GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post - Managing thick grass in overgrown orchard

Janet · 24-09-2016, 12:31 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

In article , says...

In article , Chris Green wrote:
In article ,

Any grazing animals in an orchard will be a disaster, they will browse
as well as graze. Not only will they eat the fruit, they will damage
branches as well.

I agree.

That's not so. All you have to do is to ensure that the branches are
higher than the browsing height or the tree is protected to that height.
Yes, the animals will prune the trees to keep it that way, but that's
not a big deal. Goats might be a problem, as they will also eat bark,
but cattle, sheep, horses and their related species aren't.

In my experience when grazing is short in winter, both sheep and
horses will eat bark :-( (Hungry horses made a terrible mess of a
mature birch wood in the winter before we bought it).

Years ago at the last place, I planted an acre of grass as an orchard
to be grazed by a couple of sheep, which we would then eat. They were
blackface sheep and soon learned to stand upright on their back legs to
eat the young trees. Fencing the trees just provided a comfortable place
to lean on to reach further in and young athletic ones will jump
standard rylock stockfence. Remember that snow makes fence tops lower.

Grass stops growing in winter but sheep keep eating; so an enclosed
acre does not provide enough grazing all year round to feed a couple of
sheep. They would need supplementary feeding which isn't cheap.

Janet.