Google Goats to clear brush

Check the date: Nope, not April 1st. (continues)

Google, a company revered for its ability to think outside the box, has come up with a novel way to clear its land of brush.

Goats.

They've hired goats to clean their brush. No, they aren't "kidding".

In California, the high rate of brush fires makes it a legal requirement that landowners remove excess brush from their land. The conventional way to do this is, of course, to use lawnmowers and other CO2 belching machinery.

Google has instead decided to employ 200 goats from a unique company called California Grazing to do what they do best: eat brush. Dan Hoffman, Director Real Estate and Workplace Services, posted on Google's blog:

A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at Google, eating the grass and fertilizing at the same time. The goats are herded with the help of Jen, a border collie. It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.

It wasn't immediately clear if the goats have access to Google's famous employee perks nor what they were going to do with their 20 percent time.

This isn't entirely new to the Valley either, Yahoo has a goat-staff working for them too.

Photo from Flickr

"Once or twice a year, a large herd of goats can be seen just past our parking garage in Sunnyvale, grazing happily on the tall grasses of the hill (cough - landfill - cough) beyond," says Yahoo in the caption. "We have a special fondness for the goats and are always sad to see them go (which, based on their voracity, happens much faster than you'd imagine)."

Update ParisLemon's MG Siegler went to the scene and got the lowdown from the goat's mouth.