2024’s Best States for Animal Lawn Mowing

What are 3 benefits of hiring ruminants to mow your lawn?

1. Health and well-being. A UC Davis study showed that students were happier and less stressed when the UC Davis Sheepmowers were out grazing on campus lawns. Think about how much fun it is to sit back and watch the sheep do their thing.
2. Natural fertilizer. No need to add synthetic fertilizer when you’ve got natural, organic fertilizer straight from the grazers.
3. Labor reduction. Who wouldn’t want to give up their (gas-guzzling) lawnmower and sit back with a cold drink while ruminants do the work for you?

What — if any — are the main differences between hiring a crew of goats, sheep, or cows?

• Sheep will graze your grass. They tend to keep their heads down when they graze and “cut” the grass blades down. In fact, before the lawn mower was invented, sheep and scythe were the main tools for keeping yards tidy.
• Goats are browsers. They enjoy roughage. Goats like to eat at chin level and will strip shrubs and trees of leaves and twigs before they turn to the grass. Goats are great for clearing large areas of vegetation.

Who should rent ruminants to mow their lawn?

Everyone. It’s such a fun way to:

• Support sustainability
• Reduce labor
• Promote mental health and well-being

Who should consider adopting their own grass grazers?

You need to have:

• Space to keep the animals.
• Plus the time and desire to keep them fed and happy.

What are 3 challenges of hiring animal mowers compared with hiring a typical lawn care crew?

1. You won’t get perfectly straight edges. The animals will eat along the fence line, but the result will not be quite as tidy as with a lawnmower.
2. It takes longer for ruminants to mow your lawn than a lawnmower, so you need to budget for the extra time it takes.
3. You’ll have your neighbors asking tons of questions and wanting to stop by to chat with you and watch the grazing event.

What are 3 benefits of hiring ruminants to mow your lawn?

The benefits of hiring ruminants to mow your lawn are that:

1. They are renewable. Sheep, goats, and cattle have a long history of working alongside humans and, when used correctly, are beneficial to the environment.
2. They are walking plant fertilizers. What goes in has to go out! In addition to adding back nutrients, they also help distribute helpful microcolonies. The soil has a rich mixture of microorganisms and livestock are a great renewable source of helpful microbes.
3. Even if they don’t graze the plants down, but only step on them and flatten the plants, they are helping to protect the soil from direct sun exposure and water evaporation, hence cooling the ground and helping to recycle nutrients.
4. When they step on the ground, especially cattle, they can form mini-lakes with each step which helps slow down water runoff and increase water absorption and filtration.
5. If you want to go organic – go ruminant grazers.
6. Anywhere there are poisonous weeds – ivy, sumac, etc., would be a great place to bring in livestock. They can eat plant species that can harm humans.

What — if any — are the main differences between hiring a crew of goats, sheep, or cows?

1. Goats and some breeds of sheep don’t actually graze – they browse, meaning they like leaves of trees and brush. If you have lots of woody areas, sheep and goats are ideal. However, if you want to save your young trees and decorative plants, you may need to fence them and make them inaccessible to the animals.
2. Some goats will actually climb into the trees to browse. Some will stand and balance on their back legs. Some breeds of sheep will stand, but most will graze about head high and below. So, knowing your forages and/or trees is important before hiring a crew to mow.
3. Cattle prefer grass, so areas with lots of tall, coarse grass will be ideal for cattle.
4. Depending on your forages, you might need a combination of all three to be most productive.

Who should rent ruminants to mow their lawn?

1. For lawns, sheep are probably the best bet as they like grass second only to forbs. Golf courses would be great for sheep.
2. President George Washington kept sheep as lawn mowers, so I’d like to see the President of the United States bring sheep in to mow the lawn at the White House.
3. Some public universities have used goats to help manage certain fast-growing vines, so anyone worried about spraying chemicals next to public areas should definitely consider ruminants.
4. Perhaps HOAs should consider bringing them in.

Who should consider adopting their own grass grazers?

1. Cities with lots of woody parks would be a great place to use ruminants.
2. Electric companies can use livestock to help maintain electric lines.
3. Some vineyards will use sheep and goats to keep the weeds down after training them to avoid the vines.
4. Solar companies can use sheep and goats to keep the forages down around the solar panels.
5. Some orchards may use them too — as long as they can protect the trees against the livestock. Again, there are differences in sheep, goats, and cattle and how they forage.

What are 3 challenges of hiring animal mowers compared with hiring a typical lawn care crew?

1. Finding an area that is safe for the animals to graze can be a challenge. You want to make sure the animals are not harmed either intentionally or non-intentionally.
2. Even a small ruminant can hurt a person. If any of these animals get scared they can be a danger to humans so I would recommend having an insured mowing company regardless of humans or animals.
3. Is the area large enough to be worth the animal mowers’ time? Some of the animal mowers are probably kept out of the city limits, so the area must be large enough to warrant their time loading up their equipment and driving into your area.

The biggest challenges come from:

1. Fencing. Each of the 3 species can require differences in fencing them both in and out of areas that they don’t need to be in. For example, goats can climb and require substantial fencing to not only keep them in/out of an area, but also that doesn’t allow them to climb up and over a fence.
2. Cattle require a strong fence. If any of them become spooked and run, they are strong enough to go through fences.
3. Some plants are poisonous to the various species. Sometimes the species will only eat a plant when it is in a certain stage of production whereas a traditional mower doesn’t care what it mows down.
4. Cattle have greater water requirements than sheep and goats and therefore you may need to haul water with the crew to take care of the animal’s needs.
5. Small ruminants are especially vulnerable to predators. Even domestic dogs which are pets at home can kill a sheep or goat. Even the stress of being chased can kill them.

What are 3 benefits of hiring ruminants to mow your lawn?

1. Less noise, emissions, and upkeep associated with mowing.

2. Closed nutrient cycles and lawn clippings will already be partially decomposed from going through the animal

3. You get to look at some pretty pastoral views from your door.

4. Bonus: The livestock, particularly sheep or goats, may be great for maintaining vegetation on steep slopes compared to trying to mow those same slopes.

What — if any — are the main differences between hiring a crew of goats, sheep, or cows?

The final effect with any of them will not be as even as mowing (i.e. some patchy grazing, with some very short areas and some too long). These patterns will tend to be reinforced over time if something is not done to even them up, or unless you take everything down very short, which will stress both animals and plants unless you give a lot of time between defoliations (and supplemental feed for the animals in the meantime).

You may have some problems with non-target plants (e.g. rose bushes, redbuds, fruit trees, and some oaks are favorites with sheep or goats).

You will need fencing that will contain the animals and keep them away from the non-target plants, and you will have their droppings. All three species will also tend to find a shady place in the heat of the day where they will defecate and likely stomp things up if they are not removed or kept away from such areas. This can be particularly trying when you have a roof over a porch or sidewalk.

All three species may cause damage to lawn furniture, small sheds, etc. from rubbing on or climbing on these objects. If you are talking about the difference between sheep, goats, or cattle in how they will work, the fencing required to keep them where you want them will be much more “foolproof” for goats over sheep and cattle.

Droppings will be drier and in small pellets for sheep or goats, and therefore relatively inconspicuous. Cattle droppings will be much larger and juicier at first, and could potentially dry to big pies that would be pretty recalcitrant, and therefore messier for a longer time, possibly drawing flies more than sheep or goats.

Goats can assume a bipedal stance and will trim many of the shrubs and trees up to about 6’ above ground if they can get to them. Sheep will tend to keep many weeds out of the grass, and so would tend to decrease the need for herbicides.

Who should rent ruminants to mow their lawn?

Those who:

• Don’t like to mow.
• Don’t mind a fairly uneven appearance (patchy) for their lawn.
• Don’t have a lot of shrubbery or trees.
• Don’t have the capability of owning and husbanding the animals when they are not used for the lawn upkeep.

Who should consider adopting their own grass grazers?

I would say that unless they have:

• A pretty extensive area that will support the animals for an extended period of time,
• Or have the animals as part of a means of producing meat or other animal products so that they can be maintained elsewhere,

Folks should not own their own animals — particularly if they are not familiar with the handling and husbandry associated with a particular species (e.g. safety, nutrition, parasite control, disease prevention and treatment, etc)

What are 3 challenges of hiring animal mowers compared with hiring a typical lawn care crew?

Some lawn grasses (e.g. carpet grass in the southern U.S.) are not very palatable or nutritious for grazing animals. Also, see previous comments.