For months, Joe Corcoran had been staring down the overgrown yard in the back of the building on Cortland Street that serves as his barber shop before inspiration struck. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt randomly occurred to me one day that I should get goats,\u201d Corcoran said.<\/p>\n
He began searching Craigslist, casually. Three months ago, Craigslist delivered: An estate sale was happening in South San Jose, and goats, among other things, were on the market. Corcoran jumped in his Dodge Durango and, for just $450 in cash, he drove home with two goats the same day. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were pooping everywhere,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Corcoran knew nothing about owning goats, but he had a previous foray into chicken-keeping, and he felt confident that he could google anything else he needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re like gerbils,\u201d Corcoran said, gesturing at the goats. \u201cThere\u2019s not much to do except not overfeed them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are two of them: Buttercup, a small, warm-brown female goat with thick black stripes running down her face, and Gary, the larger of the pair, a neutered male with deep, ruddy brown hair.<\/p>\n
Corcoran released them directly into his yard, which he called \u201ca jungle.\u201d Buttercup and Gary got right to work. In four days, the yard was cleared.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A few weeks into owning the goats, Corcoran got a knock at the door. \u201cI was so scared,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought it was a cop.\u201d <\/p>\n
It turned out to be an inspector with San Francisco Animal Care and Control, called in by a neighbor concerned about the new residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Corcoran showed the inspector his flock, and she declared it legal. \u201c\u2018This is a great space for goats,\u2019 the lady said,\u201d he said, recounting the conversation. Having goats in San Francisco is legal \u2014 barely. Under Section 27 of the San Francisco Health Code<\/a>, families are allowed to keep \u201cnot more than two female goats\u201d without a permit.\u00a0<\/p>\n On a recent afternoon, dressed in a patterned fleece and a dusty pair of sneakers, Corcoran passed through the back door of Cork\u2019s barbershop and headed down the stairs to check on his goats. His two dogs, Bucky and Choco, followed him.<\/p>\n Bucky, a blue heeler herding dog, chased the goats in circles around their trough of water. Choco, a chihuahua, trailed behind. <\/p>\n \u201cThe goats will headbutt Choco,\u201d Corcoran said. \u201cHe\u2019ll run away, but he\u2019ll come back.\u201d<\/p>\n Buttercup and Gary had eyes only for Corcoran, following him around the yard. As he talked, Gary rubbed up against his leg and nibbled on his belt. Corcoran disciplined him with a gentle tap on the nose and smiled slightly.\u00a0<\/p>\n Want the latest on the Mission and San Francisco? Sign up for our free daily newsletter below.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted a farm. I want horses. I ride horses during the week; I go volunteer for a lady in Montara,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m from New York, but I always wanted to be a cowboy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Corcoran hails from as far away from cowboy country as one can get: Rochester, New York, where it rains or snows for a third of the year. In 2025, the city\u2019s temperature fell below freezing for more than two months of the year. But Corcoran says he has always harbored the dream. <\/p>\n \u201cMy grandma would get us cowboy everything,\u201d Corcoran remembered. \u201cAnd a cowboy needs a farm.\u201d<\/p>\n His journey has had detours: first a deployment with the U.S. Navy to Japan, then six months living on the road with his cousin in a camper van.<\/p>\n Three years ago, Corcoran moved to San Francisco to study history at City College of San Francisco, with the goal of one day going to law school. In 2024, he got the idea of opening a barber shop. That led to renting the space on Cortland, a storefront with an apartment above and a wild, out-of-control backyard.<\/p>\n Goats have a reputation for eating everything. They are uniquely partial to leaves and bark, making them excellent for clearing out wild or overgrown green spaces. After his own yard was clear, Corcoran started buying commercial grass pellets for his goats, but then thought: Why not open their services up to others?<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t post on Craigslist, but did put up a sign in the window of the barbershop, \u201cGoat Rental!!\u201d it read. \u201c$200 Landscaping. $150 Party Rental\/Hangout.\u201d<\/p>\n So far, Buttercup and Gary have had four gigs, Corcoran said \u2014\u00a0all yard work. He drives the goats to their job site and leaves them there until the greenery is gone. So far, it takes between three and six days. <\/p>\n \u201cWhatever they don\u2019t eat, I\u2019ll just come in and clear myself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Corcoran is far from the first entrepreneur to enter the goat rental market in San Francisco. A least three other companies in the area rent goats to clear land or to attend parties. During the pandemic, some rented out their goats as guests on video calls. <\/p>\n Most of these companies have whole herds of them, and contract with CalTrans<\/a> and local parks<\/a> to clear large areas of overgrown vegetation, especially on steep slopes that are difficult to get at otherwise. Corcoran\u2019s herd is a whopping two goats large, and he advertises through two posters pasted in the front window of his barber shop.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re kind of a family business, I guess,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Local law makes it unlikely that Corcoran\u2019s herd will expand, but he likes to imagine the possibilities.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to get an intact one, so the girl [Buttercup] can start producing milk,\u201d Corcoran said dreamily. He estimates he could keep \u201cat least 12\u201d goats on his property.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be awesome if we could have a whole herd out here. The more the merrier,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Corcoran still hopes to have his own agave farm in the San Joaquin valley one day. He\u2019ll have cows, maybe horses and, of course, a few goats.<\/p>\n We won’t ignore your neighborhood<\/p>\n When a San Francisco neighborhood has a Mission Local reporter, it means someone is there. We’re following new housing projects proposed on your block, keeping tabs on what your district supervisor is up to at City Hall, and letting you know when longtime businesses close (and new ones open). When big news breaks, we already know the context.<\/p>\n Most neighborhoods don’t have that. Yours could.\u00a0<\/p>\n That’s what Mission Local is building. Our reporters don’t parachute in — they write consistently on San Francisco, so you’re never reading about your neighborhood from someone who just looked it up.<\/p>\n So far we are in five of San Francisco’s neighborhoods. But we know all San Franciscans deserve our kind of coverage. Will you join us?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are very few things these days that can\u2019t be purchased on Craigslist. For sale in the Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[18362,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-404283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-people-we-meet","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Mission](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784460342_376_mission-local-logo-300x300.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n![\"Split](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/goats_before_after-853x640.png\")
The before and after of one neighbors yard recently cleared by the goats. Photos courtesy of Joe Corcoran<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784460344_948_062026_ZM_AteTessPWM-27-930x620.jpg\")
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