New to sheep/goats - a strange request

[LearningSheep]

You nailed it. My sheep are pets, spoiled, brats. At the same time they are for meat. And they are for sale. They get the best care I can give them, but they give me so much more. And don’t even get me started on my Anatolian LGDs.

Please start a thread telling us about yourself and your farm. Or did you already and I missed it? Or if you did and I commented on it and forgot…..

I checked and this is your first post. Go to the newcomer forum and introduce yourself!

I just introduced myself LOL. Between being a mom of 2 teens - a teacher & a college student myself and having been thrown into ranch life last year I forgot to do that!

 

[LearningSheep]

UPDATE for everyone who has been helping with this: the landlord says the herd can be removed sometime in the next week. I have mixed feelings about it, as I said before, because I know they're not going to be cared for any better wherever he's taking them. And, of course, we will miss them. I've grown quite attached particularly to the goats. She asked if we would be open to keeping just a few of them here, and I said we would love to keep them here if he would only care properly for them. I may counter offer that we keep only the goats, with the stipulation that we get a vet to check the lame one, and they get transitioned to pelleted/formulated food. No more bread.

Thoughts on that offer? Would it be better to just have him take them all away? The whole thing makes me really sad. They don't seem the type to hold us liable if anything happens to them, if anything they seem to want to work with us. But I'm not sure what to do now...

What was the final outcome?
My recommendation was going to be if you could get him to hand them over, and they become yours go that route. But otherwise I agree make him take them all.

 

[Margali]

Since your landlord seems to agree the animal care is abusive levels of neglect, you can report the herd owner to animal control now. That might scare him into cleaning up his act. Either way, animal control will know about issue and might be able to keep up after herd is relocated.

 

[ConcernedSheep]

Sorry this update is so late. I wanted to come back here and close this loop... there was a pretty terrible incident back in April that prompted us to pull the plug on any attempts to negotiate with the owner. One of the lambs (that had been declining for some time) was allowed to suffer for far too long, and eventually collapsed and died in our pasture. My husband called the owner and told him they all need to be moved immediately, and he came and got them all the following weekend (while rescinding any option for us to keep any of them). It was contentious and very sad, but I cannot force him to take care of his animals so... the least I can do is not allow the abuse to happen at our home.

Now that I feel I've processed the whole incident, we need to figure out what to do with all this space... the landlord came and mowed the pasture in June, but it's quickly overgrowing again and needs regular grazing. We don't have the time/energy to construct a chicken tractor at the moment, that will be a project for next spring. I sent a few messages to some local goat/sheep rescues, asking if they were looking for fosters, but none responded. I may post on Nextdoor/Craigslist and ask if anyone nearby needs grazing space, but those folks would have to be vetted to avoid a repeat of the last situation. Either that, or we may go down to the livestock auction and get a few of our own sheep (a prospect I find quite intimidating, but might be the simplest option). The landlord doesn't mind if we have animals here, and a local farmer said we can get sheep/goats quite cheaply there.

 

[SageHill]

Two or three sheep of your own would work perfectly. You wouldn't be limited in what you do! Of course we are the great enablers here

 

[ConcernedSheep]

Two or three sheep of your own would work perfectly. You wouldn't be limited in what you do! Of course we are the great enablers here

I am easily enabled! lol. Perhaps I should start a new thread and start my research. Thanks again for your help, and for listening!