LA is bok for hungry boer goats

South Africa's toughest export to Los Angeles comes in standard trim, has real fur and eats for a living. The sturdy boer goat breed, developed in SA mostly for meat production, has earned a reputation in the US for its extraordinary work ethic.

Crowds recently watched 120 fenced-in goats, unperturbed by city noises and their audience, devour weeds covering Fairy Knoll, a grassy patch surrounded by high-rise buildings in downtown LA. The boer goats were contracted by the city's Community Redevelopment Agency to clear the uneven 6000m² piece of ground. Their owner charged the city R11900 to get the job done - a snip at under R2 a square metre. Speaking from his ranch in San Diego, California, Johnny Gonzales said his boer goat clearing service had become an institution in cities and rural areas.

"Goats can be used in almost any location or terrain type, especially in terrain too rocky or steep for machine clearing," Gonzales said.

"As goats work through vege-tation, they leave behind nutrients for healthier soil. There are also no toxic chemicals and pollution to the environment, no loud noise, just the soft bleating of a herd of goats."

Gonzales founded the service in 1999 and today has access to 2600 goats - not all housed on his ranch owing to space constraints - which he transports in customised trailers.

Francois Maritz, president of the Boer Goat Breeders Association of SA, said the animal's most prized quality was its ability to adapt -"I've seen boer goats in the snow in Canada," he said.

Maritz said the breed was a very popular export product, "from Switzerland, China and India to countries all over Africa". Live animals cannot be exported from SA to the US owing to disease control regulations, but embryos were commonly shipped across the Atlantic and sold in the US for between R1 000 and R2 000 each.

Gonzales said: " You couldn't just take wild goats off the hills for these jobs. We breed our own goats, they're accustomed to construction sights, people, planes, car hooters, you name it."