If you’re lucky enough to glimpse a herd of goats today somewhere in Southern California, it’s best not to bother them.
They’re working.
And if they belong to Chino resident George Gonzales, they’re not alone. Even if Gonzales or his ranch hands aren’t checking on the animals, dogs are always there to protect them.
Hiring out goats may seem like an anachronism in the 21st century. But with this winter’s rains, demand has shot up for goat-based brush control businesses like his, “Goat ’Er Done.”
Just don’t refer to Gonzales as a shepherd.
“They call me the Goat Man of Chino,” he said Thursday as he watched his goats graze in a field at the Chaffey College campus in Chino.
Guarded by great white dogs, the goats had come running as Gonzales pulled up, beeping the horn in his truck.
Now some stood munching on lush greenery while others lay, digesting their food, in a fenced 80- to 100-acre field between the campus’ main building, housing construction and a state prison for men.
Gonzales and his friend and fellow goat owner, Corona-based B & T Cattle owner Rance Thrall, said they’re getting more requests for work than they can handle this year.
Heavy rain since October has made plants grow like crazy. That means fire danger will be high this summer, Gonzales said.
He’s getting five to six calls a week, while he got at most one call a week last year. He plans to buy 100 more goats this winter.
Their animals chomp down shrubs, brush, grass and other plants — known as browse — for regular landscaping maintenance and to create defensible buffers of low-brush areas around houses and other buildings for wildfire protection.
Thrall and Gonzales have regular contracts with cities and school districts, counties, state-owned properties such as the college and federal land owners.
At least 10 years ago, the city of Norco hired goats for weed abatement on 122 acres now home to Silverlakes Sports Complex.
Brought from Oregon, the goats took care of 40 percent of the land but got sick from a tobacco relative, said Assistant City Manager Brian Petree, who recommended goats for hilly terrain.
People hire Thrall’s and Gonzales’ goats for flat land and hills. About 250 are needed to clean an acre a day, unless there’s heavy vegetation.
Thrall mostly takes jobs for 20 acres or more and runs 500 to 700 goats on a property after setting up a hot-wire fence.
Gonzales, who operates Ranchito Tivo Boer Goats with his veterinarian wife, Liz, said he’ll hire out goats for property as small as 5 acres and travel to Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties.
While some projects require goats year-round, they’ll also take goats for short jobs at places like a federal courthouse in Pasadena, an Anaheim Hills subdivision or a 9-acre hilltop mansion in Chino Hills owned by the Chinese government.
He also has about 125 to 150 Boer, Lamancha and Nubian goats at Chaffey College, where machinery and herbicides proved too expensive to control tumbleweeds drifting into prison grounds.
Anshu Pathak raises goats, sheep, llamas, alpacas and water buffaloes for his Exotic Meat Market in Grand Terrace. He’ll hire out animals for plant control at fenced or walled properties as small as 5,000 square feet in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
Pathak charges $100 per acre, with a minimum of $100, to cover transport costs from his Perris farm. He can’t help thinking goats would be an environmentally friendly solution to a sight that makes him sad.
“I see all these weeds,” he said. “I think we need a million goats in California.”
At Chaffey College on Thursday, 130- to 140-pound Great Pyrenees and Anatolian Shepherd dogs blended in, their brown eyes watching for coyotes, people and other dogs as they sat or lay in the grass.
Goats eat poison oak, blackberries, young palms and most other plants. Oleander is poisonous and they don’t like dead grass, yet people hire goats for just that in the summer, Thrall said.
“Goats don’t do a real good job on dead, dry grass,” he said.
Goats are better than sheep for such work. They’re hardy and they nibble brush down to 3 or 4 inches, which prevents soil erosion, while sheep pull plants out by the roots.
With four stomachs, they eat their fill, then rest while they digest.
“They’re eating machines,” Gonzales said.
He made a living in the restaurant business and small truck driving before he bought his first goats after marrying a veterinarian. He’s gotten to know the animals so well they’ve become like friends.
“I hated dogs and goats and poop — now I love it,” he said.
Gonzales checks on them throughout the day, watching to see if any are too thin or sad-looking, which means they’re ill.
“Vamonos! Chivo! (Let’s go! Goat!)” he called, clapping as he walked toward the animals.
For people with smaller properties, Thrall said hiring a tractor and disk or a neighbor with a weed eater is cheaper.
Gonzales said it wouldn’t be easy or make much sense for homeowners to buy a goat for their own small property.
Goats are rebels and escape artists. They must have at least one other goat for company.
And once they’ve taken care of your yard, you have to feed them (alfalfa costs $20 a bale) or eat them.
“You can’t be a goat man that easily,” he said.
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