood experiences with goats came back and I just fell in love with them again,” he said.

By 2021, he launched the Goats in the City project and has been putting it to good use ever since.

Bred to be friendly, each goat has its own personality — for better or for worse, Matthews said.

“Believe me, it’s not always fun, but it’s always interesting.”