The staff at the Coeur d'Alene Water Department was willing to give it a shot when they heard the idea, said Terry Pickel, assistant water superintendent.

After all, five years of trying different ways to clear the weeds around city well sites had proven less than efficient.

"It's expensive to have our guys go in there and spend time away from other maintenance, and we can't use chemicals (around the wells)," Pickel said of the city's nine well sites, overgrown with weeds that can't be mowed easily because of river rocks on the properties. "It's been a problem for us."

So they were open to Suzanne Forte's business proposition: She would clear one of the well sites her way for free, and if the city was satisfied, it could pay her to do the others.

What the city got was immaculately cleared acreage around the well, and Forte was quickly hired to take care of more sites.

Her great landscaping secret: Goats.

"They eat everything down to within an inch of the rock. Every type of weed that was in there," Pickel said. "She (Forte) told us they would pretty much eat anything, but we're surprised at the extent of what they did."

Those who have passed by city well sites over the past few days might have seen them - about 30 small-to-medium proportioned goats of gray and white and black trundling freely inside the fence, where they elicit tiny brays between their diligent munching.

Providing a free zoo experience to boot, the cloven beasts have proven the most cost-efficient and environmentally safe method of clearing weeds from around the wells, Pickel said.

The city is paying $10 a head per week, he said, or $300 a week, and the goats take three to five days to finish a site.

Sure beats paying a human $20 per hour, Pickel said.

"If would take several days (for a person) to do any of that just for mowing," he said. "And pulling (weeds) is even more labor intensive."

With four stomachs, goats are efficient weed-digesting machines, said Forte, who has owned and operated Goat Green Rentals for about a year.

"They're grazers, so they will eat what they like best first and then they'll go through and eat the rest," she said. "They prefer the weeds or the brush, but if you keep them there two more days, they'll eat down to no man's land."

Forte, a Hayden resident, got the idea last July when she heard about goats clearing vegetation at a school in Seattle.

Goat rental, she figured, might be a fitting subsidiary to her husband's rental business, Forte Equipment Rentals. And if not, at least the critters could take on the weeds on her horse pasture.

"I couldn't fathom spraying my horse pastures with chemicals and then putting my horses on it," she said.

But she never had a chance to use them at home after she bought the 32 animals, she said, because they were on job sites all through October.

"In the long run, it's more affordable," she said of their popularity. "And some weeds they eat straight down to the roots, so they won't grow back right away."

Her business is still profitable even with the cost of keeping and feeding them on her pasture in the winter, she said.

A trained nurse and phlebotomist, she administers their shots herself.

"I used to be a human nurse. Now I'm a goat nurse," she said.

Goat rental fees depend on property size, the amount of vegetation, topography and whether portable fencing needs to be installed, she said.

Purchased from 4-H families, the goats - mostly pygmies - are children-friendly.

But they aren't waterproof.

Once rain starts to pelt the ground, the goats abandon their snacking and flee for the nearest shelter.

"They hate rain. They won't eat when it's raining," Forte said with a laugh. "It's my only downfall."