By JAMES DAMSCHRODER

The Union Democrat

Alan Peightal bought five goats to clean up his property in Avery.

When he saw how well they ate through the thick, thorny, noxious brush, a light bulb went on and Able Vegetation Management began.

Able Vegetation Management, created five years ago, is Peightal's land-management business based outside of Mountain Ranch. He rents fencing and goats to people looking to rid their land of noxious weeds or for fire management.

"Cattle and horses are heavy and will cause erosion," Peightal said. "Sheep have a split lip, and they'll pull the grass out of the ground. Goats are light, and they'll just give it a trim."

Also, goats will annihilate tough toxic, prickly and overgrown weeds that sheep and cattle wouldn't touch, Peightal said.

"Goats will eat almost anything," Peightal said.

Which is why they're a popular way to rid lands of meddlesome weeds such as yellow starthistle.

Starthistle, poison oak and blackberry are the most popular reasons people turn to the goats, said Peightal.

Peightal has about 40 goats right now, but he has had up to 250. He said he often sells off trouble makers in the winter, when people are less worried about land management.

The goats he has held onto over the years have become like pets. Some he's given names to, like Buckles, Rudy and Lucky.

Lucky got her name because she was born turned the wrong way, and this caused her to have little use of her hind legs.

"She was dragging herself around," Peightal said.

Peightal constantly put her in a tub of warm water and helped her to gain strength and movement in her legs.

Now she is just one of the goats— a lucky goat.

Peightal said that raising goats is more difficult than other livestock.

"They're the hardest livestock to take care of," Peightal said. "They're smart. They'll look for holes in the fence and remember them."

"Each one has its own personality," Peightal said, as he scratched one of the goat's behind the ears.

Peightal does mostly small jobs, anything over one acre, he said.

For larger jobs, Denny and Jack Bettencourt of the land management company Bushwhackers have goats browsing the foothills.

Right now, they have contracts in Groveland, Plymouth and Angels Camp.

"This is a serious business for her," Bettencourt said of his wife, Denny. "She wants to give something back to the land — something back to the environment."

Jack shares the business with his wife but said she is the main motivator, while he is the supporter and helper.

"Cows are grazers not browsers," Bettencourt said. "Goats go after the heavy, woody, plants. You need a browser for things like poison oak, manzanita, starthistle, tamarack, milkweed and berries."

"They'll eat blackberries like it's candy," Bettencourt said.

Amy Rocha, a district conservationist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture based out of Jackson, said that goats will graze through about anything.

"They'll graze right through thick patches of starthisle," Rocha said. "It's amazing the type of control they can bring to the land. I saw them eat through an area thickly overgrown with poison oak and blackberry."

Contact James Damschroder at jdamschroder@uniondemocrat.com or 736-8097.