We recently bought two Soay Sheep to cut the grass in our 1/2 acre garden and everyone has been quizzing me about them so I thought I'd put them up on the web. When Áine was looking into the various options for our garden she had a hard time finding anyone who had simply used them as lawnmowers so hopefully this will help someone.
Massey (left) and Ferguson; our two live-in lawnmowers
Executive Summary: For those of you who aren't bothered reading all this and just want to know whether you should buy Soay Sheep to mow the lawn the answer is: YES! They are tiny, almost zero maintenance, can be very entertaining, and most importantly of all they do a fantastic job. So if you have a half acre buy two of them and wave farewell to your lawnmower-pushing days. Make sure you buy Soays though, as other breeds are far more labour intensive, less hardy, and do more damage to your garden.
Everyone tends to ask the same questions so I figure the best thing is to just have a Q&A list here. Bear in mind we're not experts and this is our first foray into animal husbandry (apart from dogs) so this is our experience rather than fully qualified advice!
Q) What are Soay Sheep? A) They are pretty much feral sheep from St Kilda in the Hebrides off the coast of Scotland. They are small, extremely hardy and have hair-like wool that falls out of its own accord. See the articles on soaysheepbreeders.com, soaysheep.org or wikipedia for more info, or else ask auntie google.
Q) Why did you buy Soay Sheep instead of another breed? A) Because our research told us they were small, hardy, dog-proof and pretty much maintenance free.
Q) And are they maintenance free? A) So far, yes. 400 years in isolation on St. Kilda means that natural selection has made them very hardy so they are bulletproof - they're the Chuck Norris of the sheep world! Their wool is more like hair than wool and sheds naturally so they don't need to be sheared. This hair/wool is fine and doesn't mat so they aren't really susceptible to fly-strike hence they don't need to be dipped. They love climbing so once there's rocks for them to climb on they wear down their hooves so don't need them trimmed either. We will have to supplement their food in winter I think, but apart from that they need nothing.
Q) Why didn't you just buy a ride-on lawnmower? A) For a number of reasons:
You wouldn't get much change from €3k if you wanted a decent one.
It would have running costs in terms of fuel & servicing.
We would have to build a(nother) shed to keep it out of the rain, especially since we are just 300m from the sea.
They are smelly, noisy, and since they use 2-stroke engines are highly polluting.
Our garden hadn't really been touched in 4 years so I would have had to level it by hand before we could use the ride-on. Hacking down 1/2 acre of 5-foot-tall weeds didn't appeal much (see photo below).
We'd still be left with the rather large issue of what to do with 1/2 acre's worth of grass clippings, which are not easy to dispose of. You can't just chuck it all on a compost heap, for one thing - it has to be layered with other things, which is more work again. The sheep are like professional contractors - they cut down the grass and then take it away with them. =)
And finally the most important reason of all: I'D STILL HAVE TO MOW THE BLOODY LAWN MYSELF!
The daunting task facing our sheep
Q) Why didn't you buy goats? A) Goats are browsers, which means they will wander around eating the things they like while ignoring the things you want them to eat. Sheep are grazers which means they do a better job of mowing.
Q) But you couldn't you tether the goat up, thereby forcing it to eat everything within reach? You could then move the slowly tether around the garden. A) Yeah, I suppose we could. But why go to all that effort when we could buy sheep instead? Why are you so enthusiastic for me to buy goats anyway? A minute ago you wanted me to buy a ride-on lawnmower...
Q) Have you any previous experience minding sheep? A) No, but we did a lot of reading up on it before we decided to go for it.
The lawnmowers shedding their wool
Q) How big are they? A) Massey & Ferguson are fully grown and are about two-thirds the size of a labrador. They weigh about 25kgs each so you can easily pick one up (catching them is the hard part!). The dog in the photo above is a Jack Russell Terrier which should give you an idea of scale.
Q) Is your garden not full of sheep shit? A) Surprisingly, no! Sheep droppings come out as little marbles, which then roll down between the blades of grass out of sight and are absorbed back into the soil. The clusters of sheep droppings you see up the mountains are in mossy areas or areas of sparse growth where there's no grass for them to disappear into. A dog would leave far more crap in your garden than these two sheep.
Q) You have six dogs, how do the sheep get on with them? A) Fine. The sheep normally ignore the dogs but if a dog starts bothering them they just lower the head and show the dog their horns, which sorts 99% of the situations out! Our German Shepherd/Spaniel cross failed to take the hint once and got the mother of all headbutts for her troubles. You could hear the crack of the skulls down the other end of the garden! The dog had a headache the rest of the day and left the sheep alone after that. These sheep are more than capable of defending themselves!
They clearly couldn't give a monkey's about the collie
The view the dogs get!
Q) Do Soay Sheep eat everything? A) They'll eat everything except nettles (see photo below) but to my knowledge nothing eats nettles, except humans. Every once in a while we have to go in with a shears and cut the nettles back. The more impact the sheep have on the garden the less we have to chop back the nettles, presumably because they either eat or trample the young nettle shoots.
We don't eat no steeeeenking nettles!
Q) Do their hooves churn up the soil? A) Not really, except in very heavily trafficked areas. During the recent summer downpours they churned up the area around the gate so we put down hay there and its all fine now. Ask me again after the winter.
Q) How much did they cost you? A) €25 each. Ours are both rams and nobody wants rams so they were cheap.
Q) Aren't rams aggressive? A) Ours aren't. They are brothers and we bought them when they were 1 year old so they'd lived with each other all their lives hence there are no turf wars. They sometimes have days were they row with each other and spend the day headbutting each other, but I think brothers of any species do that! Our boys have certainly never shown any aggression towards us, the dogs, or any kids that come into the house. We'd heard they were agressive in mating season and did a bit of research into it. The answer we got was that if they've never known 'the loving touch of a ewe' then they don't know what they are missing so don't have anything to defend. Take from that what you will. If they ever did show aggression I'd just get them wethered straight away. An article I read suggested you need at least 4 sheep for a batchelor flock but our garden isn't big enough for that so we chanced our arm with two and its worked out fine. Personally I think the fact that Massey & Ferguson are brothers helps a lot.
"Muuuuuum! Ferguson is sticking his horns in my face agaaaain!"
Q) What are the downsides? A) You have sheep in your garden. That's pretty much it. That seems to be a huge problem for some people, not sure why. If you want nice plants you have to surround them with fencing (which Áine refers to as "putting them in plant prison") otherwise they will get eaten. In our case the nice plants are in the top third of the garden and the sheep are in the bottom two-thirds. Soays are wicked for escaping so you need proper fencing. Once you have that they're fine.
Guess how high the sheep can reach?
Q) Do they do a good job?
A) Yes, very. We had to keep them penned up for the first few weeks until we got the fences sorted. They razed the pen to the ground in jig time! They ate everything so completely we had to buy sheep food to keep them going till they could be let out of the pen!
June 4th
June 8th
June 23rd
That's about it. Any other questions email me:
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