MCKINNEY, Texas — The Erwin Farms neighborhood in McKinney had a group of uninvited visitors last week. The neighborhood is no stranger to wildlife as WFAA reported on the wild hogs that made a mess of a number of lawns in January.
"It gets a little wild around here now and then, we've lived here for years," laughed Garrett Piersall, a resident of Erwin Farms.
Their latest group of visitors took the "farm" in Erwin Farms too seriously.
"We woke up and I said, 'You won't [expletive] believe what happened on the Cove this morning,'" Piersall recalled saying to his wife on Sunday.
There were 40 goats on his lawn.
Multiple house cameras caught visuals of the goats slowly making their way through the neighborhood.
"They were coming down the road really slowly and kinda chilled out right here," said Mike Danielson, a longtime resident in the neighborhood.
WFAA was told that around 40 goats broke from the herd that was grazing at a nearby development. The goats are normally tasked with eating down the vegetation for the development which, in turn, helps with fire season.
But, they instead took a stroll through the neighborhood. The goats had migrated for more than a mile from the rest of the herd.
"I think they ate a little bit from everybody's yard all the way around the circle here. One of the guys on two legs was just eating my tree. It was pretty wild," said Piersall.
Naturally, a few front yards were picked clean including Piersall's bushes. "It actually did us a favor because we were probably going to pull them this week or next anyway," he laughed.
The small group of goats eventually reunited with the larger herd.
The firm that employs the goats did not want to be a part of the story. But WFAA was told the firm did replace the parts of the yard the goats destroyed.
"They took care of things very quickly. They got his flowers replaced in a couple hours," said Danielson.
Most everything has been replaced, including normalcy in the McKinney neighborhood.
"The grass is greener on the other side... over here," laughed Danielson.