Originally posted Nov 8, 2010 / Website: https://www.westsidepioneer.com/Articles/120111/Goats.html
They’re still in town.
Part of Lani Malmberg’s 600-head herd of goats grazes on common land off Mesa Road. After starting at Bear Creek Regional Park, the weed-eating herd has been working on the Westside since late October.
The weed-eating goats from Wyoming are in their longest stay in Colorado Springs since 1999, according to herd owner Lani Malmberg.
The 600 animals started, as they have each of the past three years, by chomping on noxious weeds on the 20 acres around the Bear Creek Garden Association’s two-acre plot. Starting in late October, they finished that contract after about two weeks.
Malmberg then found more work for her goats along the privately owned slopes above the Mesa Wildlife Preserve off Oswego Street.
They had worked there last fall also, but this time that job was followed by another – on a “common” property as well as private land around it off Mesa Road north of Uintah Street (where the herd was working this week).
Noxious weeds exist in those areas, but the goats’ main job is trimming back dry growth that could feed fires. According to Rich Serby, a resident in the Mesa Road area, there have been two close calls with fires in recent years, which prompted him to talk to his neighbors about contracting for the goats again this year.
Now Malmberg is talking to the owner of a large property that might keep her and the goats in the Springs for a few weeks longer.
She’s fine with that. “There’s so much work to do for fire mitigation down here,” she said.
In 1999, she said, the goats worked in Bear Creek Park for two months, then two additional months on other properties.
