Goats don't mow lawns but they will trash your garden

Species rich

 You can learn a lot about sheep, cattle, horses and goats by just quietly watching. I wouldn't normally turn animals into a field closed up for haylage but this week I put the goats into the hay park and just watched them. Its a species rich meadow, grasses, flowers, herbs and what we think of as grassland weeds flourish.

Unlike sheep and cattle the goats are highly selective in their feeding. Cattle move across the sward in a herd tearing up the grass with their tongues, sheep move in a similar way cropping the shortest grass stems with their incisors. The goats behave like us

at a buffet lunch picking up something attractive then moving on to make more selections and nearly always higher up the plants nipping off seed heads, fruits and flowers.They move like deer, daintily with low impact so don't flatten and trample the grass.

So another goat myth busted, they can't and don't mow lawns, they will however trash your roses and poison themselves by eating shrubs.