Carter Bank recently went outside the box—but inside the pen—when looking for help clearing an overgrown area behind the Bank’s Corporate Headquarters, Beaver Creek, a historic home that sits on 26 acres of land.
In an economically and environmentally friendly move, the bank teamed up with Goatbusters, a Charlottesville-based company, to enlist a herd of goats to transform a wooded area that had become overgrown and untamed over the years.
“We’re battling nature with nature,” Carter Bank Senior Vice President and Director of Facilities Olivia Karavatakis said. “These five acres of land had become overgrown with vegetation, creating a perfect hiding place for varmints trying to seek refuge in our buildings. This was the perfect solution for a pesky situation we’ve been battling the last several years.”
The idea to bring in the hoofed lawnmowers came from a team member after consulting with landscaping companies and learning how much traditional methods like bush hogging would cost.
“We’d have spent thousands of dollars attempting to bush hog through here, so we decided to go a different route,” Karavatakis said. “When our maintenance manager, Mike Gordon, tossed up the idea of hiring goats, we all laughed, but I applaud him for his efforts to think outside the box on ways to be more efficient and environmentally friendly.”
Over the course of a month, the hoofed professionals ate nearly everything in sight. According to Jace Goodling, the owner of Goatbusters, a single goat can eat five to nine percent of its body weight of wet vegetation a day.
“The goats have cleared everything to about six feet high, which is about as far as they can reach on their hind legs,” Goodling said. “Our goats not only clear the land, they do it with the least environmental impact possible. You could have brought bulldozers in here, but it would have been ugly and torn up, and you would have a carbon footprint the size of the Jolly Green Giant.
“Instead, the area is cleaned up with zero carbon footprint, and the ‘agro-tainment’ factor is out of this world.”
“This approach not only clears the land but also prolongs the time until regrowth due to the way the goats both eat and trample the vegetation,” Karavatakis added. “It’s been a win-win for our environment, our budget, our associates, and our community.”
Carter Bank is already exploring the possibility of using goats to clear land in the future.
