Karen Launchbaugh, a University of Idaho rangeland ecology and management professor, suggested that the war on weeds may even stir the need for new breeds of sheep or goats. Modern scientific methods could help breed animals selected specifically for their taste for troublesome weeds. Launchbaugh and Olson reported on separate research projects that studied why or how grazing animals selected plants to eat. Launchbaugh looked at whether grazing animals are predisposed by genetics to eat certain plants or whether they learn what to eat. The answer is both nature and nurture.
Research shows goats have a genetic tendency to favor certain plants.
But animals learn which plants are good to eat, too, by experience. Probably the best hope for capitalizing on sheep or goats for weed control, Launchbaugh said, is through genetic selection, much as people have been breeding livestock for millennia to select for desired traits. The most difficult thing about selecting animals for diets is determining what's in their diets. New methods can help researchers determine how much of a weed an individual sheep or goat actually ate. If someone were to begin large-scale tests on sheep flocks in weedy areas to find which individual animals ate the most weeds, selective breeding could begin in a matter of months.