Raising Sheep

[NewEnglander]

next you're all going to tell me that my dream of keeping a few random goats when i grow up and become a gentleman farmer is no good either...

[BoldHighlander]

next you're all going to tell me that my dream of keeping a few random goats when i grow up and become a gentleman farmer is no good either...

Back in my Civil War reenacting days, a buddy of mine got a goat to keep one of his horses company when we took the others out to the field (there always seemed to be an extra left behind).

After a spell he brought the goat to our events too (use to tell the public that it was that night's dinner! ). Our fondest memory of that critter was it following behind him like a dog when he went to officers call, etc.

[B R Gordon]

next you're all going to tell me that my dream of keeping a few random goats when i grow up and become a gentleman farmer is no good either...

Goats, that's an entirely different story. My daughters had goats when they were kids ( the daughters were kids not the goats) although the goats were kids also. I remember them (the goats) fondly. I also remember my daughters fondly, but that's another story altogether.

The goats from my memory were more like pets and no more problem them dogs, but I'm getting old and my memory may be fading.

[BoldHighlander]

...but I'm getting old and my memory may be fading.

It happens to the best of us (myself included)

[Tobus]

The goats from my memory were more like pets and no more problem them dogs, but I'm getting old and my memory may be fading.

I've no experience with sheep, but I do unfortunately have plenty with goats. The nannies can indeed be as good as pets, as long as you're OK with them doing this (yes, that was my car):



They will climb on anything and everything. Other than that, they're fun little critters to have around.

But put a billy in the mix, and everything changes. Smelly, rude buggers they are.

[clanciankent]

I used to have to park my cars 300 yards up the driveway to prevent my goats standing on top of them.

[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:

[Bugbear]

You could raise llamas...

Have a relative out here in the desert who raised a miniature nanny goat for the milk. Fed it partly on Bermuda grass and de-spined cacti if I remember correctly. Even had a small, milk pasteurizer.

[Bugbear]

Hmmm, bighorn sheep...

I'll have to go read up on them.

[Riverkilt]

For sure on the Navajo sheep. They don't much raise them though. Just turn them out to graze and wander and sheep dogs herd them well. Little human interaction needed.

The Basques around Flagstaff also run a lot of sheep. If I remember correctly they used to herd them back and forth between Flagstaff and the Valley - weather depending. Think the bridge at Sheep's Crossing on the Verde was built for such treks.

Saw a Navajo girl at the Gathering of Nations wearing a t-shirt that read, "Mary had a little lamb - but her grandmother butchered it."

I never drank Coors beer after watching the commercials touting the rocky mountain waters they used to make their beer. Whenever I was up in the high country in Colorado there'd be sheep standing in the creeks doing you know what.

If you watch the Flagstaff newspaper's classified section as Spring approaches you'll see ads looking to hire sheepherders to live in the remote high country.
Lots of sheep in Arizona - but you gotta look North.