Goats become landscapers for Austin garden

The areas of current concern are the pond and Crenshaw building where the poisonous plant grows wild, said Nina Seely, Umlauf museum director.

Vagabond Land Management, a goat-herding business headed up by one of the museum's volunteers, is providing the animal landscapers.

"It's fast, it's adorable and it's well-managed—the perfect solution to trying to cut something out that just keeps coming back," Seely said.

Austinites will not be able to interact with the goats, she said, although they are domesticated. Families should also not see this as a petting zoo opportunity because the goats will be eating poison ivy, making them potentially unsafe safe to touch, Malone said.

The way the goats eat the poison ivy interrupts the plant's reproduction process so just a few days or weeks of having the goats in the garden can create a long-term solution for removing the itchy plants.

Depending on how well this trial run goes, goats could be used in other gardens and parks throughout the city.

"In Austin, we have a number of preserves ... [and] green belts where they would be very useful," said Eric Courchesne, Austin Parks Foundation program director. "There are a lot of park spaces where we could use this instead of pesticides and mowing and displace the cost."

The Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum is open for free this summer. General admission is normally $5 per person.