Raising Sheep

[Pleater]

Near where I grew up there was a churchyard on a steep slope and the plants were kept down by a nanny goat and her latest kid.

She was quite small for a goat and used to stand on the gravestones, all four feet in line, in order to do the surveying of the horizon thing. I don't know how she got up there, I only saw her up or down, not in between. She could turn around up there too.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Topsailjon]

Bugbear, In my experience it is the other way round, the cattle and horses churn up the ground and sour it with their dung, encouraging weeds. Sheep on the other hand, sometimes know as "Golden hoof", crop the grass nice and short, their feet don't churn up the ground even when wet and they eat the weeds. Their dung fertilises the grass which grows lush and green. Just my experince some years ago with about 20 sheep in the back field in Hampshire, UK.

[Bugbear]

Probably so. Just saying what a lot of the cow folk seemed to complain about. There weren't any sheep out on the graze land from what I remember, so it was probably some kind of Southwest cow lore.

I've moved on from reading up on the bighorn sheep and llamas to reading up on American bison, now, just to balance things in my head.
A supply of beast manure would be helpful around here. A miniature nanny goat might be useful, going by Pleater et al's discussion.

[Tobus]

A supply of beast manure would be helpful around here.

I have an endless supply of horse manure, free for the taking if you want to come pick it up! You'll be doing me a favor!

I usually start composting some of it around Christmas time, and it's good and ready by spring to go in my raised-bed gardens.

But admittedly, while composted horse manure is decent, "goat seeds" make a better fertilizer. I've a friend who puts only goat manure in his garden, and that man can grow anything and make it look easy.

[Bugbear]

I have an endless supply of horse manure, free for the taking if you want to come pick it up! You'll be doing me a favor!

I usually start composting some of it around Christmas time, and it's good and ready by spring to go in my raised-bed gardens.

But admittedly, while composted horse manure is decent, "goat seeds" make a better fertilizer. I've a friend who puts only goat manure in his garden, and that man can grow anything and make it look easy.

Goat seeds.
Ya, horse manure is good... stuff. The cow or bull poop tends to be a little salty or something for out here, we have a water salinity problem, though it does well for the fig trees. You have to amend with gypsum, otherwise.

Ever so often, I get a truck load of horse apples for the compost heaps. It's just that I don't have a large plot of land, so no room for large beasts.
I've heard that a lot of the weeds the goats might eat give a bad flavor to the milk, though.

MMM, goat cheese...