
Google: Mowing lawn with goats - ropiku
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/mowing-with-goats.html
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raheemm
Regardless of the carbon impact of this move, the fact that such an idea was
not laughed at and quickly shot down is pretty cool.

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buugs
There are actually plenty of businesses that rent goats for clearing property

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benhoyt
I'm somewhat surprised by this. Do you have a source or news article?

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smhinsey
i realize it sounds like i'm setting you up, but just google the phrase "goat
rental."

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CWuestefeld
Is this really lower-impact in climate change than traditional mowing? I think
it's far from obvious.

With the goat solution, we must count the cost of the goat transportation. And
I suspect that the methane emitted by goats -- a worse greenhouse problem than
CO2 -- may actually have a greater effect than the exhaust from a lawnmower.

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seanc
The carbon emitted by the lawnmower came out of the ground, where it had been
for millions of years. Net effect, more carbon in the atmosphere.

The carbon in the goat methane comes from the grass, which took that carbon
out of the air a few months back. Net effect, nil.

I hate it when people get anxious about cow farts contributing to global
warming.

But the thoughts about the transportation of the goats are worth exploring.

However, if you want to go that route you also have to add the net carbon
emissions for construction, maintenance, and transportation of the lawnmower,
which are non-trivial.

I strongly suspect the goats are a net win.

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Alex3917
"The carbon in the goat methane comes from the grass, which took that carbon
out of the air a few months back. Net effect, nil."

Can you explain this? The grass absorbs CO2, and the goats turn the grass into
methane. Except that methane is a way more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. So
how could the effect be nil?

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seanc
Well okay, not nil. But the methane eventually oxidizes back to CO2, half life
7 years: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane>.

Contrast with fossil fuels, which take a looooong time to get (permanently)
back into the ground.

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gregwebs
From looking at the wikipedia page, methane is converted to water and ethane
with broken down ozone. Ethane is a much milder greenhouse gas. Not sure what
ethane half life is. If I understand this correctly, the net result will be
putting carbon and hydrogen into the atmosphere (via ethane) and taking oxygen
out of the atmosphere in the form of water and maybe reducing atmospheric
ozone. With a side effect of 7 years of methane.

Regardless, this is not a closed carbon loop, and it results in global
warming.

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lutorm
It is a closed carbon loop as long as the grass the goats turn into methane
ultimately regrows. It's true that you have a sustained amount of methane due
to the flux through this loop.

The same is true for fossil fuels, _in principle_ the loop is closed because
eventually plants will turn the CO2 back into fossil fuels. It's just that
because the time constant of that loop is thousands of years and we burn it
much faster than that, most of the fossil carbon will eventually make it into
the atmosphere.

Even though methane is a more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2, the time
constant on the CO2 cycle more than makes up for that difference. When making
these calculations, you can't just look at the amount of emission, you need to
look at what sustained amount of atmospheric level results from that emission.

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jhawk28
Goats are really good at eating just about anything. Much better than sheep.
Problem with sheep is that they will eat too close to the ground and kill the
plants.

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gills
I was under the impression that goats present the same problem? Here's an
interesting article from a couple years ago on some effects of overgrazing of
goats in China, including desertification, starvation, and dust storms.

[http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003498352...](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003498352_cashmere282.html)

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jhawk28
If you leave any animal with minimal amount of food, they will consume it all.
The difference is how close to the ground they eat. The sheep will take the
stem all the way to the ground, while goats, cows, and horses will leave a
little bit. This allows it to grow later.

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forinti
How about using a reel mower? As a bonus, you would save gym on fees.

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aaronblohowiak
Google's gym is free.

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shard
Not for Google.

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joe_bleau
Something like this once happened at National Semiconductor. I remembered it
wrong--turns out Widlar used sheep:
<http://www.national.com/rap/Story/widlar.html>

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wyclif
Back in January when I was on my honeymoon, we stayed at a wonderful eco-
friendly place on the island of Bohol in the Philippines. They use goats to
keep the place they have carved out of the jungle tidy and free of weeds.
After seeing how little impact this involves, I was duly impressed; it looks
like a tropical garden:

<http://bit.ly/HzqRF> <http://bit.ly/glO6K>

Nuts Huts, Loboc, Bohol Philippines: <http://www.nutshuts.com/>

N.B. I'm in no way affiliated with them, but it's a great place to visit and
relax.

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mynameishere
Mowing, putting the cut grass in plastic bags, and then burying them in a
landfill would probably be the most "green" way to go, if you were irrational
enough to think it would have a big impact.

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seanc
Ah! I think you get it too.

Although the greenest way would be to just let the grass grow and have a
hayfield outside the building.

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aaronblohowiak
screw grass and the compulsion to turn everywhere into the Savannah, let the
forest grow.

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tlrobinson
I remember my elementary school did this once. They set up a (weak) electric
fence right next to the playground. We had fun with _that_...

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alphazero
The Swiss have been doing this for a while. Saw a herd back in 2000 in Thusis
munching on the grass near the railway station.

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pz
they used to do the same thing in santa cruz around the lagoon. it was pretty
wonderful. one saturday morning walking through i saw a goat give birth. it
was at once the most disgusting and cutest thing i had ever seen. LIFE!

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rjurney
I'm getting goats to mow my field. They make great pets! They're about like
dogs, with more human eyes. The hard part will be keeping them out of the
crops, and from escaping. Goats are highly intelligent escape artists.

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pasbesoin
In 2001, I visited some friends in Cologne. One afternoon, two of us cycled
down to a big stretch of open parkland along the right bank of the Rhein. It
was a warm spring day, and "everyone" was out enjoying the weather. Lots of
groups camped out on the grass with picnic lunches.

Along came a herd of sheep. Yes, sheep! (I said to myself, after a double-
take.) Nobody got upset; neither people nor sheep. The sheep slowing munched
their way forward, the herd casually breaking around the various groups.

I got some great pictures. Not online, unfortunately.

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gruseom
I was biking past there the day before yesterday and saw those goats. I
wondered: what sort of a PR stunt is this? Now I know.

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joshu
I believe there's a guy who rents out his herd. I've seen goats in other
fields (near Yahoo, in the past)

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mapleoin
yeah, that's what the article says

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lr
UC Berkeley uses goats, too:
<http://oep.berkeley.edu/programs/fire_mitigation/index.html>

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patrickg-zill
Mekmitasdigoat ?

[http://www.sigmasoft.com/~openbsd/archives/html/openbsd-
misc...](http://www.sigmasoft.com/~openbsd/archives/html/openbsd-
misc/2001-01/msg01514.html)

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eghanvat
The Idea seems to be taken from Surfer Dude (2008) movie, staring Matthew
McConaughey.

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ph0rque
If you substitute sheep for goats, you'd get tasty mutton as a "side"
product...

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aaronblohowiak
You can also eat tasty goat.

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gamache
I made this a few times recently. Goat curry:

    
    
       ~2lbs cut up goat meat, browned in a small amount of oil
       4-6 potatoes, peeled and cubed
       2 onions, diced
       5-10 dried red chilis, crumbled
       Lots of curry, garam masala, coriander, cumin, chili powder to taste
       Salt and pepper to taste
       1 bag frozen peas, added 30min from the end
    

Add water and stew. Keep adding water as time goes by, adjusting to desired
consistency. Stew for at least three hours.

Tasty goat!

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mahmud
How many people are you feeding?

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gamache
Two. Then myself, for lunch for a few days.

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kingkongrevenge
Does much grass even grow around there without watering it? I thought it was
quite dry. If they're wasting fresh water with a sprinkler system this whole
thing is pretty funny.

