fighting animal unemployment

[Rhubarbodendron]

Found this one on a (usually) dead serious news site and thought I shouldn't deprive you of this little gem (I had to translate it on the fly, so it's propably not 100% perfect English)(if you find an error, you may keep it )


Moooh vs Baaaah

A lovely green lawn is every house owner's pride. However, it takes a lot of effort and it's proper care is all but inexpensive. Why not hire someone who has a natural knowledge about everything lawn-ish?
American realty blog Movoto found a solution: such a lot of unemployed goats, sheep, chicken, guinea pigs and cows would be happy to keep your lawn short for free - a win/win situation.

They set up an online-calculator which tells you how many cows, sheep, chicken etc. you need for the perfect lawn-manicure:
http://www.movoto.com/blog/novelty-r...t-hire-a-goat/


beware of your employees:

The advantages and disadvantages of the respective animals are listed as well: cows give milk but also a lot of gas. Guinea pigs are easy to transport but often get carried off and eaten by predators and they don't eat weeds. Goats (advantage: eat everything, disadvantage: eat everything), sheep (give milk and wool but have a boring personality) and chicken (lay eggs but dig holes) might not be suitable for every lawn-lover.


Where to hire them:

How do you get into contact with unemployed herbivores? Unfortunately, Movoto doesn't unveil this secret. Your local job center would propably be overextended by this question; retailers generally offer the gentle helpers only sliced and diced, and not as a - functionable - whole.
But perhaps you could ask your friendly next-door farmer which of his animals happen to have some spare time.

[Tora Ziyal]

With identity theft having become such a big issue, I'm thinking of renting out my cats to shred papers.

[Rhubarbodendron]

Heehee, great minds think alike. I always give papers with sensitive data to my hamster

[thestrangequark]

That's a really cute spin on the article, but it's actually not that unusual! In Seattle, where I grew up, blackberry bushes are an invasive species, and many private home owners, businesses, and the city itself often rent goats from area farmers to be brought into city grounds to eat the bushes away. My mother, who has plans of raising goats now that she's retired outside the city, has planned to hire them out as well.

[Rhubarbodendron]

I can't remember was it Yahoo or Google, but about 2 years ago I read that one of them keeps sheep on their grounds as living lawn mowers.

In some areas of my native Bavaria you can rent sheep as lawn mowers. Goats are less popular since they have a tendency to eat absolutely everything, including flowers, laundry, mail and wooden fences.

[thestrangequark]

^ I think that's exactly why goats are popular lawnmowers in Seattle, they'll eat the thorny blackberry bushes!

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Rhubarbodendron wrote:

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In some areas of my native Bavaria you can rent sheep as lawn mowers.

That makes sense. With jobs that humans can't or won't do, get an animal to help out. In this case it would qualify as dirty deeds done with sheep.

[Rhubarbodendron]

LOL naaah. No sheep required for dirty deeds here. You forget the Bavarian tradition of "Fensterln" (lit. "windowing" - visiting your GF secretly at night through the window, ideally without her parents noticing it. If they do, your ability to mow the lawn might be somewhat limited for a few weeks..).
We use sheep exclusively for the lawn, as warm socks/sweaters/cardigans and as a tasty supper.

Sheep are quite popular in big cities as they are less noisy than lawn mowers so that you can have them shorten your lawn at noon, after 22:00 and on Sundays when using a motorized mower would not legally be permitted. Plus the kids love them

[M'Sharak]

thestrangequark wrote:

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^ I think that's exactly why goats are popular lawnmowers in Seattle, they'll eat the thorny blackberry bushes!

Goats love prickly, pointy stuff generally. In my experience, their Favorite Thing Ever is old dry tumbleweeds, which are pretty much all prickle, but I have no doubt goats see a blackberry bramble as a tasty snack.

[Rhubarbodendron]

M'Sharak wrote:

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Goats love prickly, pointy stuff generally.

That'd make them great razors!

[bbailey861]

thestrangequark wrote:

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^ I think that's exactly why goats are popular lawnmowers in Seattle, they'll eat the thorny blackberry bushes!

It worked in Kamloops, British Columbia, as well:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/07...ats-1-weeds-0/

[Gary7]

Rhubarbodendron wrote:

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That'd make them great razors!

They won't stop with the stubble... that's the only problem.


I love blackberries. But I won't nosh on thorns, though. Can't understand how goats and chomp on them and not get mouth infections from thorns drawing blood on gums and tongue.

[Collingwood Nick]

It's about time lazy dole-bludging cattle were made to pull their weight. It's amazing how many of them you can see just standing around mooing when you go for a drive out into the country. I drove past some sheep the other day and told them to 'get a job' but they just stood there and looked at me

[Tora Ziyal]

^You were baaaaaad, Nick.

[EmoBorg]

Well you can always sell them. I remember once, years back, when i was still in the army, one of the guys in my unit found a pair of Dachshunds. They were so cute and we all played with them for a few hours. Then a bunch of Thai workers from a nearby construction site wanted to buy them. We saw easy money and so we sold them to those Thai workers.

Later that evening, several of the prowler patrols around the camp reported back in, that they smelled something very fragrant coming from the Thai work camp nearby.