Gary and I have a hillside that needs to be weed whacked all the time. We are getting older and find it a little more difficult to do all of the physical things required to maintain our property. Therefore we have begun looking for ways to make the property easier to care for as we age.

We thought about renting a couple of goats to clear the hillside, but did not want to be responsible for someone’s goats if they escaped or if they managed to eat something that made them sick, or worse, if they became prey to a neighbors dog or one of the cougars that occasionally travels through this area. We also thought about getting our own goats, but after reading up on them and learning that they were masters of escape, had a propensity towards parasites, and would make bleating noises we decided against it.

While reading up on goats I learned that a lot of people preferred sheep over goats for weed and brush control. We don’t have a large piece of property and I didn’t want big, dumb sheep that needed to sheared. Enter the Soay sheep – a breed that is on the small side (the females run 40-50 pounds and the males 60-75 pounds), shed their wool when the weather gets warm, and are a hardy and disease resistant breed. They also have naturally short tails, so no need for docking. Being a small animal, they are easier on the pasture than larger animals, not tearing it up with their feet. Another plus of this breed is that the females bear their offspring easily, rarely requiring assistance. The name Soay comes from the island of Soay off the coast of Scotland where these sheep originated. The Soay are one of the oldest known breeds of sheep in the world, and one of the smallest.

After deciding that this was the breed we wanted I started looking around to purchase a couple. The price was, to say the least, a bit more than I wanted to pay for weed-eaters and lawnmowers. I also couldn’t find any for sale close to us and would have to travel quite a way to acquire them. So for the time being I gave up the idea of having sheep. Then after about a year, I found out an acquaintance had purchased some Soay sheep from her neighbor, who had a herd, but was not necessarily in the business of selling them. However, the lady was getting older and had recently decided she needed to cut down her herd a bit. She gave us a reasonable price and was also fairly close to us, only being about 90 miles away. After chatting with her we made an agreement to purchase three of her sheep.

Ian came over to help and we quickly put up a fence. We were told the sheep would respect a four-foot fence, but due to possible predators we put up a six-foot fence instead. Ian also built a shelter for them that has a loft-type shelf for storing hay and grain.

We drove the 90 miles with three large dog crates and the nice lady, her man, and Ian wrangled the sheep into the crates and we made the drive home with no problems. Once home we let the sheep out into the fenced area and left them alone for a while so they could get used to their new surroundings.

Having been in a rather large herd, these sheep had not had a lot of interaction with people other than at feeding times so they were not exactly tame. We have been spending a lot of time with them and after three weeks, all of them will eat out of our hands and the ram will even let us give him scratches on the back. A few more weeks and we should be able to handle them enough to give them vaccinations and deworm them. At this time I don’t think it would be a problem to wrangle them onto their rumps for the few minutes it would take to do the job, but we would like to have them trust us a little more first just to make it easier.

We can see the sheep area from our front porch and it is so nice to sit out there at any time during the day or evening and watch the sheep munching away. I love spending time with them in their enclosure. They are a beautiful breed – lovely to look at and soothing to be around. They are very curious creatures and will come to watch whatever we are doing if we are moving about or working in the yard.

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They are voracious eaters and we already have plans to enlarge their area and partition off sections for rotational grazing. They like all kinds of plants, so when it is time to prune excess growth from the grape vines, apple trees, and other plants we will simply toss the prunings into their enclosure (keeping in mind that there are some plants they shouldn’t eat such as rhododendron and azaleas). I’m sure they will be helpful when it is time to do garden clean-up as well.

Watching sheep grazing is much more pleasant than sidestepping a hillside while wielding a weed whacker!