Goats, nature's mowing machines, used to trim prairie grass at Gimli High School

If overgrown grasses really get your goat, Armand Blangerhas a solution.

Goats are natural mowing machines, and that's why Blangerused nearly three dozen of them as a sustainable way to trim grass near the high school in Gimli, Man.

"They're way more environmentally friendly than your average lawn mower," said Blanger, the manager of the East Interlake Watershed District.

As part of his job, Blanger has a patch of native prairie grass under his care.The grass is part of a wetlands project initiated by students at the Gimli High School about six years ago.

Now that the grass has been growing for nearly five years, it needed a prescribed burn or intense grazingto stimulate growth, Blanger explained.

That's where the goats came in.

Blanger brought in 35 goats from a local farmer last week to graze on the prairie grass and wildflowers. They were kept in by an electric fence.

It turns out the goats were just as effective as your average lawn mower. Blanger said they ate everything in their path over the past few days, trimming down three feet of grass and flowers.

"When they first went in there, you couldn't even see the goats," he said.

"A couple of days later they really started. There was quite a bit of feed in there and they started rolling down that grass and flowers until people on the highway passing by could see all the activity."

Soon after, people started coming by to see the goats and watch them work, even petting them and feeding them grain, Blanger said.

"I think they really liked being there, because the people came up, the farmers would let them go into the pens, pet the goats, feed the goats and the goatsstarted feeling like royalty," he said.

"They had just a fabulous buffet of 20 different native flowers, nine different types of native grasses."

He said he's happy this project could not only connect people and nature, but also build a partnership with agricultureand show how farming can work for the natural world.

"Only a couple of hundred years ago we would see millions of bisongrazing the tall grass areas," he said. "Here we're just trying to mimic through farming practices what would have happened when we had tall grass prairies."

The goats finished their job Tuesday morning. Blanger said he may use them again after a successful first landscaping job.