A hundred goats have been set on the loose in downtown Los Angeles. They are there to get rid of the weeds covering a slope in the Bunker Hill district, and they cost less than half the wages of bipedal workers.

Head of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency Cecilia Estolano said the 100 goats have being rented for $US 3,000 to clear the 10,000 square meters hillside while hiring workmen would have totaled as much as $US 7,500. They are also more environmentally friendly then brush-clearers armed with gasoline-powered weed-whackers, reports the Los Angeles Times newspaper.

The goats are kept from running all around the city by an electric fence, and security guards watch over them while their keeper George Gonzales is off work.

Gonzales said his crew would work long hours over the next week to 10 days and “won't collect a pension or charge for working overtime and won't call in sick.”

Cheap workers as they are, the goats are also a great entertainment for local office workers who don’t miss the change to snap pictures of the munching animals at work.

“My friends won't believe this unless they see it,” said Vicky Bravo, a student who lives south of downtown.