An army of goats arrives at Dix Park, drawing crowds while landscaping
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Raleigh hires 32 goats for 10-day, $4,800 eco-friendly landscaping effort.
- GPS collars and cameras track goats as they clear invasive plants at Dix Park.
- Spectacle draws public interest, highlighting sustainable groundskeeping trend.
At the top of Dix Hill, a crew of four-legged landscapers chomps and chews through thick brush and brambles, cleaning Raleigh’s front lawn without leaf blowers, trimmers or gasoline fumes, needing no pay beyond an occasional head scratch.
Leading the team is Bernie, the largest of the bunch and surprisingly friendly despite being castrated. Then comes Pastrami, the hardest worker, who struggles with facial itching. And lastly the runt, as yet unnamed, who sometimes catches his horns on a tree branch.
This experiment in goat labor not only tidies up Dix Park, but also provides a rare opportunity for livestock-themed photos, often involving head butts.
“This is our A team,” said Stephen Paul with Goats on the Go. “Our Instagram is going crazy.”
For the next week, these 32 goats-for-hire will work the steep hillside at the Dix Park entrance off Western Boulevard, gobbling invasive plants within sight of the new Gipson Play Plaza.
Costing $4,800 for 10 days on 1.2 acres, Raleigh’s goats represent a national move toward eco-friendly landscaping — far more exciting to watch.
The spectacle of hooved mammals grazing blocks away from downtown is attracting joggers, walkers and bikes off the nearby greenway for some much-needed goat time.
“Even the owls are excited,” said Jessica Tisdale, over the sound of hoots from above.
At first glance, Bernie and company appear to be wearing jaunty bells around their necks, but the square boxes dangling below their beards actually contain a GPS tracker that lets out increasingly shrill beeps if the goats wander from their target area. Stray beyond the point of the highest-pitched beep and the box gives a little jolt.
“Almost all of these goats never get shocked anymore,” Paul said. “They know to turn around.”
The gang of 32 is also monitored via a tree-mounted camera, which also serves as a deterrent for anyone planning to hop the pair of fences and scratch a few chins. That last fence, by the way, is electric.
Watching them for only five minutes, a spectator is reminded that one creature’s trash is another’s dinner, one beast’s toil is another’s reward. Our lives revolve and intersect in fur-covered symbiosis, turning meh into mehhhhhhh.
This story was originally published June 9, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "An army of goats arrives at Dix Park, drawing crowds while landscaping."