Evergreen Hedge For Sheep

I just read that in England long ago holly was used to feed sheep during the winter. Although not ideal, it worked. If anyone can recommend an alternative evergreen shrub/hedge/tree that can be consumed by sheep browsing the live plants in the winter I would greatly appreciate the info. I just bought a place in West Virginia and would like to avoid having to stockpile bales of hay in a barn for winter feeding. Hooly might work, but I'm looking for alternate plants they could subside upon that might be more palatable, yet keep their foliage in winter.

Hey Marcus,

I am interested in some of the same things, not so much hoping for a fence but as a silvopasture basis, especially for winter bird and insect cover. I would say that the things growing in your area already are your best bet. They are being browsed and fit the climate and soil. Sheep will eat a little cedar, but the holly seems like a winner. I am using big podded honeylocust as an overstory because it drops nutritious pods most of our winter, but I can't speak to yours... People doing this back in the day had some good observations and I am always hesitant to think I'm smarter.

Let us know what you decide for sure.

There is some work being done suggesting feeding sheep and goats collected tree leaves will work. I have not done much in this regard because I have so much available hay that I never really needed new ways to feed my sheep. But I can see where it would be asy to make a leaf collection system so that expensive haying equipment would not be required for a sheep homestead.

I do think it is VERY possible to extend the grazing season pretty easily though. Even here in Maine, I could easy graze until January by planting winter rye in the fall, letting the sheep graze until the winter rye is grazed down/snow arrives, then reintroduce the sheep to grazing the winter rye again in March. That would reduce my winter feed days from 150 days down to 75-80. That would be a 50% reduction in hay. That would be significant savings if a person is buying hay. The cost of fuel and seed for the winter rye would have to be calculated in, but at $40 a bale for hay, that would easy to deal with.

But a person does not really need to feed hay though. I have succesfully winter-fed silage all winter. My sheep nutritionist recommended 60% grass silage, and 40% corn silage, and they did well. You cannot feed lambs silage due to Rumen Pack, but any sheep over 3 months old would be alright. I think a person could get rid of the corn silage and feed 100 percent grass silage, but corn is very easy to grow, and even easier to produce in a homestead way with equipment already at the homestead. And since little lambs eat so little haying, buying just a few bales for them from 3 weeks to 3 months old is a VERY small amount of hay per year.

Judging from my experiences with goats and now hair sheep over the years, a wide assortment of plants would probably work.  The only ones I know of that are violently poisonous are oleander (which isn't hardy in WV in any case) and the azalea/rhododendron family, including mountain laurel.  There is a whole array of evergreen, vigourous, easy to propagate shrubs used in the landscape industry, several of which have escaped cultivation and now qualify as "invasive exotics"  You can probably find some near you already growing to test out and propagate from.  Privet, "ligustrum"(a larger-leaved privet), bamboo, eleagnus, honeysuckle come first to mind.  Incidentally if you are mowing a lawn anywhere around you can make silage in bags or barrels whenever you mow.