Parsley, an 11-year-old goat, ambled over to several children who gathered to watch his first day on the job.

He patiently let them pat him but soon had to get back to work munching on a bush. Parsley chewed away at leaves and branches that made their way to his four-compartment stomach to be fermented as if in a living wine barrel.

“Parsley’s one of my favorites and part of the same herd we’ve had for 11 years,” said Bruce Weber, owner of Amazing Grazing LLC . “My kids hand-raised them. Each one has a name. So, basically, they are pets.”

Morton Borough, Pennsylvania, hired Weber’s herd of goats starting Wednesday to help clear out invasive vines, bushes, shrubs and trees that have engulfed six acres spread over two wooded lots. The children were let in only briefly until Weber set up. After that, the goats were off limits to people.

The borough opted for the more natural, and adorable, goat solution rather than herbicides. The Amazing Grazing herd are always up for a snack. Contained by solar-powered, low-voltage electric fencing, the goats will munch their way through the flora of the 4.9-acre Jacob’s Park and 1.6-acre Sycamore Woods.

The 19 goats will dine on the two lots over three weeks, gobbling their way through English and poison ivies, poison oak and sumac, Japanese knotweed, and oriental bittersweet.

How the goats got hired

“We wanted to make sure that not only are we preserving our green space but to make sure we’re enhancing it, as well,” said William Stewart, borough manager.

Morton, at less than a square mile, has about 2,800 residents. The goats are part of the borough’s $180,000 Community Forest Management Plan funded by a Delaware County grant. The borough hired the herd that’s based at Weber’s farm in Cochranville in Chester County, Pennsylvania, for $12,000.

Allen Lindenmuth, who lives next to Sycamore Woods, came out with other neighbors to greet the goats on their arrival. He was with his wife, Melissa, and their daughter, Addison, 2.

“Our daughter is a big animal girl,” Lindenmuth said. “So when she heard the word goats, there was no way we weren’t coming tonight.”

Goats are a growing trend

Morton’s idea to use goats came from the Davey Resource Group, a horticultural and environmental services firm that the borough hired to create an urban forest management plan. Morton is also working with the Eastern Delaware County Stormwater Collaborative, a collection of municipalities trying to improve water quality in the Darby Creek watershed. The plan calls for identifying dead or dying ash trees on the lots. The trees have been attacked by the emerald ash borer, a destructive, metallic green beetle that’s also devastated trees at Tyler Arboretum , also in Delaware County.

Goats are increasingly recognized as a land management tool because they can access hard-to-reach terrain and do such a thorough job. For example, Friends of High School Park has used goats from the Philly Goat Project to control invasive species on that 11-acre Cheltenham park. The nonprofit Philly Goat Project is based at the Awbury Arboretum’s farm in East Germantown.

“Goats offer an eco-friendly approach that aligns with the borough’s sustainability goals while effectively addressing invasive species challenges in a public-accessible setting,” the Davey Resource Group wrote in its report to Morton officials.

How Parsley got his job

Weber began raising goats 11 years ago. A single pair produced the current herd of 35 on Weber’s 13-acre farm in Cochranville, Chester County. Weber, a facilities manager during the day, and his family tend to the goats, as well as quarter horses, pigs, chickens, and a donkey. He got the idea of renting out his goats when they began eating a dense row of multiflora rose, a thorny, invasive bush native to East Asia .

“We had this fence row all the way in the back pasture. It was probably 30 foot wide and 20 foot tall,” Weber recalled. “And within a week it looked like a new fence. A lightbulb went off and [we] thought we’d start something on the side for a little college fund. But the business just exploded. It’s still a family business, part time on evenings and weekends.”

Weber installs troughs for water for the goats on location and sets up tarps as temporary shelters. He checks the goats every night. He also scours an area in advance, clearing out plants, such as rhododendron, that are toxic to goats.

The goats, he said, will eat just about anything except stinging nettle. They’ll eat vines off trees down to the bark. They eat so voraciously that they stress invasive plants.

“Those that do come back grow very sparse and manageable,” Weber said. “It’s a great way to eradicate all your evasive stuff.”

Morton’s mayor, Amanda Hammock, and the borough council are officially welcoming the goats at noon Saturday at Mike Scioscia Field and will present them with the keys to the borough — making sure, of course, that the goats don’t eat them.

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