Mmmmmmm, I just love my kudzu in the morning before the White House briefings.
Posted on 08/20/2006 8:22:16 AM PDT by SmithL
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) - Chattanooga city officials say they plan to use a herd of goats as a more environmentally friendly way of curbing the invasive weed kudzu.
Maurice Beavers, who owns a goat farm in Lakesite, will provide the city with 30 to 50 goats for about $1,800 a month to eat the kudzu starting in September, said Public Works Deputy Administrator Lee Norris.
"Goats like kudzu. The only way you can kill kudzu is eat it back to where the root comes from," said Norris, adding that the goats are an environmentally friendly way to deal with the weed with little cleanup.
Kudzu _ a vine native to Japan and China introduced to the U.S. in the late 1800s as a forage crop and ornamental plant _ can grow up to a foot a day. Cities, especially in the Southeast where the weed thrives, have spent millions of dollars trying to curb it.
The goats will eat kudzu on 3.4 acres of steep slope around the Missionary Ridge tunnels because previous attempts to keep the weed away from tunnel entrances with chemicals have been unsuccessful, Norris said.
The goats will eat kudzu every day for about two months, and if successful, they will be brought back next year from April to October.
Bob Graham, vice president of the Missionary Ridge Neighborhood Association, called the idea an "odd solution."
He said having the goats around should not be much of a problem as long as they don't distract drivers going through the tunnel.
Mmmmmmm, I just love my kudzu in the morning before the White House briefings.
I would rather have the kudzu.
LOL! (Swallowed coffee just seconds prior to reading that!) Catastrophe averted!!
Whew! Glad to hear that. It's just dreadful to waste good coffee.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to buy the goats? Oh, that's right; it's a city government - hate to do anything the cheaper way!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew...
Let's try this HTML thing again... 
Kudzu-eating goats!
I was just thinking that, myself.
The article is inaccurate in saying that eating kudzu back to the root will kill it. It can come back from an apparently dead root after 10 years, or even longer. You have to dig up the root (after eradicating every bit of vine and spreading creepers), and the root can weigh 400 pounds and be as big as a horse.
I made kudzu lasagne last fall. The eaters said it was too fibrous to substitute for spinach as-is. If I try it again this year, I'll steam the leaves first.
Can kudzu be made into a bio fuel? It seems as if it has great regenerative abilities.
The regenerative ability is the goat farmer who supplies 50 goats for only $1800 a month so that he doesnt have to feed them. Everyone should be in that business.
Kudzu, the scourge of the South.
At our old house, the City of Atlanta had a kudzu-covered abandoned right of way adjoining ours and 3 neighbors' house lots that they never bothered with. Naturally it spread and kept spreading. I dug up roots until I was tired . . . then we got goats.
The trick is that they keep it eaten back continuously -- the roots don't get any nourishment and they die. Took two seasons to get rid of it completely, but we got rid of it.
It must be true, I read it on the internet . . ..
Ah, I'll keep that in mind if we ever get kudzu or goats. Did you wait 10 years, though, to see if it's really dead :-)?
The problem is conservation of mass...... all that goes in the goat on one end comes out on the other end.
What are they going to do with all that goat ##### ?
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