The boer goat is being touted as a possible solution to the ragwort problem.
The pest plant is toxic to livestock and can cause chronic liver damage and, occasionally, death. Hay containing ragwort seed cannot legally be sold or distributed.
The flea beetle has been used as a possible biological control, butwith mixed results.
But if beetles or moths won't eat ragwort, goats will, and boer goats are being touted as the answer.
Wynn Cruickshank, manager of the Oropi Heights Boer Goat Stud, said the breed was easy to farm because of its good temperament.
The goats also made good eating.
The stud, near Tauranga, has mobs of buck and doe kids in the Rotorua area where they are eating their way through scrubland that farmers want transformed into dairy country.
Over the past two years the stud has imported 70 animals from Africa, via embryo transplant into recipient Australian does, and then live animals into New Zealand to improve New Zealand bloodlines.
