Another advantage which isn't mentioned: the goats (or similar grazing species) are also walking manure factories (really, compared to a compost heap they are m

Another advantage which isn't mentioned: the goats (or similar grazing species) are also walking manure factories (really, compared to a compost heap they are machines), so pretty effective at spreading fertilizer all over the place. Automatically and for free :P They perfectly fit in the self-sufficiency style - especially compared to the alternative worst-case senario: you don't need to get your polluting vehicle and drive to a store to pay money for some chemicals, then drive back and use some other polluting machine to get the checmical crap where it has to do whatever it does. Oh yeah, and repeat every year and be left with unhealthy soil. Which can probably be countered with more chemicals, yay!