It’s today’s buffet for goats or next month’s fire hazard.

Ahead of wildfire season, Tusayan business owner Clarinda Vail is taking a non-traditional approach to prevent wildfires on vacant properties. She is utilizing grazing goats.

Vail obtained the necessary permits to have small herds of goats basically eat all of the vegetation on 15 acres of vacant land she owns and or manages privately or through Red Feather Properties. She found a goat herding company, Ohana Goats, and she is pleased with the results.

Vail, who also serves as Tusayan’s Mayor, said it’s a much better option than having noisy machinery cut down the weeds or utilizing controlled burns, “Especially with the limited moisture we’ve had this year it’s not even appropriate to be doing any burning. This is an alternative we are excited to be trying out. A lot of other communities have had success with it, so we are giving it a try.”

Additionally, Vail has never used chemical weed killers on her vacant properties.

Ohana Goats uses dogs and movable electric fenced paddocks to herd the goats.  The herd then moves from section to section chomping down on the weeds.

Ohana Goats Owner J.K Kinsey put 54 goats to work in Tusayan eating grass, weeds, and brush. It takes one or two days for the goats to clear a paddock which can be between half an acre to one acre. Kinsey says they eat just about anything, “Goats are browsers like elk. They like leafy plants, they like brush, they eat pine needles, they like weeds, and they kind of save the grass for last.”

Kinsey says the process is very eco-friendly compared to controlled burns or herbicides, “Those goats eat the forage and produce manure which goes back into the soil and rejuvenates the soil. The hoof prints that go into the property also chop up the soil and it makes it a better end product than machinery. With machinery the fire fuel is still there, it’s just in smaller pieces.”

He says this is his first time in Tusayan. He’s impressed with the area, and he says the goats find Tusayan delicious.