The great goat rental adventure of 2018 has finally ended!

The reviews, I have to say, are a bit mixed. 

On the one hand, the goats really did eat an enormous amount of ivy. See below for some amazing before and after pictures!

On the other hand, goats are apparently the Harry Houdinis of the animal kingdom.

They got into (and out of) everything. Everything that we didn’t want them to eat got eaten. Every weakness in our fences was found and exploited. The goats got out so many times. We were told that pretty much all we’d have to do was make sure the goats had enough water…the reality was that I became an almost full-time goat herder for a couple of weeks. It was not fun. 

Plus, the ivy in our yard was so matted and tangled that it proved very difficult for the goats to pull the ivy up by the roots, which is what we were hoping for. So now that the leaves are gone, we’re having to go back and pull up the majority of the roots by hand. It’s proving to be a very laborious and time-consuming task, especially since we were hoping that the goats would do most of the heavy lifting.

Also, goats poop a LOT. When you have 14 goats in your backyard for 11 days, you can imagine how much it can build up. Our yard still smells like a farm!

My verdict on our little goat experiment is simple.

Because we got the goats for more than half off what they should have cost, I still think it was worth it. But if I had paid any more for them, I would have felt like I was getting seriously ripped off. So just be forewarned if you’re thinking of renting goats yourselves! 🙂

To be fair, though, they really did eat a TON. Check out the before and after pictures below!