Don Cruickshank bought a fixer-upper in Bellevue’s Crossroads neighborhood, but couldn’t start remodeling until something was done about the pesky mass of blackberry bushes in the backyard.

A manned crew gave him a quote to do the work, but Cruickshank said he found goats to be cheaper. Plus, they haul the blackberry bushes away in their stomachs – minus what they lose in bathroom breaks.

“They’ll only be here long enough to eat, and then they’ll go home,” said Cruickshank, who bought the rundown property on 156th Avenue Northeast and plans to move there from Mercer Island with his wife after a $60,000 remodel. “I have about 30 goats in my backyard having breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

That number was actually more than 40, plus nine baby goats and some sheep to focus on the lawn, said Josh Farmer, as he watched the suburban herd gnawing on blackberry bushes Friday. He co-owns The Goat Lady LLC in Duvall with his wife, Jill Johnson, who also teaches at Lake Washington High School in Kirkland.

“We started it out, it was two goats and a joke,” Farmer said of the business, which began with a blackberry patch problem of his own. The Duvall couple purchased two goats through Craigslist, and then got the idea to rent goats out when people started asking questions about their hungry help.  “We put (an ad) on Craigslist for fun — once — and it just went nuts.”

There are four goat landscaping businesses in Washington state, Farmer said. The Goat Lady’s residential rates start at $350 for 25 goats the first day and $325 each additional day. Residential customers are 95 percent of the Duvall couple’s business.

“Most of the time it’s the lady of the house who brings us in,” Farmer said. “She’ll find her husband will just zone out and, at that point, this is his ranch.”