[Big Benny Shep]

i seem to get lots of lapwings in my top field, lots of gullies and bobby bits of grass to hide in. they seem to prefer mine to the neat and tidy field next door 

[SteveHants]

I se lapwings about. I'd often wondered if the sheer volume of pheasants about here did a similar thing...

[sabrina]

Could be right, I keep both and never had a problem with fluke

[Remy]

I'd love to have free-range chickens but don't think they'd last five minutes with our fox population!

[Penninehillbilly]

Something I've been thinking about for a while -
in the 'old days' grazing stock was moved round the pastures, helping to keep parasites down.
 
My master plan had been to follow the goats with the lambs I'd got last year, thinking they would 'mop up' any larvae, then giving land about 6weeks rest, but I've been told they would cause more of a worm problem, so that idea is out the window.
I have 8 geese, these graze much more closely than the goats, possibly not closer than sheep  , would they keep parasites down? or, as someone suggeted, could they spread coccidioss (sp?), I thought they would be different strains till she said that, now I'm worried.

[clydesdaleclopper]

rotational grazing is very good for keeping parasite loads down. The reason you can't follow goats with sheep is that they are susceptible to the same parasites. There's a chap called Joel Salatin who has a rotational grazing set up that involves strip grazing the animals and following them with chickens in moveable arks. A lot of the permaculture sites have info on this.

[SteveHants]

Something I've been thinking about for a while -
in the 'old days' grazing stock was moved round the pastures, helping to keep parasites down.
 
My master plan had been to follow the goats with the lambs I'd got last year, thinking they would 'mop up' any larvae, then giving land about 6weeks rest, but I've been told they would cause more of a worm problem, so that idea is out the window.
I have 8 geese, these graze much more closely than the goats, possibly not closer than sheep  , would they keep parasites down? or, as someone suggeted, could they spread coccidioss (sp?), I thought they would be different strains till she said that, now I'm worried.

I think poultry cocci are a different beast to the one that infects sheep.

[Penninehillbilly]

I have 8 geese, these graze much more closely than the goats, possibly not closer than sheep  , would they keep parasites down? or, as someone suggeted, could they spread coccidioss (sp?), I thought they would be different strains till she said that, now I'm worried.

I think poultry cocci are a different beast to the one that infects sheep.

I thought that, but one of the goats worm counts came back low level cocci, when I mentioned it to a friend, asking if I needed to medicate the goat, my goat and poultry keeping friend said - 'if you have poultry you'll have cocci on the land anyway', I thought it sounded a bit odd, anyway I'll carry on running the goats and geese followers then.

[colliewoman]

cocci is species specific. Rabbits also carry it and I don't think there are many areas of grazing with a bunny count of 0.


Poultry cocci won't infect sheep or goats nor vice versa.
It USED to be believed that all cocci were the same and that is what is written in a lot of the old stock keepers books but new findings show otherwise

[Penninehillbilly]

Thanks. much happier now.