The Superhero of Ventura County

Have you ever watched a superhero movie and left the theatre wishing heroes were real? I know I have, especially when I was just a kid watching Thor for the first time with wide eyes. But recently I was thinking about it and I came to a realization. True heroes are real!  Sure, we might not have the flying variety, but is flight what makes someone a hero? No, no, it isn’t. A true hero is someone who witnesses something truly terrible and decides to take action. That description fits the goat grazier, Michael Leicht, with Ventura Brush Goats to a tee.

In 2017, the Thomas fire raged across the LA, California area, forcing residents to flee their homes. One of those people was Michael. He remembers looking back on the place he called home with a terrible worry that it might not be there when they got back. Eventually, the fire was finally quelled and everyone returned home, but soon after, lots of rain fell, and the quickly growing vegetation greedily sucked it up and sprouted into new fire fuels. Terrified that those weeds would fuel the next fire, people began using herbicides and large land movers with abandon. Lecht witnessed this and couldn’t help but think there had to be a better way to help. With that in mind, he tested six of his dairy goats to see if goat grazing was a viable method of brush control and discovered it to be effective.

Witnessing the terrible Thomas fire and watching people do their best to prevent it from happening again, Michael felt compelled to do his best to help, and that is what makes him a hero. With just a handful of goats, he began eating away at the excess weed growth, but he knew that he could do more if he had more goats, so he went ahead and got more and more goats. Since that day, his herd has grown to somewhere between 1000 and 2000 goats and sheep. When asked about his expansion, he said, “I don’t like to have to take the call and say, I’m sorry, we’re booked. We can’t help you.” To ensure that he can make the biggest impact as possible while giving the animals a quality life, he says that Ventura Goats will eventually have 4000 goats and sheep.

Michael could have stopped his heroic efforts there, but he realized he lacked the proper knowledge to help people efficiently, so he went on to become a Type One qualified firefighter. During his conversation with Max on The Goat Grazing Podcast, it was clear that his search for knowledge had more than paid off. As he talked about helping his customers, he explained how he does ‘house hardening,’ which, according to him,  “is kind of a way to describe protecting your house from catching fire, either by radiant heat or direct flame contact or embers making ingress into the home by the vent.”

Palisades Fire

Michael uses the methods of this practice with great attention to detail, so that, with some minor changes, his customers' houses stand a better chance. Among these small changes are things like moving wooden patio furniture at least five feet away from the house, replacing the last five feet of yard fence that connects to the house with a nonflammable material like chainlink, and only grazing the brush down a certain level because getting rid of all the vegetation allows the embers to have a much easier path directly to the house.

Now you might think that he is simply a good businessman, not a hero, but his heroic nature extends beyond his customers; in fact, it extends beyond humans altogether. One clear instance of his heroic nature was when he woke up one night in his tent and heard his goats making strange, distressed noises. Thinking it was simply a goat experiencing the same stomach issues that had been going through the herd, he equipped himself with the medicine and exited his tent.

He had hardly taken a single step before he froze in place and realized his goats had been making the noise for a far deadlier reason. Standing not ten feet from him stood a mountain lion with the limp form of a goat hanging from its mouth, with another lying dead on the ground near it. While Michael didn’t have many choices to make, he chose to stand his ground and try his best to rescue the goat that was clutched in the mountain lion's deadly jaws. Thankfully, as he bent down to pick up a rock while maintaining eye contact, the mountain lion dropped the goat, vaulted over the electric fence with ease, and disappeared into the night. His bravery was worth it because he was miraculously able to resuscitate the goat and nurse it back to health. Sadly, he did lose the other goat that had already been killed, recalling, “It was very emotional for me to lose even one animal”. That deep care and his willingness to put himself in harm's way is classic hero behavior.

This incident, and others he gets into, highlight that goat grazing is not without its downsides, so when Michael was asked what his advice would be to prospective goat graziers, it made sense when he said it would be for them not to get into grazing at all. Even though he said this and mused that if he could go back in time knowing what he knows now, he might choose not to pursue it himself, I have my doubts. While I am not claiming he is lying, I believe that if he were to go back in time and have the knowledge of how much he has helped, there is no way he wouldn’t do it all over again.

Orange County HOA cleared by the goats of Ventura Brush Goats

He proudly explains that none of the houses that the goats have worked on have burned in the fires, and that alone would be enough to pull him into grazing all over again because his heroic nature wouldn’t allow him to simply walk away. Furthermore, he could have thrown in the towel at any point, but instead, he has remained dedicated to helping others. He has even put together rescue efforts for people’s animals during the most recent wildfires.

Alongside his family and multiple herders, Michael and his company, Ventura Brush Goats, continue to save lives every day. With plans to continue growing his herd to nearly four thousand strong, it is clear that Michael, dedicated to goat grazing and helping others, no matter the cost, is a true hero.

If you want to learn more about Michael and Ventura Brush Goats, you can find them at

@Venturabrushgoats on social media and https://www.venturabrushgoats.com/