Aaron Steele, right, and Chad Steenhoek, owners of Goats On The Go, check on a kid. The Story County farmers say their goats are booked through the 2016 season to help landowners clean up noxious weeds through grazing. Right: A goat munches the leaves off a tree sapling. The goats also eat poison ivy and invasive plant species.On a warm June day, Aaron Steele and his partner Chad Steenhoek find themselves hauling 30 bellowing goats from northeast of Ames to Iowa City. The goats are anxious to go to work. Their job: clearing a ravine of noxious weeds.

It’s the latest mission of Goats On The Go, a targeted grazing enterprise now in its fourth grazing season.

“We take the goats where they’re needed,” says Steele. Goats, and sometimes sheep, are employed to rid landowners of unwanted vegetation in an environmentally conscientious way. At a...