Goats “recycle” Christmas trees
By Wakisha Bailey, Alan Wheeler
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PHILADELPHIA (KYW) — Teddy the goat and all his friends at Philadelphia’s Awbury Arboretum love the crunch of a Christmas tree.
“There’s not a lot of green in the winter, so when they see green, they get hungry and they get very excited,” said Kelly Corrigan, director of wellness at the Philly Goat Project, located at The Farrn at Awbury Arboretum.
Now that we’ve rung in 2025 and holiday decorations are starting to come down, the farm is bringing back its fun — and for Teddy, delicious — Christmas “Tree-Cycle” Festival.
If you sprang for a real, live Christmas tree this season, it doesn’t need to go to waste. It could be turned into a goat’s next tasty snack.
This weekend kicks off the seventh year of the Tree-Cycle Festivals. Everyone is welcome to attend — bring your holiday tree or a suggested donation of $20.
All proceeds support Philly Goat Project’s free year-round programming, which includes community goat walks, children’s literacy events in libraries and schools, environmental education events throughout city parks, youth job training programs, animal-assisted therapy events and bereavement programming.
Donated Christmas trees provide delicious snacks for the goats, and thanks to a partnership with the city of Philadelphia, what they don’t eat is turned into wood chips for trails in city parks and community gardens.
Decorations should be removed from trees before donating them.
If you show up, you can meet Teddy (named after five-time Grammy nominee and longtime Philadelphia-area resident Teddy Pendergrass) and the other goats named after famous Philadelphians.
It turns out none of the goats are named after any Philadelphia Eagles players.
The Farm said if the Birds win a Super Bowl, they’ll buy another goat and give it a Philly Special name. Our Meteorologist Kate Bilo suggested Saquon Baa-rkley…not sure that we can top that!
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