Johnston company hires “Goatscapers” to clean up brush on property
JOHNSTON, R.I. (WLNE) – A company in Johnston is taking a different approach to cleaning up its property.
FM Global, an international property insurance company, hired Rhode Island Goatscapes to clean up the unwanted brush at their campus headquarters.
“You can remove that with chemicals and pesticides and the like, but we really wanted to be a good neighbor and environmentally sensitive, so we decided to remove it the all-natural way,” said FM Global spokesperson Steve Zenofsky.
Zenofsky said they had such a positive experience, they’re hiring the goats back next year. He said the company prides itself on being green and environmentally conscious, and his fellow employees even spend their lunch breaks with the goats.
Wayne Pitman, herder for Rhode Island Goatscapes, said the group of 19 goats spent nine days cleaning up five acres.
“They eat all of the brush from about 8 feet down to the ground. They strip all the leaves off, they kill most of the invasives, they pull bittersweet vines out of the trees, and they just eat it all.”
He sleeps alongside the goats on a school bus named the “Goat Tote” that he parks on the company’s property.
“Five months a year I live on this school bus with 20-ish goats. We go from Westerly to Little Compton and the islands, we get a lot of work in Jamestown” said Pitman.
He said he got the idea from his vet after he asked what Pitman was going to do with all of the goats on his farm.
“He said, ‘You’re not gonna sell them, you’re never gonna slaughter them, what are you gonna do?’ I said ‘I don’t know, I guess just support them.'”
But instead he followed the vet’s advice and started this business, and the goats have been booked solid ever since. They work in groups for five months a year, from the spring to early fall. They spend the winter months at Pitman’s farm in Hope, R.I.
The goats will finish up at FM Global on Friday, and are done for the season.
Pitman says they’re already booked for next year well into July.
© WLNE-TV 2019
