Got some goats, sheep, and llamas onto Crooked River Farm this week. After the cows have grazed the pasture, the goats and sheep will eat a lot of what the cows don’t, increasing yield per acre, decreasing the “weed” load, further benefiting the pasture, and further increasing the yield per acre. Virtuous cycle – at least that’s the theory.
The llama’s are there as “guard animals” – they are supposed to protect the flock of sheep and goats. Again, that’s the theory. I once got a llama and a donkey to protect the sheep flock I had for about 25 years. The donkey harassed the llama to death (literally) and proceeded to terrorize the sheep until we moved him to another paddock and ultimately, to another owner/farm. So far the llamas seem to be behaving themselves and doing their duty protecting the goats and sheep. Will be watching them all closely. In theory, theory and practice are one and the same – in practice they are not….
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December 8, 2012 at 7:30 am
Jason Rutledge
Please let me know if you want some red draft horse beauties over there at any time. We always have some horses that need to be pasture ornaments. That is quite a herd of sheep, goats and llamas, has to be soil improvement happening, hope the coyotes don’t get into them…
December 10, 2012 at 9:32 am
schuyler
You could take it a step further and after you move the goats/sheep/llamas, let the manure attract some flies to lay their eggs for a couple days, then move chickens in. They’ll scratch the manure to get at the larvae, in the process, spreading the manure around more evenly. 🙂 (I read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and that’s the method of Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms near Staunton. Granted, he’s mainly a beef/poultry/egg farmer…)
December 10, 2012 at 5:55 pm
CrookedRiver
That’s funny Sky, ’cause I was just thinking about that this afternoon. It is a grand idea – the amount of additional manure the chickens put down is also considerable. Unfortunately, I don’t wan’t to be a chicken/egg farmer. It works for Joel, but wouldn’t for me. But maybe I can find somebody local who *wants* to be that chicken/egg farmer and they can set up on my property to follow around the fuzzy beasts? I get the extra manure, manure spreading, and parasite management for free!