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The Fourth Farm Animal: Two Sheep

We needed some grass mowing work done…

You can either mow the grass yourself, or you can have someone (or something!) else mow it.

Enter the sheep. Well, technically we rented the pasture to cows for some mowing work our first summer. The grass was long and unruly. We didn’t have a clue about pasture management, never heard of intensive grazing or permaculture or the many benefits of ruminants or… What we did know is that the grass was long and unruly, and we decided that animals eating the grass was better than mowing it ourselves.

Fast forward a year or so, and we began asking the same question about other grassy areas around the farm. Can we have an animal do this mowing for us?

Our friends with sheep said “yes, sheep are good at mowing, too!” So we purchased a couple of sheep from them (bred ewes for those keeping count…which matters later) and continued on the road towards all animals on our farm having a purpose and work to do.

And they did well.

Trivia: what happens if you have bred ewes that are healthy come springtime? They have baby lambs! Both ewes lambed successfully and we welcomed our first ruminant babies to the farm.

And thus began our journey with sheep. Later we will talk about what happens if you become convinced of a different way of life altogether, and if you think having more sheep would aid in that way of life. 😀

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