There is a 1.5 acre empty lot behind our house and every year theyd “disc” it to remove weeds for fire suppression. I’ve heard about people renting goats and sheep for mowing down weeds and thought it would be fun to try, but I never got past the thought.
A month ago I discovered my niece has 7 sheep and she needs to get rid of a couple. I contacted the owner of the property behind our place and the said we were welcome to try out sheep weed abatement, but if the neighbors complained we’d have to get rid of them.
So, here are the new editions to our urban farm:
St. Croix Sheep: Maggie (dark brown) and her son Joey and Leo in the back
We had to separate Maggie from one of her other children and she’s not happy about it. Her bleating for her other son is not making the neighbors happy (we live in a pretty urban area… there just happens to be an empty lot here) and we’re hoping she’ll calm down soon.
Here’s the “pre sheep” lot (click for larger version)
I’ll continue to take pictures as things progress… that is assuming the neighbors don’t call the animal cops on us.
Anybody bets on how long it will take these sheep to clear the weeds in the 1.5 acre lot?
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May 8th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Hi Rob,
Sheep like to complain a lot - I am not sure they will quiet down much. I actually passed on some free sheep that my friend was giving away because I had house/farm sat for them knew that they were just too much bleating for me (and I have 5 roosters). Goats are the best weed eaters - they eat everything, but you need a very good fence for a goat. I think the saying is something like “if a fence wont hold water, it won’t hold a goat”.
Alison
June 1st, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Alison, I’ve heard the same. We went with Sheep because we knew goats would escape. Well, we underestimated our fencing and they escaped. I’ll update this post with the details soon, but long story short they escaped and when we caught them we decided that since they were loud and weren’t eating fast enough we’d be best of letting someone else take them.