We’ve got Sheep!

A local breeder delivered our 12 ewes and a ram at lunchtime today.   Fourteen months after seeing the advert for some Wiltipolls in the local paper, we now have some easy care lawn-mowers.   Their main purpose is to keep the grass short on the north of the property to reduce our fire risk.  We have had a couple of  neighbours “encouraging” us to get sheep to keep the grass down, so we thought we’d better comply.  There are some large rocks in the area and I have never taken the slasher over it, so it is pretty wild.  As well as the rocks, there is a lot of onion weed and lupins, which aren’t great for sheep, but when they are settled they will be moved around with portable electric fences.  Once they have eaten/trampled the area, we will be able to remove any large rocks and then control/slash the weeds and improve the pasture with native grasses and chicory.  The sheep will also be used to tiller the oats in the new oat paddock to get a bigger crop.   The Wiltshire Horn/Wiltipolls are seasonal breeders, so will only come into season in March next year with lambs due in August 2015, so we have over a year to learn about sheep before lambing.  With 12 ewes, we could easily get 15-20 lambs, so we will have to find out about markets and butchers before then.