[HN Gopher] Goat Rental - Hire Goats
___________________________________________________________________
Goat Rental - Hire Goats
Author : deanstag
Score : 381 points
Date : 2022-08-12 03:10 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hiregoats.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hiregoats.com)
| robbitt wrote:
| This is amazing, good friend of the family rents out their goats
| to farmers and friends for the exact same purpose. Reduce
| pesticide use, naturally improve farm land all the while
| providing an ideal food source for meat goats, real ESG
| innovation at work!
| fredsmith219 wrote:
| When goats eat weeds will they eat and destroy the whole weed? Or
| do they eat just down to the surface level of the ground which
| will let the weed grow back immediately?
| toast0 wrote:
| Depends on the goat and the weed. My goats only like the
| flowers of dandelion analogues, but for some other weeds, one
| will try to get the whole thing out and the others just eat the
| leaves to the ground.
|
| If you put them in a small space, you'll pretty much get bare
| earth either way though.
| trissylegs wrote:
| Seems that NSW has 1 in the northernmost area (Byron) and 1 in
| the sothernmost area (Bega). I'm sure there's probably some Goats
| in between.
| yitchelle wrote:
| Story time - My dad asked the local school which had a goat if he
| can borrow it for a weekend. It was to tame his backyard. As the
| backyard was enclosed with no chance of the goat escaping, we
| left it by itself. The goat was be extremely hungry and ate
| everything insight including the roots, leaves and bark. By
| Monday, the backyard is barren and took months recover.
|
| Moral of the story - keep an eye on the goat.
| pagade wrote:
| Ok, I have to ask. Why did the school have goat?
| yitchelle wrote:
| It was a progressive school in the country side. I think most
| of the students are from the local farming community.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| What I see is months of not needing to operate a mower.
| dylanjcastillo wrote:
| Looks like she goat herself in trouble
| ryanlitalien wrote:
| Perfect Reddit comment ;)
| vitiral wrote:
| Goats are excellent land management if you have enough land and
| don't mind everything getting eaten to near the ground
| briffle wrote:
| our state DOT has rented goats to clean the sides of roads
| along highways in some rural areas, especially when there are
| large amount of noxious weeds. The person they hire strings
| up a bunch of short fiberglass poles for a mile or two along
| the highway with some wires, puts out some water, and then
| lets the goats in. Comes back and picks them up a couple of
| days later, and moves them to the other side.
| vitiral wrote:
| Goats LOVE poison ivy and oak, and it doesn't hurt them.
| Don't let them near hemlock though (it will do the same to
| them as it did Socrates)
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Not just some wire but a portable electric fence.
| leobg wrote:
| In German, there's an old phrase: "Appointing the goat as
| gardener". You use it when somebody is being made responsible
| for task for which he is not just incompetent, but where he
| will actually cause damage - for instance because he has
| ulterior motives.
| alex_duf wrote:
| love that, thanks!
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| Fox guarding the hen house seems like the English equivalent
| to that.
| cmarschner wrote:
| That seems to imply maliciousness on the fox' side. The
| goat is merely ignorant.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Or the goat is contained in too small of an area for too
| long. Much like an inexperienced person without
| supervision...
| lostlogin wrote:
| Some goats are extremely malicious.
| atoav wrote:
| Goats are fundamental anarchists. They are not evil, they
| just have a chaotic energy beyond comprehension.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Yeah, you ever look at their evil little eyes. If that
| isn't maliciousness distilled...
| aitchnyu wrote:
| And yet in this corner of India, some butchers blindfold
| goats since they can't proceed while looking them in
| their cute eyes.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| In fact that is why we call lucifer the goat-man, the
| joke in the tv series lucifer reason aside.
| 0898 wrote:
| It's similar, but not quite equivalent.
|
| The fox is malicious. It knows it will destroy the
| property, whereas the goat is happily oblivious to the
| destruction it brings.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| > is not just incompetent, but where he will actually
| cause damage - for instance because he has ulterior
| motives.
|
| That made me think it was more. And anyway, as much as
| the fox does with chickens, the goat knows it will set
| about to kill and eat plants. There's no real reason to
| call the fox knowingly malicious and the goat not.
| 0898 wrote:
| >There's no real reason to call the fox knowingly
| malicious and the goat not.
|
| I think we imagine foxes to have a level of cunning that
| a placid goat lacks.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Ha, you have not worked with goats before, have you?
|
| Even some sheep like to sneak up and attack from behind.
| Goats even more so..
|
| But sure most goats lack that bravery, but some have it
| and the cunning to attack and get to places they are not
| supposed to be.
| 0898 wrote:
| Touche, I have zero experience of goats. Thanks for
| putting me right!
| chongli wrote:
| Goats are anything but placid. They're tricksters and
| bullies. They won't hesitate to charge you from behind
| and knock you down. They will also happily chew on
| people's clothing and long hair. Goats are jerks! They're
| also just really funny and lovable.
| vitiral wrote:
| Rascality and loveability are intertwined and inseparable
| gswdh wrote:
| feet wrote:
| Only because their prey has a nervous system
| BadOakOx wrote:
| In Hungarian, we mix the two of yours: Goat guarding the
| cabbage.
| mns wrote:
| And to the right, we say "Let the wolf guard the sheep"
| :)
| juahan wrote:
| In Finland we have almost exactly the same: Goat guarding
| the gabbage patch.
| redbar0n wrote:
| Norwegian equivalent:
|
| <<To let the billy watch the sack of oats.>>
|
| A billy/buck goat is a male goat.
| hendrikrassmann wrote:
| The German proverb is also about a "Bock", same word,
| same meaning.
| e12e wrote:
| Fantastic. I think most of the "equivalents" miss a lot of
| the nuance.
|
| We don't expect the fox to be any good at guarding the
| chickens, but the goat could plausibly start out as a good
| gardener ("mowing" the grass and eating the weeds). But then
| through enthusiasm and love of the work end up ruining the
| garden...
| [deleted]
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Can you share the German language phrase? I tried to Google
| for it, but I cannot find anything.
| leobg wrote:
| Den Bock zum Gartner machen
| bergie wrote:
| "Pukki kaalimaan vartijana" for the Finnish equivalent
| (goat guarding the cabbage patch)
| rkagerer wrote:
| Is the emphasis of what will cause the damage more about the
| incompetence, or about more purposeful nefarity from the eg.
| ulterior motives?
| leaflets2 wrote:
| I think most goats don't have sinister ulterior motives!
| Except for _one_ goat but probably that 's not the one in
| your garden
|
| Meaning, I'm guessing it's about happy incompetence and
| thoughtlessness?
| mikk14 wrote:
| > with no chance of the goat escaping
|
| Bold assumption there. As they say, "if it doesn't hold water
| it won't hold a goat."
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| As long as extracting whatever food there is is less effort
| than circumventing the fence the goat will remain...
| mikk14 wrote:
| I think modeling a goat as a rational agent is also pretty
| bold :-)
| yitchelle wrote:
| I guess if we left the goat long enough, it will eat thorough
| the fence. Then the neighbours garden will also be barren.
| Victerius wrote:
| I sense a mathematical question.
| vrc wrote:
| My town stopped its annual "goats clear the park" setup
| because one goat would consistently escape and wreak havoc on
| traffic. Pretty solid enclosure, too
| Victerius wrote:
| The same goat each time?
| Floegipoky wrote:
| Sounds like they should replace it with "goats clear the
| park and BBQ"
| bsza wrote:
| And if it does hold water, they'll climb it anyway.
|
| https://youtu.be/RG9TMn1FJzc
| richardw wrote:
| Many years ago I heard of a family whose goat ate through the
| thatch roof and then started eating stuff inside the house.
| Don't leave the goat alone.
|
| Not a goat farmer so not sure if goats do that. Anyone know?
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Note that if tree bark is eaten all around the tree
| circumference, the tree dies.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girdling
| strickman wrote:
| Just finished watching Clarkson's Farm; Jeremy got some sheep for
| this purpose. Recommend watching.
| sph wrote:
| I second the recommendation. Don't be put off by Jeremy
| Clarkson and his persona, seeing a motorhead with a big ego
| trying to run a farm and make a profit is what makes the show.
| Thankfully, he's paired with someone that knows their stuff,
| with a sharp enough wit...
| _benj wrote:
| Just started watching it and it's great and hilarious! I
| guess one of the things that I'm enjoying a ton is that I
| also don't know anything about farming so I'm as surprised at
| Clarkson is. It's humbling (seems for Clarkson too) to see
| that I don't know everything...
| jppope wrote:
| perhaps one of the finest shows since streaming became a thing
| philjohn wrote:
| It really is - because not only is it hilarious, it also
| highlights just how difficult modern farming has become -
| razor thin margins, at the whims of the weather, dealing with
| vandlism from local youths with nothing better to do etc.
| etc.
| toast0 wrote:
| When was farming not on razor thin margins at the whims of
| the weather? At least US history is full of sharecropping
| where the farmers barely making ends meet and those with
| enough capital to own their own small farms not doing much
| better. Some of those who owned a lot of land with
| sharecroppers managed to do ok though. It's similar today,
| except sharecropping has gone out of style, I think. Big
| farms and little farms are on very thin margins, but thin
| margins on a small farm mean Clarkson made like a hundred
| pounds or something after a year (probably ignoring his
| capital costs).
| twawaaay wrote:
| My parents had goats.
|
| The problem with goats for your nice landscape is that they will
| nibble at everything including your trees and any shrubbery.
| Animats wrote:
| The list of services is blank.
|
| I've often seen this done. The Hetch Hetchy pipeline operator
| uses it to clean up their right of way, which goes up, down, and
| through hills. Someone puts up a temporary electric fence around
| the right of way, and they truck in about a hundred goats. The
| goats graze everything down to bare dirt, and are then moved on
| to the next section.
|
| I've seen this done with sheep, too. Those are easier to herd but
| not as agile on rough terrain.
| drusepth wrote:
| > The list of services is blank.
|
| If you're talking about the Listings page, it'll probably
| display as blank if you have Javascript disabled. It loads a
| rather large accordion list per-state after the page loads.
| Animats wrote:
| AH. I have "powr.io"'s spammy tracking widgets blocked.
| bluelightning2k wrote:
| I am waiting for GaaS
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| The city of Rotterdam has sheep that are owned by the city and
| shepherded by a city employee.
|
| https://www.rotterdam.nl/wonen-leven/grazers/
|
| I'm kind of surprised someone would use goats for this purpose
| instead of sheep. Sheep are dumb, docile and easy to manage.
| Goats are impossible to manage.
| Xylakant wrote:
| Goats and sheep have different grazing behavior. Sheep are
| great for grasses, but goats will happily eat everything-
| shrubs, grass, name it.
| phkahler wrote:
| The map got all jittery on me and would not stop. All I did is
| scroll down the page. Running some version of Edge on Windows 10.
| [deleted]
| eminence32 wrote:
| My office landlords hired some goats (not from this company) to
| tame some overgrown bushes by a river. They arrived in a gutted
| school bus (which is where they slept over night). As far as I
| could tell, the procedure is: set up fence around area to be
| eaten, let out goats, and let them wander and eat for a few days.
| The end result wasn't very pretty, but it was remarkably
| effective.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| From the perspective of the goats it must feel like they're on
| a luxury cruise. They get whisked around to new locations every
| day, they get out and gorge themselves on food, then back on
| board to the next location and plant buffet tomorrow. Nice
| lifestyle!
| type0 wrote:
| > to tame some overgrown bushes by a river.
|
| Hiring goats is one of the best methods to fight bush growth,
| especially if you clamp the high ones so the goats can reach
| everywhere. Sawing down on the other hand only gives more
| sprouts and stronger roots for the next years.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I have my chromium browser window at half screen width - the map
| rapidly resizes itself in a busy loop. Makes you a bit nauseous
| to look at it.
| owlninja wrote:
| Same for me at full screen. Fascinating service though!
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| They're better at goats than web design.
| [deleted]
| probably_wrong wrote:
| Firefox too - a scroll bar appears and disappears in a loop
| until it eventually converges and stops.
| yreg wrote:
| Yep, the map is funky!
| schainks wrote:
| Tried hiring a local goat rental to tame my parents' yard, the
| guy on the phone complained about "this thing called a living
| wage" that he has to pay his workers. He won't take jobs less
| than 10 acres or his business runs at a loss. Many cities need
| regular plant clearing, though, so by reliably selling services
| to local city and county governments, his business will never
| fail.
| ryanianian wrote:
| > reliably selling services to local city and county
| governments
|
| And cities are starting to do this more regularly too. E.g.
| NYC's Riverside park was cleared with goats this year.
| (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/goats-released-new-york-
| cit...)
| dlgeek wrote:
| I looked into this a couple of times for an urban-ish lot with an
| overgrown backyard. (I don't have a green thumb!). There were
| several services in my area, including the awesomely-named Rent-
| a-ruminant.
|
| Unfortunately, for smaller lots, it just isn't feasible - the way
| the pricing is structured, the setup fees get you. They are
| really for multi-acre lots where they set up significant fencing
| and leave the goats for several days.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Here in Northern Europe they just use GPS-enabled electric
| collars on the goats, and do literal geofencing with that. Then
| you don't have any cost of setting up physical fences. Of
| course you have to accept that the fence position has an
| inaccuracy 5-6 meters, so it only makes sense for large areas
| where there is nothing that will kill the goat if it strays a
| little outside the fence.
| Aperocky wrote:
| What if the goat wanders into the wrong direction and get
| lost? Would it die of electric shock or would the collar run
| out of battery.. eventually
| mingusrude wrote:
| My sister has a small farm and in addition to cows and horses she
| also has rabbits. Every spring, parents show up to buy a rabbit
| to have at home. When the deal is done my sister takes the
| parents aside and tell them that if they plan or feel by the end
| of the summer that they want to let the rabbit loose, they can
| return it for free.
|
| What she does not tell is that our brother-in-law is a chef and
| happily makes rabbit stew of the returned rabbits. If there was
| ever a win-win situation, this is it.
| cornel_io wrote:
| dunefox wrote:
| Yeah, sounds like a win-win situation alright - the pet rabbit
| gets slaughtered, the children and parents are lied to. Your
| sister sounds like a great person.
| freilanzer wrote:
| Agreed, that seems rather questionable.
| wszfahwbwbaha wrote:
| It's seriously skeezy. One of those comments that makes me
| have less faith in humanity.
| wszfahwbwbaha wrote:
| Your sister is a bad person
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| What kind of people adopt a pet, and then release it into the
| wild? People doing this with cats is one of the reasons stray
| cats are such a big problem in many places. People dumping cat
| litters in the woods and what not. And rabbits can be an
| ecological menace too if allowed to multiply, which they do
| _like rabbits_.
| vrc wrote:
| Fish and turtles immediately come to mind. I knew of somebody
| who released Siberian dwarf hamsters and for a brief period
| they multiplied in their backyard before the local red tailed
| hawk caught wind
| kennend3 wrote:
| This!
|
| where i live there are wild rabbits and in previous years
| the population has literally exploded.
|
| The Rabbits are smart, they build a den under my deck
| knowing the dog cant reach them and the dog keeps other
| predators away.
|
| Then a red tailed fox moved into the area... and now
| instead of finding whole rabbits roaming the neighbourhood,
| you find the odd rabbit component. Maybe a rear quarter
| here, or a front limb there.
| inkcapmushroom wrote:
| >What kind of people adopt a pet, and then release it into
| the wild?
|
| I have a friend who just acquired a ball python because the
| frat house behind her left the snake tank, with the snake
| inside it, out with the trash can. Many people have no regard
| for animals and even less regard for their impact on the
| world around them.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Goldfish, turtles, snakes, lizards, rabbits, etc are all
| animals people bought for pets and then decided that they
| didn't want them and released them into the "wild" to be
| "free" without considering the consequences for the animal or
| the environment.
| arcanemachined wrote:
| > What kind of people adopt a pet, and then release it into
| the wild?
|
| Have you seen how much litter people throw on the ground? I
| think you might be giving the average person too much credit.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| I'm not talking about cat litter I'm talking about litters
| of kittens. Who gives a fuck about litter?
|
| Unless you're talking about litter as in garbage.
|
| But if you think dumping helpless animals under your care
| to fend for themselves is morally equivalent to littering,
| I'm not even sure what to say to that. It's not even in the
| same ballpark.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I'm fairly confident that they meant garbage, yes.
|
| Without commenting on the amount of badness, the point is
| that they're both bad things that people nonetheless
| manage to regularly do.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| I know commenting on downvotes isn't kosher but I really
| wish downvoters would leave a comment on why. It could be
| 3 words: downvoted for x.
|
| I'm really not sure what is so objectionable about
| asserting that animal abuse is not the same thing as
| littering.
| dstick wrote:
| Since you asked nicely: downvoted for using a specific
| type of language.
|
| It's the first part in the HN guidelines for comments:
|
| "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation;
| don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't
| sneer, including at the rest of the community."
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Thank you. Yeah, I kind of misunderstood GGP as a
| deliberate misinterpretation of my usage of the countable
| noun "litter". And it ticked me off. Having grown up on
| 4chan and IRC, I'm often a bit surprised by what's
| considered snark on HN vs other parts of the internet.
| I'll try to adjust my weights in future.
| gommm wrote:
| I think that animal abuse is not the same thing as
| littering but that the type of people who litter are also
| the same type on irresponsible people who will think that
| leaving a rabbit to fend for themselves is no big deal.
| Either they are clueless and think that rabbits can fend
| for themselves or they do not care about the consequences
| of their actions as proven by littering.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Sure. But there is something very different about the
| animal case because most normal people make emotional
| connections with their pets.
|
| I own a Norwegian forest cat he was a stray and then
| found and neutered as an adult. I pretty much know that
| he could survive just fine on his own by hunting rodents,
| which he sometimes does anyway. But I still wouldn't
| leave him to fend for himself because I know he's much
| happier as a pet and I also just don't want him to leave.
| That's the part I don't really get. And I'm not some
| bleeding heart animals should have human rights type
| person either. Even though squirrels are cute, I'm not
| shedding tears while cleaning one up that the cat brought
| in. It's a wild animal that got killed by a predator.
| That's just nature.
|
| I don't understand the emotional calculus of doing thing
| to an animal you've lived with and taken care of for
| months. And I really don't think _that_ is normal at all.
| slingnow wrote:
| I'm really glad people don't leave comments for
| downvoting. Then this forum would be littered (heh) with
| completely useless 3-word comments "downvoted for x".
|
| Be less concerned with your internet points.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| It's not that I'm so conserned with my points really.
| Just sometimes it sucks if people disapprove of what you
| said and you're not sure why. It's usually enough if just
| one person leaves a comment. Sometimes these things are
| just hard for me to interpret and it frustrates me a bit.
| leaflets2 wrote:
| > if people disapprove of what you said and you're not
| sure why
|
| Good point, I've been mildly about about that me too in
| some cases (I'm sbd else)
| xbmcuser wrote:
| A large number of invasive species in many countries are pets
| that were released in the wild. Snakes and gold fish are
| probably the most well known among them. Most humans are
| selfish I think people doing the right thing in private is a
| lot less common than people assume hence when someone does
| something unselfish it is celebrated.
| __dunder__ wrote:
| Doesn't this produce a selection effect against cute rabbits?
| Parents are more likely to choose cute rabbits, those rabbits
| become pets, they either get returned and eaten or kept. So
| non-cute rabbits tend to live longer on the farm, and as such
| have more offspring and get selected for, and eventually the
| farm will be covered in ugly rabbits and your sister will not
| have any clients anymore.
| oynqr wrote:
| Ugly rabbits probably get the stew treatment first
| jacobriis wrote:
| This is not goat content.
| kinleyd wrote:
| Hmm, that does not sound right.
| KingMob wrote:
| > If there was ever a win-win situation, this is it.
|
| Say what? She lies via omission to the parents, forcing them to
| make an uninformed choice.
|
| Instead of letting a rabbit loose in the wild, they might have
| sought another home for it, because they didn't want it to die.
| Your sister's lies mislead them into thinking they can safely
| return the rabbit.
| m1gu3l wrote:
| The whole thing was an Invisible initiation, there was never
| any rabbit.
| schainks wrote:
| Australia would like to have a word with you.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Letting them free will likely get them eaten anyway, probably
| less humanly since they'll still be alive while they are
| eaten. Or run over. These are domesticated rabbits, not wild
| ones.
| wikfwikf wrote:
| Would you rather be released from prison into a dangerous
| world or executed?
| skinnymuch wrote:
| People aren't domesticated rabbits.
| withinboredom wrote:
| These are not wild rabbits.
|
| You cannot release them into the wild, just like you
| can't release penguins from the zoo into the wild. We
| spend most of our adult life teaching our children how to
| survive. Most people don't teach their pets how to
| survive.
|
| No offense, but your question makes no sense in the scope
| we are dealing with. But fwiw, most people released from
| prison don't do so well with reintegration. Some don't
| survive, some end up going back, and very few thrive.
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| My experience is that you don't let a rabbit go... you just
| stop trying to track the little lagomorph down after it
| chews through or digs under the fence for the third time.
|
| Rabbits are good as prey, great as pests, bad as pets.
| pluijzer wrote:
| What the parent post means is that the owners might not
| have let the rabbit free bit would find an other
| alternative, like keeping the rabbit anyway because they
| love it, giving the rabbit to a friend etc. But now they
| think their is this great alternative of giving the rabbit
| back but unknowingly killing it.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I've had several friends have rabbits in my lifetime.
| They all t eventually let them go instead of finding a
| new home. Each time I looked at them in horror while I
| imagined the lucky hawk having dinner.
|
| Most people think rabbits are "natural" when they may
| actually be invasive. So they let them go. Finding a new
| home is the last thing on every one of these owners mind.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| I could never imagine doing this to an animal I care
| about. This is sociopathic behaviour. Unless they believe
| the rabbit will survive, in which it's just wildly
| ignorant. And therefore irresponsible, because a rabbit
| owner should have a rough understanding of what a rabbit
| is and how they work.
| withinboredom wrote:
| It is quite sad and irresponsible, but extremely common.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| There was a case here in Norway a few years back. A
| litter of dead kittens was found in the woods, wrapped in
| several layers of plastic bags. Inner layers had
| scratches proving the kittens were alive and not
| stillborn.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Hongkong has a _modest_ social problem related to freeing
| unwanted pets into the wild. There are numerous
| billboards and buses adverts warning people not to do it.
|
| On the other hand, there is very real urban legend of a
| salt water crocodile that was captured in early 2000s in
| the Hongkong wild. It was hunted for months. Authorities
| have no idea if was a release, or travelled from nearby
| (more tropical) region. Read more about Pui Pui on Wiki:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pui_Pui_(crocodile) She is
| even on show at the Hongkong Wetland Park. But if you
| want to see salties in the wild without too much effort
| or stress, you can do that in Singapore at a wetland
| reserve near Kranji.
| wikfwikf wrote:
| These are two contradictory reasons. Rabbits are
| considered invasive because there is a non-zero chance
| they will escape the hawk and reproduce.
| samatman wrote:
| It's not contradictory in the slightest, the odds of a
| domesticated and domestic rabbit surviving predation are
| effectively nil.
|
| The odds that it manages a litter first are higher,
| especially if it escapes pregnant, which rabbits
| generally are if they're able to be. Those pups are
| feral, not domestic, and have moderately better odds.
| Given enough generations, the domesticated neoteny is
| selected out by predation and now you have an invasive
| population of feral rabbits which can survive in the
| wild.
| wikfwikf wrote:
| Everyone dies eventually.
| samatman wrote:
| Yes, but not of predation. The number of rabbits which
| die of age or starvation in their burrows over the
| winter, or disease, is not zero.
| [deleted]
| samatman wrote:
| They can, in fact, safely return the rabbit to the stew pot.
|
| They're food. Rabbits. People eat them.
|
| It's not better for the rabbit to be turned loose to be
| mauled to death by a housecat or eaten by a coyote. A shelter
| is going to euthanize, wasting good meat.
|
| This is squeamishness masquerading as morality.
| gambiting wrote:
| That's not the point. I have literally nothing against
| eating rabbits - they are delicious in fact.
|
| I do hover, object to lying. Like OP said - they(everyone
| in fact) have the right to make an informed choice. By
| omitting this information, people who are returning a
| rabbit aren't making an informed choice. It's a trick, a
| ruse, if money was involved I'd call it a fraud.
|
| Nothing to do with squeamishness.
| conorcleary wrote:
| They're returning the rabbits to the previous owners.
| There's no further expectation of duty to either party.
| dnadler wrote:
| The situation implies that the person selling the rabbits
| as pets would attempt to rehome them or care for them as
| pets.
|
| There's a difference between being technically correct,
| and being moral. While the language used is technically
| correct for the situation, omitting the information about
| where the rabbits end up is immoral.
|
| Clearly OP understands that if the whole truth was told,
| they wouldn't be getting a free source of rabbit meat...
| spelunker wrote:
| I would hardly call it immoral. If the owners are curious
| about the ultimate fate of the rabbit, they could simply
| ask before returning.
| leaflets2 wrote:
| I think it doesn't occur to them that the rabbit's new
| home is in the oven. They wouldn't think about asking
| samatman wrote:
| Is it dishonest to buy a rabbit and not mention that
| you're planning to eat/breed/keep it as a pet?
|
| No of course not, it's none of the seller's business. If
| they say "hey we're vegan please don't eat our rabbits"
| that's a different matter, it would be at the very least
| polite to respect those wishes.
|
| Why on Earth would returning a rabbit _to a farm where
| they eat them_ be any different? In this case the
| possibility is perfectly clear.
| dnadler wrote:
| I think the bit about it being a "farm where they eat
| them" is the key point.
|
| If the person returning it knows that, then sure. The OP
| implied pretty heavily that they don't know the ultimate
| fate of the rabbits.
|
| As far as these people know its "A farm where they sell
| breed and sell rabbits as pets", not a farm that raises
| them for meat.
| jeromegv wrote:
| I think the expectation is that since they bought the
| rabbit there and the rabbit was happily living there,
| when they return it, they expect it to still live. They
| think they are returning the rabbit to its "natural"
| environment and will happily live on the farm.
|
| So there is no legal duty or obligation, but morally, the
| expectation on both parties are definitely not the same.
| Otherwise they would tell them that they would cook them
| when they return them. The fact they are hiding this
| information shows that expectations are not aligned.
| scrumbledober wrote:
| Yeah but it's a farm... it's not a rabbit rescue and pet
| store
| slingnow wrote:
| Did you miss the part where the sister says "that [if]
| they want to let the rabbit loose, they can return it for
| free"?
|
| That's an outright lie, since they aren't letting the
| rabbit loose to live on the farm -- they're eating it.
| wszfahwbwbaha wrote:
| What is with all your edgelord stuff with rabbits. You need
| to work out some of your issues
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| Are dogs food?
| kennend3 wrote:
| I've had dogs as pets for decades. I don't see why people
| cant eat them if they want to. I wouldn't eat my dog
| because of emotional attachments, but that doesn't mean
| that others who don't have emotional ties cant eat them.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| But perhaps you can see why someone would be upset if you
| needed to pass your dog to someone else's care; and they
| ate them.
| [deleted]
| samatman wrote:
| Are pigs food to Muslims?
|
| Is there a culture where eating rabbit is taboo?
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| You said
|
| > They're food. Rabbits. People eat them.
|
| Well people eat dogs and pigs so then by the same logic
| they are food.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Rabbits are incredibly destructive of many environments. Have
| a look at New Zealand.
| wszfahwbwbaha wrote:
| Then don't breed them, sell them as pets, then lie to
| parents and kill and eat them. Seems like an easy
| solution..
| lostlogin wrote:
| This is how I've always behaved, yet the problem remains.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| There is no lie, only assumptions on their part.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Fantastic. I've got 1-1/4 acres that I've paid yearly to have
| cut. I worry about the workers because they encounter
| rattlesnakes. I've searched for goats to hire for several years,
| but not been able to find them. Very glad to discover this!
| samstave wrote:
| Where are you?
|
| A friend of mine runs "https://www.scapegoats.net/"
|
| And the head of HPE Sales has something like several hundred
| goats, but I dont know their site info.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Alameda County, Ca.
| [deleted]
| frob wrote:
| Lawrence Berkeley National Labs uses goats to tame the brush on
| the steep slopes surrounding the campus (over 45 degrees in many
| places). More than once I've had to wait on a bus for the herd of
| goats to transition across the main access road from one slope to
| the other.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| They're pretty common in most of the East Bay hills. I've
| always wondered how many different herds there are though. Is
| it like 1-2 herds per city that move around constantly, or are
| there dozens of herds that spend a week vacationing in the big
| city every couple of months before they go back to the farm?
| sdw1 wrote:
| The East Bay Regional Park District publishes their grazing
| schedule with all of their contractors! I really like to plan
| trips to go see the goats.
| https://www.ebparks.org/sites/default/files/Goat-Grazing-
| Sch...
| ketzo wrote:
| I know there are at least two goat rental _companies_ ,
| because the one I see on my hikes is different from the one
| in the link!
| e40 wrote:
| And those hills are filled with poison oak. Guess it doesn't
| bother the goats like it does humans!
| redconfetti wrote:
| When a mower won't tend to those hills.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQEFH_8fka4
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Much more detail on one of the listed goat rental companies:
|
| https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/business/local-goatsc...
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Inspiration: Ask HN: Do you maintain a list of RSS links of GOAT
| blogs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32191140
|
| And, yes, my cousin's goat business is listed:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32191666
| dingleberry420 wrote:
| You don't rent a goat, you lease that surly bastard
| flerchin wrote:
| My dad hired goats to mow down his entire lot in the Hell's
| Canyon area of Eastern Washington. Saved his cabin from a
| wildfire, and got the dang thistles reduced to nothing. It was a
| bargain too, $400.
| 0xPIT wrote:
| Couldn't one also rent goats just to appear in video calls?
| widowlark wrote:
| My wife and I hired goats from a gentleman on Nextdoor to help
| clear our backyard in our newly purchased home (like ~10000sqft
| of overgrowth) - he dropped off 7 goats, and they performed
| admirably, were extremely calm and well behaved until they ran
| out of food, at which point they turn into food-hunting, petulant
| children. If you do this, make sure to get only as many as you
| need!
| puchatek wrote:
| The "world" seems to be made up of Canada, the US and Australia
| [deleted]
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Also New Zealand. I heard they have more goats and sheep than
| human. Just not sure you need to rent one.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Also New Zealand but not their world. I heard they have more
| goats and sheep than human. Just not sure you need to rent one.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| You had me at goat rentals!
| pjmlp wrote:
| In the same vein regarding tackling invasive plants.
|
| In Germany, I came to realize that many cities have unpaid
| "employees" to tame the city gardens, namely wild ducks, gooses
| and rabbits.
|
| Thankfully people leave them be, back home they would have been
| snaped in less than a week.
|
| However as they are used to humans, it also means they make
| themselves invited guests to any picknick if one doesn't pay
| attention to the "teams" taking care of the grass.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| Which reminds me of a very old joke:
|
| Two friends meet in a bar.
|
| Says one: "I've bought a goat."
|
| Says the other: "A goat? Where do you keep it?"
|
| "In the bedroom."
|
| "In the bedroom? What about the smell?"
|
| "Well, the critter will have to get used to it."
| andybak wrote:
| The map judders uncontrollably on Firefox for me.
| codebolt wrote:
| Same here on Edge.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Also on Chrome, I'm pretty sure it's a joke.
| genezeta wrote:
| It does look like a bug.
|
| Like the iframe and the parent are sending each other a
| message to match the heights of the content document and
| the iframe element but it miss-calculates producing a
| vertical scroll to appear, which then posts another message
| back to adjust again and so on, back and forth.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Same here, it constantly alternates between two sizes.
| nvusuvu wrote:
| Same here, Version 104.0.5112.81 (Official Build) (64-bit)
| Chrome
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Goats are the future of transportation.
| implements wrote:
| In Britain, because they're classed as farm animals you'd need
| a Movement Order from DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food
| and Rural Affairs) to take one onto a public road,
| unfortunately.
|
| https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sheep-and-goat-keepers-how-to-re...
|
| (Yeah, I'd once looked into using a 'goat and cart' as a from
| of transport!)
| adrianN wrote:
| Thor knew best all along!
| d_rc wrote:
| Another story from a fellow hacker with a backyard goat - It
| actually starts in a very subtle way. Goats have different tastes
| and moods, and it's not like they eat everything right away
| unless the density of a goat per backyard m2 is too high. I
| started giving mine some free "roaming" time with the chickens
| every day before the sunset. It looked very innocent - first few
| days she ate just some weeds, nettle and some low hanging
| branches of pear trees. No worries, I was planning to cut those
| anyways. After few weeks of not paying that much attention in the
| evenings, bottom third of all our ~12 trees were gone, she got
| into salads, potatoes, zucchini, pumpkins, peppers and cucumbers,
| all nettle was done, and she started checking out tomatoes (which
| seemed that she is really really not into at first). I am
| building a new goat house with it's own separate "backyard" with
| weeds that she won't be able to escape. :)
| h2odragon wrote:
| > won't be able to escape
|
| I suspect you may be falling to overconfidence there.
|
| Also, single goat? That's tough, I've done it by running the
| goat with a pack of dogs and treating it as a dog, but witha
| lone goat, who doesn't feel they have herd, keeping them happy
| is difficult.
| toast0 wrote:
| FYI, we were letting our goats and chickens roam at the same
| time, but hanging out with the goats and it was fine... until
| the goats figured out how to squeeze into the chicken run and
| gobble up the chicken feed.
|
| Apparently they find it super tasty, but it's not vegetarian,
| so they shouldn't eat it. The chickens get into much less
| trouble and can roam mostly unsupervised; but we've got a lot
| of aerial preditors to watch out for.
| Jedd wrote:
| Do you mean the goat is eating the tomato fruit, or the tomato
| leaves?
|
| The latter are toxic to (AIUI) all monogastrics, same as
| potatoes and other Solanum family plants - you may want to
| reign that behaviour in, assuming the animals are still alive.
| soperj wrote:
| Goats are ruminants.
| stefs wrote:
| at least she didn't eat the chicks.
| ridgered4 wrote:
| When I was a child we had pigs and chickens next to each
| other. The chickens started sleeping atop the resting pig
| since it was warm. It was cute until the pig started
| devouring the chickens!
| [deleted]
| walrus01 wrote:
| in terms of goat's ability to eat almost literally anything, even
| the things you don't want them to eat, they have a saying in
| afghanistan (translated from the dari):
|
| if you don't have any problems, buy a goat
| [deleted]
| ericcholis wrote:
| We've got a service in Western New York (letsgoatbuffalo.com,
| clever play on Let's Go Buffalo!). They used an old school bus to
| transport the goats, which sadly burned down. But, the Western
| New York community raised $16,000 via a go fund me for a new bus!
| bleuchase wrote:
| Same service OP is talking about?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32434474
| elliottkember wrote:
| Goatscaping
| lwhi wrote:
| https://www.cronkshawfoldfarm.co.uk/goatsonzoom
|
| You're welcome!
| soledades wrote:
| ( deg [?]? deg)
| zbird wrote:
| I know where you're coming from.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I've rented bees, I would like to try a goat. Last one I met was
| great, but some are complete arseholes.
| sverhagen wrote:
| Goats' honey just ain't that good...
| ben_w wrote:
| Bee milk is extremely spicy, but each bee can only be milked
| once and doesn't produce very much.
| lostlogin wrote:
| You can harvest venom and it's worth quite a lot.
|
| It does seem a bit like bee torture though.
| imgabe wrote:
| With goats and bees you could be living in the land of milk and
| honey.
| voxadam wrote:
| Goat Ops[0] is real!
|
| [0] https://www.goatops.com/
| gumby wrote:
| Less than three weeks ago, goats as a service was a topic of
| discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32191140
|
| (A nice example of comments drifting away from the putative
| topic)
| sAbakumoff wrote:
| When I saw the title, I thought that it's about hiring The
| Greatest Of All Times people. LMAO
| omnibrain wrote:
| At my former working place we had a freelance consultant on
| retainer who looked into cutting his hours down for health
| reasons and thus explored new ventures. Because he already had a
| few sheep he decided to offer sheep rentals as a "biological"
| lawn cutter.
|
| But there were 2 problems: Sheep can be somewhat picky eaters, so
| they let some grass stand. But the bigger problem was, that while
| his prospective customers liked the idea of having their lawn cut
| "biologically", they pretty much did not like the sheep droppings
| the sheep left behind in practice.
| rootw0rm wrote:
| I have property in a pretty rural area (Anza, CA) and every goat
| owner I know says that they're actually picky eaters. But these
| articles I see pop up now and then pretty much prove the
| opposite...
| toast0 wrote:
| I've got three goats. They're picky, but mine have a pretty
| good amount of space and a variety of stuff to eat. They've
| each got their favorites, but crunchy dry cottonwood leaves and
| our dominant dandelion-alike are at the top of each list.
|
| If you're using goats to clear land, you put more goats per
| space than the land can sustain, but just for a few days or
| weeks. The goats will eat their favorite things first, but then
| also other paletteable stuff. They'll also trample things down
| pretty good.
| markdown wrote:
| They will eat all the grass and then shrubs and then small
| bushes and trees including stripping all the bark.
|
| Not animals you want around flora you care about.
| progre wrote:
| Yep, my neighbours keeps goats next to my propery, they
| escape once in a while. They go directly to the soft greens
| in my garden. When the fences hold they eat the area clean by
| type as you say. First the grass, then the leves of the small
| trees, then the bark (killing the small trees). Only when
| there is nothing else left will they eat the nettles.
| k_sze wrote:
| I'm not familiar with goats. But this got me thinking: why
| would the goats even do that? Are they not well-fed? Are
| they hungry all the time? Do goats eat and poop 24/7 if
| left unchecked?
| progre wrote:
| > Do goats eat and poop 24/7 if left unchecked
|
| Yes. Many grazing animals are like this. It's like they
| have no "feeling full" in their tiny brains. Grass and
| leafs are not very calorie dense so they kind of have to.
|
| Cows or horses can easily eat themselves sick if they are
| let into high grown grass fields. Where I live the horse
| owners will sometimes cut the grass in the fields before
| they let the horses go to it in the spring.
| frob wrote:
| I have goats. They are picky eaters. They know what they want
| and what they don't. They will strip most trees and bushes to
| the branch. They will eat most grass, but not if it's too tall
| or has gone to seed or is too dried out. And they'll only eat
| it down to about 3-4 inches from the ground. There are certain
| plants I dig out of my pasture because the goats just won't eat
| them and I don't want them spreading and taking up more space.
|
| There's truth that goats will put most things in their mouths.
| Almost every time I bring something new into their pen, they
| check to see if it's food. They'll even check me every now and
| then just to be sure I haven't become food in the past week.
| So, sure, you might see a goat pick up a tin can for a brief
| moment, but you'll also see it spit it out 5 seconds later.
| mitchell_h wrote:
| I recently got into goats. Already have cows, chickens, and
| pigs on my hobby farm. Goats are without a doubt the most
| picky. I use pigs and goats for pretty much the same things,
| land clearing then food. Pigs are pure freaking destroy
| everything and then still eat what feed you give them. They
| also tear the crap out of the dirt, but they taste really
| good.
|
| I agree goats are picky the point that if you keep an on them
| you can catch them before they tear up anything you want to
| keep(apple/peach trees). Another thing is goats are just dang
| fun. Pigs and cows are friendly in a dull sort of way, goats
| have character & personality. One of my goats will come out
| of his pen nightly just to hang around with me and the kids.
| When it gets tired of us he puts him self back in the pen.
| kieckerjan wrote:
| My gf and I have a plot and are considering goats. There are
| trees there though, full grown conifers. Will they be at
| risk? No tree likes it to be stripped of its bark.
| guiambros wrote:
| Ha, this reminded me of a similar service: goat rental for
| videoconferences [1] :). It was a hit during the pandemic, with
| everyone scrambling to combat screen fatigue in creative ways.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32435090
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I visited the goat rental page and got a picture of an Alpaca.
| I want my money back.
| flerchin wrote:
| The map on this page has some sort of CSS issue in Firefox. It
| constantly resizes and shakes. Using the page zoom function is
| enough to get it to eventually stop.
| pineconewarrior wrote:
| It jiggles in a most unpleasant manner for me as well.
|
| I love these types of bugs. If these guys are going for a "Goat
| Simulator" vibe (notoriously buggy, part of the charm), they've
| nailed it.
| kraquepype wrote:
| Ha, that was my first thought too. It immediately reminded me
| of the absurdly buggy feeling you get playing Goat Simulator.
| keyanp wrote:
| Same issue for me, I'm on Chrome Version 104.0.5112.79
| fnands wrote:
| GaaS - Goats as a Service
| jppope wrote:
| TIL Michael Jordan nor Tom Brady are featured on hiregoats.com...
| which is a shame
| jayzalowitz wrote:
| came here for this joke.
| jaimex2 wrote:
| So you want me to pay you to feed your goats?
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Uhm, goats are by far the cheapest way to clear out certain
| kinds of brush and noxious plants. They're also cute and act
| like dogs.
|
| Pesticides are dangerous and still leave a dead plant, machines
| jam (and lop off fingers,) doing it by hand takes a long time
| and can risk major rashes from poison ivy or cuts from thorns.
|
| Part of my back yard is impenetrable from the kinds of plants
| goats eat.
| strickman wrote:
| I think he has a point there. If he did not pay for, it may
| be an even trade.
|
| You'd just have to compare the cost per acre per month of
| machine maintenance vs the cost to maintain a well fed flock
| for a month; including land costs and property taxes if you
| own the land.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > I think he has a point there. If he did not pay for, it
| may be an even trade.
|
| Not really - the cost of food for goats is fairly marginal
| all things considered. For this kind of service you have to
| account for transport, setup (usually fencing of some sort
| has to be put up), etc. as well as ongoing medical and
| shelter costs for when they aren't working.
| jaimex2 wrote:
| There's going to be poop everywhere and potential damage if
| they aren't confined. They'll climb and gnaw on everything
| and anything. The goats will be spreading the weed seeds.
|
| I'm not saying they are bad, I'm just saying you're being a
| schmuck if you pay someone to have their goats graze on your
| land.
|
| Get your own grazers or let them do it for free.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Also, goats deal really well with sloped areas that machines
| and people struggle with.
|
| Where I live they get used a lot on highway embankments.
| jaimex2 wrote:
| Electric mowers and brush cutters solved that years ago.
| They weigh nothing.
| kennend3 wrote:
| So...
|
| You prefer two stroke gasoline engines (Very
| environmentally unfriendly) vs goats because???
|
| I've never seen city employees using "electric mowers"???
| Probably because the battery life is simply useless for
| anything beyond a small yard?
|
| On top of this, you prefer to pay unionized city worker
| wages to remove weeds instead of an environmentally
| friendly goat do it for almost nothing?
|
| I saw 2 city workers trying to clear an area the other
| day. 3 hours later they were still there, gasoline
| burning trimmers screaming away. I'd say they had at lest
| a day of work left. Two workers, there all day - probably
| a few tanks of gas as well...
|
| Personally, i'd prefer they had Goats as an option.. but
| that is just me.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| You still need to operate one with a human, and goats
| don't have a minimum wage.
|
| (Also, because their method of destruction is eating,
| they also go for root systems and clear them whole; this
| is a very important feature in my area, as they're used
| to kill blackberry, which does not die if you leave the
| roots.)
| djmips wrote:
| I thought this would let you would hire 10X programmers...
| chris_wot wrote:
| If you think about it, this is probably the most ecologically
| friend method of clearing scrub and weeds. No chemicals involved!
|
| The only thing I wonder about is whether the weed seeds would
| regrow. But I'd imagine clearing it on the second round would be
| easier.
| ggm wrote:
| I thought we were opposed to the Nanny state?
| dont__panic wrote:
| No goats in New Hampshire or Vermont? I guess those farms don't
| have internet access...
| [deleted]
| vishnugupta wrote:
| Ah nice seeing something like this on HN. In India, it's common
| to hire goats for another, lets just say complementary reason.
| Their droppings are really good natural fertiliser. So farmers
| pay sheep/goat herders to get them to visit their farm for a few
| days before the sowing season.
| fluke53 wrote:
| I'm from India and I never heard of this.
|
| I'm pretty sure people do this, but it's the "it's common" part
| that bothers me.
|
| It's like saying Indians are vegetarians. All Indians aren't.
| showerst wrote:
| Whenever I hear someone say "(X) is common" in any country
| with more than about 20 million people, I just mentally
| append "in my area".
| a_t48 wrote:
| I looked into this for my yard. Unfortunately given how bad of a
| shape it is, it still would cost multiple thousands to clear with
| goats. Fortunately, it only costs a few hundred to buy some goats
| and do it over a longer time, with the bonus of making my niece
| happy.
| yesilyurt wrote:
| Where to hire tyson
| CPLX wrote:
| Does anyone know how much this tends to cost in an actual direct
| X goats for X days tends to cost about this much sort of way?
| samstave wrote:
| The head of HPE EMEA is married to the head of Palo Alto networks
| EMA sales...
|
| They have an amazing home in Auburn, and they have a LOT of
| goats. My friend, who is married to the ex chief of staff for
| Cisco also bought a ranch in auburn and they have ~100 goats or
| so. They rent them out for ~$800 per acre to clear bramble and
| what not. I spent a week helping them move goats between projects
| earlier this summer and its a hell of a lot of work.
|
| There are a lot of tech people that went and bought land with
| goats and have started goat businesses.
| klik99 wrote:
| This has become pretty common over the last few years in Atlanta
| for clearing out larger wild areas - they make short work of it
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