Does anyone keep sheep??

[minskey]

Does anyone keep sheep? I'm thinking of getting two or three to mow the grass in my paddock and also end up in the freezer in the autumn.

I'm thinking about Soay's as they don't need shearing, what do you think......................

[binley100]

Do you have to get some sort of licence from DEFRA?

[veggiechicken]

Marchogaeth has sheep.

[minskey]

I have a Holding Number from DEFRA....................

[Nicos]

I don't but 'know a man who does'

What I am aware of, is that they often have problems with their feet and it's best to consider a breed which copes ( foot-wise) on the sort of land you have.
They also can't cope with a very 'rich' soil- ie one with lots of clover. It makes them build up with gas inside and can be lethal.

I think it's fantastic idea- if you go for it, do please let us follow your story!!!

[veggiechicken]

They have Soay sheep on the island where I volunteer. They look very ragged when losing their fleece - the birds perch on their backs and tug the wool out This lot run wild so can be a problem when it comes to checking them over but you wouldn't have that problem in a paddock as they would know you.

[alldigging]

Is it a baaaaad idea?

Sorry. I'll get my coat.

[Feral007]

LOL alldigging!

Could have picked up a lovely little sheep for you this morning. When we went to pick up our last horse from the TSR there was a little sheep which had obviously been a poddy, as it came running as soon as we arrived, and didn't stop baaaaa'ing ....well it was still going when we left. Makes me feel quite sad!

I've been out to do home visits in the country, and when they are grazing sheep on the roadside in droughts, you get out to open the gate to a property and one sheep will run up the road towards you, sheep, being sheep, the rest of the couple of hundred sheep will also start running and then you have to get thru the gate and shut it quickly! Only thing worse than letting people's sheep out, is letting other people's sheep in.

You could try getting some poddies (hand raised lambs whose mothers died). Only problem being that they are hard to eat when you love them.

[Madasafish]

Security is an issue. Lots of rustling.

[mick cssg]

first you need to regestir as a county parish holding local trading standards animal health shoiuld be able to advise.
if you only require them to keep the grass down then i advise looking for someone who can supply orphan lambs from a south down or similar we keep soth down ram and jacob ewes soay's give a small carcas (tasty mind) lambs born in the spring of 2013 from a good meat cross will not need shearing until the following year 2014 by which time even if you raise hoggit lamb they should be in your freezer the cssg runs workshop on sheep husbandry

[Two_Sheds]

I'm thinking of getting two or three to mow the grass

Geese are traditional mowers/guard dogs/ Xmas dinners

??

[darkbrowneggs]

I kept a small flock of Black Welsh Mountain sheep for many years for meat for the house, plus selling a few pure bred youngsters

But you mention 2 or 3 lawnmowers then eating them - the only way you could arrange this is to rear cade lambs on the bottle (milk subsitute is quite expensive, plus you will either need to feed every four hours or buy a cold milk bar arrangement) Young lambs will need good shelter and good straw bedding with no mother to keep them warm and give blood temp milk on tap.

Then having weaned them they will still need some hard feed to boost their protein levels if they are to grow quickly enough for you to slaughter before shearing. Most traditional sheep, spring born they should reach "eatable" size before they need to be shorn, though I am not sure if this would hold true with the "primitive" breeds, such as Soay.

But doing it this way you will only have young lambs to cope with the spring flush of grass growth, and once they get bigger the grass will be going.

If they need to be overwintered they will need hay or haylage (quite expensive to buyin, plus you will need somewhere to store it away from the sheep).

You will need some sort of pen where they can be trapped to be handled so you can check for summer fly strike and worming if they need it

I had to give mine up, as although I had everything sorted for handling and keeping them I just ran out of strength when it came to handling them - sheep are much stronger than they look

I have settled for geese, and find them much easier. The are excellent grazers, need hardly any extra feed (unless you like spoiling them :-) And there is far less problem with handling and the cost of housing is much cheaper.

And you can still eat them if you feel like it or eat/sell the eggs if you don't. They dont have to be registered unless you have more than 40 or 50 birds altogether (can't remember the exact number).

They used to say 2 geese will eat as much grass as a sheep, but in anycase you could just increase the numbers till you felt the balance was right.

I keep Pilgrim Crested type geese, they are smaller, calmer and more friendly than many kinds of geese Plus they are autosexing so you can tell which sex is which - White blue eyed boy and grey brown eyed girls.

[minskey]

I never thought about geese............

The only worries I have with shhep is fly strike.

I'm still undecided, trouble is it cost's me around £20 in petrol to mow, when you're doing that every three weeks it soon adds up.

[marchogaeth]

Some good advice in the replies above. There's no doubt with some freindly support you could do it. However, I'd be on the side of saying go geese simply because you can plan your output, you can keep the grass down easily all year and if you don't have enough grass to keep you going over winter or if it's really wet you can shut them up and buy in feed rather than ruining your paddock.

I don't keep sheep commercially anymore (other than renting out to other people) but my daughter has a small flock and, much fun as we have, it's really more trouble than it's worth. Need the vet? £80 is. Need drugs like wormer or some vaccines? Almost impossible to buy small quantities that won't go off before used. (You will find it hard not to need to worm on a small area.) Do you know where you can get them slaughtered? Cos small numbers especially if you have horns can be hard to even get done and quite often you have to pay extra.

I know you are/were just thinking of a couple to keep the grass down but it's not really that straightforward.

(Ten days slogging through feet of snow to find animals, feed animals and then bucket water to the ones that don't have a stream (often before and after a journey of 1-1 1/2 hours to and from work rather than the usual 40 minutes plus a walk to get to and from the car) has really made me appreciate (yet again) just how committed (crazy) you have to be to keep animals. Now one of them is bagging up early so now we just have to wait and see if we have Schmallenberg which will be horrible especially if some of the poor soles are born alive.

This is not a winge it's just animals!!)

[minskey]

Marchogaeth, you are a wise soul and completeley correct. I also appriciate all the replies from our fellow grapes. I just don't know if I could kill a goose for the pot.

Would geese be happy to roost [they don't roost do they, but you know what I mean!] in the hen house with the chooks at night?