Things to make you happy: Google employs goats
Google's goat army.
(Credit: Official Google Blog)The economy is still in shambles, we're all panicking about the bacon fever, and even those bright and shiny "green" initiatives might not be so green. Sad!
But did you know that Google is conserving energy by cutting its Mountain View, Calif., lawns with adorable goats?
Yes, it's true. The company has enlisted an innovative start-up called California Grazing to bring some of the Google greenery a more carbon-friendly, less polluting alternative to lawn mowers. It sounds like the use of goats is confined to peripheral fields where weeds and brush could cause wildfires, so it's not like Googlers run the risk of having goats wander into their office buildings. No word on whether they pay the goats in leftover free food from the company mess halls.
"A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at Google, eating the grass and fertilizing at the same time," a post on the official Google blog read. "The goats are herded with the help of Jen, a border collie. It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers."
Happy Friday!
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
i know going green is all the rage right now, and i love google and everything about it, but ive been noticing green has been starting to go a little overkill lately and this is the pinnacle of that overkill..
As far as your point that any dingbat project can get a hearing just by labeling itself " green": we're nowhere near the pinnacle. The madness has barely begun
Man, i should sell that idea to hollywood
I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but there's always tradeoffs and it's not a "green" as it seems on the surface. The greenest solution would be to replace the lawn with native plants that don't need to be mowed in the first place.
SO we find different ways of getting rid of all this fuel, Google hire a herd of Goats (looking at the pictures I think they are the Boer variety which is bred for meat). Personally I Have A Nubian Goat & 5 Cattle. Last time we had a fire here it stopped at my fence line and burnt its way around, no crispy critters on my place. Recommend you go out & see some countryside before you make judgement on methods of agricultural usage.
goats.. cows.. no electricity,, no tv's.. no cars.. no roads.. just trees and natural living.. welcome to green world :-)
They've nicknamed that corpulent monkey: Steve B.
News flash: goats don't eat grass unless they are starving. They browse on weeds and brush.
Google will have to do what I do: get some cows to come in after the goats clear the brush. Then you'll have nice neat lawns and fields. Except for the cow manure. Oh, well. It'll compost. That fertilizes the fields. It all works out, and it definitely is ecologically sound practice.
- First, they do not eat every plant that may grow, so weeds will still grow up.
- Second, the waste from these animals can be pretty nasty, both in smell and chemical makeup.
- Third, they do not fertilize evenly resulting in dark green patches that grow quicker than the surrounding areas.
- Finally, unlike cattle or horses, they will graze the grass to the ground allowing weed growth.
As I said, we own several sheep and goats and we still have to bush-hog the land they graze, and condition the soil with lime and fertilizers and rotate them through various fields to allow recovery. I would never consider them a perfect replacement for a mower or fertilizing.
- by semwisdomblog May 4, 2009 2:01 PM PDT
- How does a goat chewing on Google grass look?
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(36 Comments)Check out this visual:
http://www.semwisdom.com/blog/google-hiring-goats