Nearly 400 goats grazed 16 acres to reduce wildfire risk and unite the community for its annual ‘Goat Festival’
For the fourth year in a row, Malibu West, a close-knit community of 238 residences, has hired a herd of goats to graze through brush and foliage that otherwise would provide fuel for dangerous wildfires. Malibu West homeowners are understandably incredibly concerned about brush clearance, structure protection, and possible loss of, or damage to, the habitat, and the animals, fish, and plants that live side-by-side with the neighborhood. So, led by the Malibu West Fire Safe Council, which residents formed in 2022 to do all they can to prevent wildfires, the community hires goats annually to graze throughout the neighborhood.
“We hosted almost 400 goats this year! They grazed through more than 16 acres and they were grazing at Malibu West for a little more than two weeks,” Tim Bigelow, president of the Malibu West Swimming Club Homeowners Association and Fire Safe Council member, said proudly. “Everybody loves the goats!”
Mikke Pierson, who also serves on the council, noted that having the goats grazing every year “is a very big deal in the neighborhood and hosting them has been an annual tradition.”
For the most part, the goats cheerfully transition from one area of Malibu West to another, Pierson commented, noting that generally, it takes only one human and a guide dog to shepherd almost all of the goats when they need to change their grazing location. However, Pierson said, there is one qualifier to that — goat psychology skills can come in handy at times. Sharing a picture of the very brave Kim Retts carrying a goat to a new area, he stated, “It takes a few humans to help those few goats who do not want to change their location.”
When the goats were preparing to leave, the neighborhood celebrated its now-traditional annual goat festival.
“We had a taco truck and Mister Frosty’s ice cream at our festival!” Bigelow exclaimed. “Representatives from Poison Free Malibu also joined us and all four of the city’s fire liaisons insisted on attending, stating that they love to attend our goat festival each year. The fire liaisons made appointments with some residents to visit their homes and give them ideas and tips about how they can harden their homes to mitigate the risk of fire danger.”
Bigelow noted that there is another significant benefit to hosting goat herds each year in addition to the goats eating their way through overgrown weeds, grasses, shrubs, hard-to-access slopes, difficult terrain, and flat areas, and busilycrunching low-hanging tree branches to reduce the amount of readily combustible material that burns easily.
“Having the goats graze annually is of great assistance when our HOA is trying to get insurance,” Bigelow said. “The goats clearing the brush convinces insurers to talk to us about writing us a policy.”
According to goatfarmers.com, using brush goats for clearing plants to avoid fire is both cost-effective — those who own the goats save on food — and effective for fire avoidance. Moreover, goats also can restore pastures that have been taken over by invasive plants and their manure is great fertilizer as well.
Goats are smarter than sheep, the website states, noting “they have more relational interaction with humans than sheep — one research study found that goats can be compared with dogs in their relatability to people.”
There are several things to consider when deciding to bring in goats for fire mitigation. The experts at the website recommend using a cross between a meat goat breed and a dairy goat breed because crosses have stronger parasite resistance and they are hardy, healthy, and good-tempered.
So, all in all, the Malibu West neighborhood has concluded that, when there is a need for vegetation management, goats are the G.O.A.T.
