It’s sad to be motivated by laziness. I occasionally find myself wondering if it would be easier to have, say a small goat to eat the grass in the back yard. A friend recommended a few chickens in a movable pen. Someone mentioned that a turtle will also reduce the lawn. I’m not seeing the turtle as keeping up with the growth, though.
What do you guys think? Is there another animal that would make a good captive lawn mower?
I realize that a living being would have needs. There would be the expense and routine of feeding, watering, cleaning, etc. And there would be vet bills. Fortunately, I am motivated by laziness and am therefore unlikely to act on any conclusions reached by this thread.
But it sure is nice to contemplate. Someone once told me that sheep manure was a perfect fertilizer. I’m not at all sure that they weren’t full of it, but obviously manure quality should be a factor.
A few vineyards in this area are training different species of sheep to weed as they attempt to move their vineyards to either sustainable, organic, or holistically managed… Baby doll sheep are the ones I’ve seen, but I know there are at least 2 others that are being used, I just can’t recall the names at the moment.
A determining factor is whether you intend to be walking barefoot on said back lawn. Critters poop. Keep that in mind.
Sheep are grazers. They do a pretty good job with the grass, and will eat some of the weeds, too. They tend not to be overly destructive of landscaping. Unfortunately, they’re dumber than bricks. I’ve seen them get stuck in their own shed, and I had to pull a 220-pound sheep out of my swimming pool once (that was fun).
Goats are browsers. They’ll eat some grass if they have to, but they’ll be much happier working on your bushes, shrubs, and trees. Big plusses for goats: they’ll eat most weeds (including poison ivy, thistles, stinging nettle, and thorny berry vines), if you leave their horns on you can stake them out in a field using just a collar and a rope, they have distinct personalities, they’re smart, and they’re fairly friendly. IF YOU GET A MALE GOAT, NEUTER IT. Bucks stink. Wethers (neutered males) don’t. Downsides: they climb. If you don’t have them properly fenced, you’ll find them sleeping on the roof of your car.
Unless your back yard is huge, forget cattle. Ditto horses. They’ll churn a small yard into mud.
If you have specific questions about any of those four, just ask. I don’t have personal experience with any other lawnmower species. Except my iguana. He eats clover. Does that help?
I had two miniature goats in my pasture to keep the grass down. They were sufficient two keep a 3/4 pasture nice and neat. Keep in mind that goats are extremely destructive to any tasty plants, especially small trees. I was constantly trying to find fool-proof ways to keep them away from my fruit trees. They would beat against the chainlink fence with their heads until they could get at the trees. Still, they were fun to have around.
How about a few geese? They are good grazers and make superb “watch-dogs”, both for making a noise when anyone approaches your property, and for being as aggressive as a dog.
Just so you’re aware that a full-grown goose can produce two pounds of messy, foul-smelling goose poop per day. They don’t produce nice neat pellets like the goats do!
Sheep are the best for even mowing. However, as noted, they are incredibly stupid animals. If you make the mistake of looking them straight in the eye, they can suck 10 IQ points out of you instantly. Goats will eat lots of weird crap but they are fun to have around.
Guinea pigs - they will trim the grass down like a putting green - and their small, dry, elongated droppings typicallly dry out and crumble into the soil in quite a short time. Unlike rabbits, they won’t dig holes in the turf.
They’re small though - so a secure and tight perimeter fence would be necessary (around just the bit you want grazed) - and if you were employing a small herd of them openly in the garden, you would probably lose a few to predators, even if you only left them out in the daytime.
I have a couple of them and I put them out on the lawn in a 4 by 3 foot wire and timber pen - when they’ve nibbled the grass down, I move it along a bit - two GPs are capable of keeping our 10ft radius circular lawn well trimmed - except when it is growing fastest in the middle of summer, and they can’t keep up.
They need more than just grass - we feed them a dry mix and hay too - and of course, in winter, when the grass is hardly growing, they need more of the supplemental food.
I second this recommendation although I have zero information to support my endorsement other than the gut feeling that a dozen grazing guinea pigs would be as cute as all get out.
A sheep in the pool? 220 lbs before it soaked up 30 gallons of water or after?
At the time, we had three sheep: two big wethers and a little 4-H lamb. I had let them out of their pen to do a bit of grazing and to eat the apples that had fallen from the trees. Our pool had a floating “bubble wrap” solar pool cover on it, and one of the big guys decided he could walk on it.
Spaz–yep, that was his name even before this incident–stepped out onto the pool cover and fell into the deep end. My daughter howled for me, and I came running. I saw a torn pool cover (them sheeps have sharp hoovsies!) and a thoroughly-panicked critter in the water, and ran to the edge of the pool to pull him out.
Despite being able to get a pretty decent grip on Spaz, I just couldn’t haul this thrashing, freaked-out animal up out of the water, so I jumped in with him. Really clever. He tried to climb up on my back (flailing sharp hoovsies and all) and he just wouldn’t listen to my calm, rational explanation of why he should just float for a moment and chill out.
I ended up dragging him to an area shallow enough that I could stand up. At that point I picked him up and just carried him up the steps in the shallow end. I put him down, and he just laid there, dripping and panting. When he had caught his breath, he exploded once again in wild-eyed panic and ran (guess where?) straight for the pool. Luckily, I intercepted him in time and figured he needed some nice, quiet alone time in the sheep shed.
Throughout the entire process, the other two sheep just watched and chewed apples. Apples that had been on the ground for a while. Fermenting, as a matter of fact, although I hadn’t noticed.
Spiffy. I ended up with one freaked-out soaking-wet sheep and two drunk sheep. sigh I’ve had better days.
