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City Poised To Reconsider Rules As Woman Tries To Start Goat Grazing Business

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Would you consider hiring a herd of goats to eat your weeds?

A woman from Allentown wants to start a business where you could do just that.

And it's happening right when Pittsburgh is poised to reconsider the rules when it comes to having goats.

Carrie Pavlik has two Nigerian dwarf goats. One named Lovesong and one named Primrose.

But she'll need a lot more to make her business plan work.

She wants to make use of one the things goats do best: eat.

"We'll be offering goats for hire," said Pavlik who wants to start Steel City Grazers. "So if people have weeds and vines and bramble in their yard or empty lots, they can hire me to bring the goats."

It was last summer when 30 goats from a farm in Saxonburg were brought in to chow down in Polish Hill.

"They started eating all the invasive vines right away, so were very pleased to see that," said Danielle Crumrine from Tree Pittsburgh.

Goats even eat poison ivy without any trouble.

Pavlik is trying to raise $40,000 by this coming Monday on a crowd-funding site. She needs to buy more goats and portable electric fencing with solar panels, among other things.

Right now, she'll have to house the goats out of the city, but there's an effort underway to change the rules about keeping goats within city limits.

In fact, there's a public hearing on the topic Tuesday before the city planning commission.

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