marginal land

[skd]

I'd like to hear from some who are grazing or raising sheep on "marginal land", land that is not optimal for other uses. I've heard of using goats to clear brush and clear right-of-ways for public power lines. But someone recently mentioned running sheep on land that was unusable without using dogs to manage the livestock. Is anyone running sheep on wooded acreage?

 

Thanks, Sheryl

[DonH105]

Hopefully, someone with more experience than me will respond. However, my reaction is sheep are not goats. Sheep eat mostly grass, while goats eat most anything.

[Bill Fosher]

At least for the vegetation that we have here in New England, sheep are more ominivorious than goats. My company, Sheepscapes, operates a vegetation management service providing sheep for clearing brush and managing vegetation in places where mowing or other methods of control are not practical.

 

Before I started my company, I worked for another operation taht used sheep (not goats) to control vegetation under power transmission lines.

 

Sheep thrive on many types of forage other than grass.

 

The hills of Scotland, Cumbria, and Northumberland have very little grass -- lots of heather and gorse. Yet these areas are used productively for sheep (not goat) production.

[kajarrel]

Cornell did some work on feeding sheep cut trees/brush. In looking for that article (which I couldn't find), I found this one which you might find interesting:

 

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/h...YSTEMSLeft.html

 

I know a couple of people that include dense brush and woodland in their rotation schedule. I also do a *limited* amount of grazing in the brushy areas between our pastures and woods -- I find it a pain because my portable woven wire fence gets caught on saplings, thorn apple bushes, etc. I guess another factor you might want to consider is the predominent types of trees in your woodlot -- e.g., wilted cherry, black walnut, etc. can be toxic. Kim

[DonH105]

Well, you learn something every day. Frankly, most of my experience is growing up with cattle and horses here in Oregon. I am also a lot more comfortable comparing the eating habits of elk and deer. My only experience with brush clearing was when a friend of our family, the county superintendent of parks at the time, placed goats on an island for brush control and raised the ire of all the local urban do gooders.

 

I did some research and found a study published by the Texas Ag Extension Service titled "What Range Herbivores Eat and Why?". It is interesting reading. It put goats and sheep in categories that gives them a much more varied diet than cattle. It puts goats even further toward the varied category. Goat's and sheep's diets definitely vary during the season. However, for an average annual variation in eating, it gives the following breakdown for % grass, forb(weeds), and browse(brush): Cattle - 81% grass, 12% forbs and 7% browse; Sheep - 61% grass, 17% forbs and 22% browse; Goats - 45% grass, 12% forbs and 43% browse.

 

My comments about goats eating most anything comes from their reputation, but also my friend feeding cigarettes to his goats as a "treat".

 

Bill, any experience in what the effect diet has on meat flavor? Emily Dickinson, "born in Amherst, lived in Amherst, died in Amherst"

 

Also, why is this topic under the "politics" section?

 

Here is the link to the study:

 

http://nueces-tx.tamu.edu/AG/Livestoc/PASTURE/Herbivor.pdf

[Eileen Stein]

I've never seen a sheep pasture where the sheep didn't browse any tree leaves (and tree bark!) they could reach. My sheep seem quick to pick up newly fallen leaves in the autumn too. I also used to graze sheep in woods and brush with portable electric fencing; they did well, but I had to give it up because it was shredding my electronet and my temper.

 

I'm sure there's some variation among sheep breeds as well. I have a handful of barbados that I use to keep vegetation down in a ravine, and I'm sure their eating habits would be closer to the goat profile than the sheep profile.

[Pipedream Farm]

The sheep used at Oatlands SDT defoliated everything they could reach in the exhaust area below the trial field; they always did a nice job on the poison ivy. Our sheep have been doing a great job on our multiflora rose; I figure in a couple more years we'll have reclaimed all the ground that the briers have taken over.

 

Mark