Hello dear friend, Mary is doing very well and has gained weight. She has settled into life here, so there shouldn't be anything to worry about.
I hope that fewer people will keep living animals just for the fun of it—like my Mary, The Abandoned Sheep—and I would like to write a little something about that, People who are not farmers raising animals. If you are keeping them on a moderately sized plot of land, goats are the better choice. Sheep are fine if you have vast acreage, but the most important thing when raising animals is whether you can properly clean up after them.(In that respect, cats are the easiest.)Problems arise if things are kept unsanitary. Mary had scabies, a skin disease caused by mites.
Compared to goats, the sheer volume of sheep droppings is surprising. I am constantly sweeping and hosing down the small area where kept.
Both goats and sheep share the trait of living in herds; you cannot keep just a single, and their bleating can easily be heard up quite a long way away. They can be quite noisy during the mating season.
Then there is the matter of whether there is enough grass to feed them properly. We regularly buy dried hay, the cost of food for our dog and cats is far lower ( Especially in winter )
Please be careful not to accidentally eat grass that has been sprayed with herbicide, weedkiller.
And then, there is the matter of shearing . If the process isn't handled properly, the sheep will never let itself be shorn again. Mary had a rather painful memory associated with it; she was so thin, her skin hung loosely, and she apparently bled during the shearing. We were inexperienced, and it took us hours to shear the terrified sheep. Mary would only let me get close to her, so I had to cut her wool little by little with the shears. Poor Mary—and poor us, too. ( My husband was knockout by Mary )
She sometimes helps out a little with the mowing in the garden.
Sadly for her, it doesn't fill her up..
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| Eat salt |
Ultimately, unless you are an extreme animal lover, I wouldn't recommend keeping goats or sheep. Since you are the kind of person who reads this blog—someone with a gentle nature—I trust you won't do anything reckless.
Recently I comprehend why sheepdogs are necessary. My Mary, she doesn't stray far from me, but when she's engrossed in eating, she doesn't notice even if I call her. "Mary! Mary!" I shout.
I run fast while calling out Mary. Then, before I know it, She is right beside me, running along too. What she fears most is likely being separated from me. but, I didn't know sheep could run fast.
From time to time, I would recall certain passages from the book I read a few years ago, along with the context in which they appeared. "The shepherd's life. by James Rebanks. Something you can fully appreciate through the pages of this book.
Sheep cannot survive in the wild without human intervention. What we can do is enjoy meat from time to time with a sense of gratitude and make use of the wool.
