Brieanne Rice

I feel that parasites are a management problem (aka nutritional deficiency) and definitely breeding the ones that show high tolerance is a good idea. I use Pat Colby's mineral mix and it includes sulfur, and our flock use high tannin browse to combat parasites. Sheep are highly adaptable animals (obviously they are prey animals so they have to be) so I believe Dorpers would work well with being moved around on netting and paying attention to their mineral intake.

We raise a flock of 70 dairy and meat sheep on 185 acres on yhe central coast of CA on what I call an oak Mediterranean forest. The Dorpers are out 24/7 and the dairy girls are spoiled closer to home on rotationally grazed pasture. We don't have loads of grass here so the flock definitely eats mostly browse. The breed that has hands down been wonderful for us is the Dorper. They can utilize low quality feed and turn it into succulent meat and the amount of fat they have is seriously impressive. We have lots of toyon, ceanothus, thistle, CA sage, sycamore, and oak. The acorns in the fall and winter might be responsible for all that fat. There are loads of various types of plants I'm forgetting but I'm sure you get the picture. Our 8-10 month old lambs hang between 70 to 100 lbs which is really amazing. We've been running sheep for about 12 years so we've had a pretty good run at this and it seems to be a perfect match for us. I would say though that supplementing with kelp is always a good idea, given that it is cheap insurance that fills in any nutritional gaps and also helps remineralize the soil via those tidy little sheep poos.

The dairy girls get irrigated pasture most of the year and I focus on medicinal plants and herbs over grass but of course the seed bank is full of grass so we get that as a default as well. They love it all and clover is their absolute favorite but they eat chicory, dandelion, and I plant sorghum in the summer for them and they eat it, along with the malva, lambs quarters and mustard that pops up which they also love. Overall the sheep tell me grass is highly over-rated and they would rather eat the forbes.

Hope that helps!

Brieanne

Hi Jeff!

Yes, I have tried to follow the sheep with geese and it works really well. I try and water the grazed spot immediately so I always set up a spot, for my 6 ewes with lambs at their side, to last for around 8 hrs and water within 24 hrs so for me that doesn't leave enough time/ pasture for geese to follow. I don't see why, especially with some tweaking, that wouldn't work though.

Hope that helps and good luck!

Brieanne

Theresa Brennan wrote:How did you get your LGD to be ok with the geese?

Hi Theresa,

Hannah, my LGD, is an older girl now who pretty much tolerates any livestock. In her youth she would have been a bit more feisty with the poultry though.  The only way she will bite them is if they try to eat her food, which is why we just try to feed raw food so the grazers don't want the kibble. There is always some sort of food chain on the farm, no matter what is being fed I guess.

Hi Maria,

I can definitely get some pictures of the chicken composting area and the turkey tractors. The ducks are currently with the egg layers bc our 3 tractors are being used for meat birds and turkeys but I'll get pics today.

Hi! I actually was all set to get some Cotton Patch goslings and thought I had done my research until I stumbled across an article that mentioned they fly! I used to have Muscovy and that was the reason we ended up phasing them out. If there is a place that doesn't have 8 ft high fence on your property they will get into it (Muscovy) unless you clip their wings and sometimes even the most skilled aviators will still make it if they take off from a high point. Needless to say I was both grateful and disappointed that I found that out before I bought them. We got some Roman Tufted and Sebastopol crosses that we are happy with for now. The CP geese are so beautiful though. Good luck on your adventure!

That's got me wondering if there is any sort of tree hay geese will eat. Hay is expensive on my Island, and hard to get.

We experimented last year with locust trees and the geese went crazy. I have hybrid willow, lacebark elm, and white mullberry for them and I know they will eat it wholeheartedly. It's little right now but when it's big enough I'll let them graze it and post about it here on Permies.

Jay Angler wrote:Permaculture Motto: The Problem is the Solution!

My geese are supposed to be "guard geese" protecting the chickens and Muscovy from aerial predators during the day. It's not working in the spring, because they get too interested in producing more geese and become too territorial.

Jay, I wish mine would make more of themselves. They lay eggs but never set. Alas. Also, I didn't mention this but it seems like my geese try to drown my ducks when they're competing for water in the water trough. I realized they don't guard my ducks after that. Haha.



@Brieanne - do your geese eat hay when they have not access to grass (like when we got a foot of snow)?

Yes, they eat the hay with the sheep when they can't be on the pastures, like when it rains or I'm too busy to move the electric fence.

Thanks Timothy. She's an old lady who gets to retire a little closer to home now. She used to guard our meat sheep flock on the property but she has her puppies who took over for her. She has quite the spoiled life now and deserves every second of it.

Just want to share a bit of an Aha moment that I recently had. Geese can be so overbearing with my ducks, don't need grain, and just kind of don't fit in to the bigger picture of what I'm doing on our property. However, Asian style goose cooked over a bed of butternut squash and potatoes will always fit nicely with what I'm doing. Then I heard a voice say, "Treat them like the graziers they are!" Aha! Yes! Sooooo, they now go into electric netting on the pasture WITH my dairy sheep and are brought in with the sheep at night to bed down. This fits well because they don't need the tastiest bites of grass and herbs in the pastures, so it's fine that they go in with the sheep and eat some lower and some highest quality bites.That kills two tasty birds with one stone, so to speak. They used to go into a perfectly beautiful, ready-to-graze pasture of all their own with the ducks only to make a mess and eat all the dairy quality goodies, lay a thick layer of manure down over the plants, and smash it all down with their flat feet. Yes! Now the ducks and turkeys are in tractors on pasture and the chickens have their compost-making fortress. I love when it all fits together.