HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. — In Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, where kudzu covers almost everything, an army of goats is successfully eating away at the problem.
It’s a kudzu feast for this herd of goats, working on clearing a hillside in Helena-West Helena of the pesky vine and loving every bite.
Jax Taylor brought her 60-goat “Rent-A -Ruminant” business here as part of a pilot project.
“I got a call from the Mayor Kevin Smith here, and he was very excited, looking for natural ways, more environmentally friendly ways to eliminate the kudzu problem here,” Taylor said.
And she found more kudzu than she could have ever imagined.
“We did a drive around town and we’ve actually seen homes that were recently lived in that had been taken over by kudzu,” Taylor said.
She says each kudzu vine grows about six inches a day. It’s snaked its way up a radio transmitting tower and covers the landscape.
Her goats, each with their own name and personality, have eaten about three acres of kudzu in places where man and machine can’t reach.
“They’ve got four-hoof drive, which we don’t. It’s a lot safer for them to navigate this terrain than it is for us,” Taylor said.
And because of their unique digestive process, called ruminating, soft shelled kudzu seeds don’t end up in goat droppings and then back in the soil, which Taylor says isn’t how kudzu is transferred anyway.
For now, the goats are in kudzu heaven as Mayor Kevin Smith evaluates their progress.
“And one of the questions we are going to look at is, is it cost effective? And we won’t really know that till the goats are done cause it’s based on per-acre,” Smith said.
There is a very low voltage fence set up to keep predators out and the goats in their “work area.” We’re told a number or people have already expressed an interest in hiring the herd for clearing kudzu from their own property
If you’d like to know more about the goat herds for hire, go to www.rentaruminant.com.