This message is from: Marsha Jo Hannah <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> "Teressa Kandianis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Organic Gardening had an article about the glories of sheep raising > a couple of years ago. [...] they were fairly low maintenance except > in areas where wet mucky ground was the rule I had a few sheep for a while, as "lawnmowers". I got rid of them when my Fjord "herd" expanded to use the grass available. ;-) And, I haven't missed having sheep! As the breeder of my donkey put it, "sheep are born to die". They're on the menu of most predators, including neighborhood pet dogs. This meant that they had to be either kept in dog-tight pastures, or locked up EVERY night in dog-tight barns. It's almost as much responsibility as having a cow (or goat) to milk twice a day! I still lost a ram to dogs---he took it upon himself to get out of his safe area, and go looking for the ewes one night. Other problems included hoof abcesses, an abcess after a shearing nick, one stillbirth, one "stuck lamb" that required midwifery, "hardware disease" (ate a piece of wire, which migrated around internally until it perforated the heart), and a couple of them that just dropped dead of no obvious cause. If you get into sheep, have enough of them that you don't become attached to any one animal---they don't last long. I found that I had to get a new ram about every 2 years, as they tend to get beligerent (these were Suffolks, so the rams outweighed me). Other than that, they don't have much "personality". The Fjords didn't seem bothered by the sheep. My donkey, however, decided that sheep were fun to chase! I ended up having to put "sheep leaks" in a couple of fences, so they could get away from Shadow, when she "went on a tear". Young Fjords (weanlings and yearlings) might similarly take up sheep herding. Marsha Jo Hannah Murphy must have been a horseman-- [EMAIL PROTECTED] anything that can go wrong, will! 30 mi SSE of San Francisco, Calif.
