zurcian braun

something i don't love about the way things work in the economic-political system that most of us are trying to survive is that people who have more money to spend have more power, more voice, more reach. this reinforces their position as the people in power. the forums where they speak are happy to make a quick buck. it helps make sure the people who have less get heard less and therefore their pesky ideas don't ever become too much of a threat to the overculture.

thats what this makes me think of

Here's a cool video showing the calls that birds make when a predator is present:

hey there,

does anyone tend to forest nettle patch? i'd love to hear what your approach is: eg rotational gathering, clearing areas for them, spreading seed etc.

i'm also curious if anyone has over-harvested and has a story to share about it

thanks!

very cool! good luck on your journey

yes thank you for this consideration. i have about 1 acre of pure pasture to work with, another 1.5 acres of mixed use pasture that will ultimately have fruit trees and a small garden and a couple tiny homes but i plan on having mobile fencing to help maintain the area. then i have access to about 40-50 acres of mixed forest land, some of it with a LOT of brushy understory. also in the PNW things regenerate very quickly. i think that there is probably a specific number of sheep that i could have here without there being any problem with regeneration. i don't know what that number is but by starting small and paying attention i'm sure i could learn. i'm going to start with just 2-3 sheep:)

with that said i do wonder if the sheep would have trouble getting their optimal nutrition from mostly brushy forest understory.

Benedict Bosco wrote:I raise Icelandics, and they do browse, but they prefer whatever is greenest and most palatable, which is usually grass and leaves, and won’t eat much for stems (they just strip the leaves, and eventually the bark). My concern with trying to focus on browse for a long term feedstock would be regeneration. How quickly do the plants/trees/shrubs recover after a grazing event? Grass by nature recovers fast and is therefore an ideal feed; I suspect you would need a very extensive area to browse for it to be sustainable.

There are number of sheep varieties that are known to do quite a bit of browsing but I'm wondering what that looks like in the real world for folks. I'm in the PNW and have lots of access to forests of different types and maturities as well as some clear cuts and some river plain access which means there is a real variety of browse but I'm wondering if ultimately even the sheep that are know to be good browsers won't really be all that happy unless they're on pasture. Icelandic, Jacob, and Shetland are a few of the breeds I've been considering for wool, hardiness, and browsing ability. ALso would like work towards being able to milk them!

So So So COOOL!! Thanks for sharing

This is a great link, thanks!

Or are they their own species? They're small (often a half an inch), but they do eat a lot.

Thank you all so much for your responses. This is super helpful and encouraging:) Rudyard, your response is full of such good info!! Thank you!!!