Weeds Closing In

I am considering getting a flail mower.

The farm is getting weedy and overgrown. Apparently the cattle that used to live here did a good job consuming vines and bushes. Now that they’re gone, I need a solution.

I was thinking about goats and sheep. I still am. Everyone says goats will get the job done. I have read that Katahdin sheep will do the job even better, without the goat behavioral issues, and they don’t mind the heat. They raise them in the Caribbean, so Ocala will not be a problem. They don’t produce wool. They’re among the breeds known as “hair sheep,” which means they don’t have to be sheared.

A friend of mine says she talked to a lady who has raised goats for 30 years. The lady said goats won’t eat weeds. What? Google “goats” and “weeds” and see what comes up. Cities are paying four figures each to rent goats to clear lots of weeds. How can people have different opinions about goats and their appetite for weeds in 2018? Hasn’t the human race had enough experience with goats to figure out the truth?

My best guess, based on the gigantic amount of material claiming goats eat weeds is this: goats eat weeds. But if that’s true, why would a lady who raises them disagree?

I read that you’re not supposed to give goats grain. Supposedly it makes them ill if you give them a lot of it. I wonder if this lady has spoiled hers with goat feed.

If I get ruminants, I have to get a donkey. We have coyotes, and donkeys hate them. Coyotes may be brave enough to mess with sheep, but donkeys scare the bejeezus out of them. They chase them around, and they have been known to grab them and throw them. I would pay to see that. I wonder if I could teach one to throw coons and squirrels. Maybe I could set up a target.

If I do all this, I have to think about water, fencing, veterinary expenses, and God knows what else. But they’ll do the work for me, and they’ll probably do it better than machinery. They can go places machines can’t.

How many animals would I need? That’s a good question. I was hoping I could get away with maybe three goats or sheep, but this is a fairly large property. I don’t know how much they eat.

I have a bush hog, which is basically a 6-foot-wide lawnmower. It will take down grass, bushes, and little trees, but it’s sloppy and it’s not easy to maneuver.

Someone suggested flail mowers to me. I had no idea what they were. The reason I didn’t know is that they are new to America. They are popular overseas. A flail mower has a rotating horizontal cylinder on it, and the cylinder is covered with hinged knives. The swing into the vegetation and pulverize it. It’s hard to describe it, but you can Google and see pictures.

A flail mower sits right behind a tractor’s rear wheels. It’s compact, so it’s not hard to make it go where you want. It will clobber branches better than a bush hog. It cuts things in small pieces that fall straight down, while a bush hog sort of throws things into an undesirable row.

You can use a flail mower to do all the things a bush hog does, and it will also mow grass. You can cut your yard down to an inch if you want, and it will look like you did it with a real lawnmower. A bush hog is useless for finish work.

If I get this thing, I should be able to sell the bush hog and make space in the workshop. The bush hog is old and grimy, so it doesn’t matter if I leave it outside, but it would be nice to be rid of it if I don’t need it.

It’s tough trying to keep a farm under control when you grew up in the suburbs. I’ve spent a lot of time on farms, but they belonged to my grandfather, and he had cattle to keep the grass cut. I don’t have anyone to advise me except for Internet forum people.

Animals would provide poop, and they would generally do a better job than a machine, but they are a bigger responsibility, and if they decided there were things they didn’t want to eat, I would still have to cut those things myself.

I’m trying to make myself accept something: the people who used to live here didn’t do a great job. They chose plants badly. They left a lot of trees that need to come down. They didn’t choose the best machines. They kept it neat, but I need to make this place my own and quit trying to restore their strange plan. I need to get better plants and better tools, and I need to start killing annoying things the sellers left here.

I feel like I should seriously consider a donkey plus some sort of animal to keep it company, regardless of what I do. Any animal that injures or kills coyotes is a treasure.