116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Go-At It Land Stewardship provides new goatscaping option for Eastern Iowa
Ecologists employ herd to restore native prairie, reconnect homeowners with their land
Nov. 5, 2025 6:00 am, Updated: Nov. 5, 2025 7:10 am
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These days, a lot of local homeowners are trying to get Tamra and Ryan Elliott’s goats.
With a glance of their motley crew herd at Go-At It Land Stewardship, it’s no wonder why.
Using a herd of specialists and generalists, the couple has taken a half-serious retirement joke by the horns, turning it into a serious business with rapid growth since its summer start.
But the concept, deployed by homeowners, businesses and municipalities in Iowa, is about more than landscaping — it’s about stewardship employed with intricate knowledge that returns land to its natural state.
Need a goat?
To learn more about Go-At It Land Stewardship and its services, find them on Instagram @goatitlandstewardship
How it started
As lifelong ecologists, the business idea was always an inside joke for the Elliotts. Tamra previously worked as a land manager at Macbride Nature Recreation Area, and Ryan maintains gardens for the National Park Service at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site.
“There’s always goat grazing,” as a back up plan for retirement, they said to themselves.
But as federal funding suffered abrupt and drastic reductions this year, they watched the effects on programs that work heavily in conservation and natural resources. Suddenly, the joke became a little more serious.
With Ryan’s expertise in trees and shrubs and Tamra’s specialty in more herbaceous matters, they saw a new opportunity to offer Eastern Iowa a resource it needed while making a living.
“We both have the interest of being stewards of the land and connecting people with the land,” Tamra said. “We believed we could find a way to be stewards of the land, especially in places that had already been native but maybe needed some help, and (help) homeowners that needed a way to reconnect with their land.”
What started with just a couple goats over the summer quickly grew into a herd of dozens as fall started to set in. With strong demand, Tamra quickly left her job to run Go-At It full time.
How it works
For each new job, clients are consulted to determine their goals and needs.
But jobs aren’t a one-and-done deal. Each one is the start of a long-term relationship that gives the Elliotts a chance to educate locals on best environmental practices.
At each site, goats are contained with a portable electric fence to keep them from wandering too far. For large sites, they may be fenced in smaller areas and moved around over time.
Through October and November, they are spending weekdays in forested trails by the University of Iowa, and weekends at other homes.
How long they stay at a site depends on how much “fuel” they have there. The herd tends to get bored after five to seven days on a site.
At each site, they have water, mineral supplements, supplemental hay and shelter from the elements.
In the winter, they have a portable greenhouse structure to stay warmer. When the ground is covered in snow, they will retreat to one of two leased shelters in Linn County.
The workers have not formally unionized, but their instinctual contract stipulates no work on rainy days, Tamra said.
Meet the herd
In a herd of 27, each goat has its own story and personality. Each one has a name, and many respond when called.
While no experience is necessary to be considered for the herd, each goat is handpicked for its own unique skills to help land owners meet their needs. All of them have tendencies that categorize them as a generalist or a specialist.
Tamra hires herd members by watching them interact with the land they live on. Her crew was selected for its ability to do jobs at both residential and public areas in close proximity to humans.
Sweet Pea, who loves to eat poison ivy, follows humans well and is very motivated by treats. As the lead goat, she plays an important role in directing her colleagues to their shepherds for care, or to a trailer for transportation to the next job site.
That skill is a double-edged sword. If she feels like walking away after procuring her treat, the whole herd follows her.
“She’s a ham,” Tamra said.
Fiona and her kids are high reachers who stand on their back legs, pulling branches down with their hooves, to extend the height of the herd’s grazing reach. Graham, a 350-pound alpha, prioritizes wooded areas at each new site, making him an asset for efficiently cleaning up prairies before they are damaged by too much foot traffic.
Grandma, the matriarch, teaches the herd which plants are good, bad, toxic or in season. Kids in the herd are great for eating seedlings.
A large portion of the herd are retired Alpine dairy goats who were given a second life when Tamra purchased them, just hours before they were set to go to the meat market. Their breed, originally from the French Alps, has an innate expertise in stripping tree bark.
Bruiser, a scraggly one-horned generalist, has some scars from run-ins with a donkey. A gift from one of Tamra’s friends, he has learned to graze well with some training.
Why it matters
As ecologists, the process isn’t just another way to mow the lawn. For many, it’s a way to reconnect humans with the land while reconnecting the land with its genetic past.
“I have such an interest in plant communities, but also these historical local prairies that lock in our local genetics, and how to bring them back,” Tamra said.
Discovering a way to combine the skills of various goats to foster that was a lightbulb moment. With different goats for different jobs, Tamra employs her extensive knowledge and uses phenological timing to determine the herd’s scheduling in order to boost good species and prune back bad ones on each piece of land.
On Iowa City’s Lower Finkbine Trail, for example, it’s a matter of restoration.
Historically, native prairies like the one there covered about 30 of Iowa’s 35 million acres in tall grass species. But in less than 150 years, more than 99 percent of the lush grassland disappeared to make room for crop farming.
Degraded historical prairies by the trail can’t grow because they have been shaded or buried by other non-native species. Now, goats are working to debride the area, which cannot be managed through burning, to bring back some of the 300 native grass and wildflower species next spring.
Goats can target areas without stripping them bare, leaving impacts that resemble the management of elk, deer or other species that native plants evolved with — all of the good, with much less of the bad.
“It’s what we call lost function, meaning plants aren’t functioning together,” Tamra said. “We have shrubs coming in that prevent (burning methods) that would have been natural to keep it in its functioning state.”
After a couple seasons of goat pruning, burning may be a viable management option again. Tree trunks can be spot treated at the root of issues, instead of having treatments sprayed all over their leaves.
In Cedar Rapids, some homeowners are still managing the effects of the 2020 derecho. In areas with felled trees that have been overgrown with brush, goats rescue the land by giving homeowners easier access to logs on the ground.
And no matter the area, goat droppings are a natural fertilizer with little to no odor.
“It’s all about gaining ground,” Tamra said. “You can’t do that with broadcasting chemicals or putting equipment on the ground.”
Reconnecting with the land
But what’s more is that the crew of characters is building connections again.
Sure, goats are cute to watch. But homeowners, in small ways, find meaningful connection to their homes after watching them tend to the land.
“By the time the goats come off the land, we see a huge change. They have really experienced their land and gotten excited for what’s next,” Tamra said. “We’ve always had grazers on the land — elk, bison, deer — and these goats kind of interact like that in this natural, primitive way.”
And across the community, the Elliotts are setting a foundation that instills a better natural instinct for future care of the land.
“The plants are always telling you a story. … It’s just a whole ecological community, and knowing you’re managing a part of it without damaging it is so rewarding.”
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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