Goats on this NC farm are helping control the invasive Kudzu weed

[Music] when Ron told me that we were going into the goat business I said you are nuts [Music] I'm Cheryl and I'm Ron Searcy in our home is at Horseshoe North Carolina [Music] nice-looking one area that red one that's one of my favorites it's a big brown one people ask me I say well we rent goats do want red goats for one I said for we control the federal government made a estimate a few years back there seven and a half million acres in the United States it's unusable because of Kozue we've specialized and taken them in the areas of difficult with machinery and manpower places that are kind of stupid hazardous yeah she's a good goat that's that's her kid right there that brown hit it they seem like they they like to be in a group yeah they're a herd animal they if a goats in there by themselves they'll they'll get really get panicky but you go to a kudzu area and I just annihilate it it goes from head high to the ground and everybody's just wow they just can't believe it I mean they have it made they get to eat I just love they eat they do they love to eat [Music] up in the morning what I have a few goats to feed get ready to go out I always let rum put the nipple on cuz they're hard and that's our third bottle we're ready to go for heat we had tried a little bit of everything from tobacco to row crops dive a little bit with cattle this farm was bought by my grandparents in 38 we have about 250 adult goats the babies they're kind of increasing by the day so that useless usually will bring us up to around 300 we had moved back to the farm here and it was kind of overgrown and a little out of hand and the guy said you know he said you need to get your gang of goats he said you wouldn't believe what they can do and that's kind of how we started we started with to you and then a few more and then we bought a filly and next thing you know our son said that's dad's hobby that's going wild there's a lot of maintenance people think that can take a group of goats and just put a man I suppose from from the tree sir to me god help this valley his name is Jake Dorner and he's worked and helped us for about six years now when you take those gates somewhere and then you come back to see what they've done what is that like for you to see we do like a dividing fence on some jobs and you can see the ten foot high kudzu on one side and then dirt on the other and it's only been a couple weeks the wilder and rougher it is it seems like the more they like they leave no leaf unturned inside that fence do you really get emotionally invested with these go you do as much as you don't want to yeah you know you try to keep it separate this is a business this is what we do but it's it's hard because they all have a cute personality and they never once one you know you have one that's just real stubborn and that's okay too because we we all have that streak there's a lot of great humor that goes along with like you've got to be kidding me no buts about it no I got very little [Music] the first thing we have to do is go ahead and get the fencing built so let's go in and clear and cut fence line then we get everything ready for them then we'll bring the goats back here [Music] this is the Crowder Mountain State Park located in Kings Mountain this is the only track in the whole state park it's got kudzu on it and they'd like to get control of it before it I guess gets out of hand gets the rest of the park it'll completely consume areas I mean if you stop blowing up I believe it grow up your pants later how long will it take you guys to kind of get the gates into place how long does it take usually if it's a conventional place if we can back up to it we're probably there in going in an hour but this is a little unique where we're going to kind of shuttle men [Music] they're 50-plus goats in here this will take about two weeks two and a half weeks [Music] for the first few days they won't eat long before they lay down because there's just so much here and as time goes on the vegetation will get last so that's working longer and longer you know to get food makes me feel good cuz I mean it really gives me a lot of pride when somebody says I never seen nothing like [Music]

Channel: My Home, NC on PBS NC

Views: 614,349

Keywords: goats, Kudzu, invasive weeds, North Carolina, Southeast, landscape, My Home NC, UNC-TV, Horse Shoe NC, Wells Farm, sustainability

Id: 1XtYE3E7pJw

Length: 6min 26sec (386 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018