Pygmy Sheep or Old English Babydoll Sheep

I have been looking for an alternative method than running my big lawn mower to mow my yard. I decided why not goats? Well goats are good for it I guess but I've never cared for goats much, and since I'm Welsh I figured why not sheep? When I visit Wales they're always in the fields and usually outnumber people by far.

I live in a subdivision in a rural area of town so I felt finding a type of sheep to suit my needs might be tricky. So I had a few requirements. The first one obviously was the size of the sheep. I know you can easily find pygmy goats and are rather small and great for urban areas so I wanted a sheep that was of similar size. This brings me to another requirement I'd rather not have to deal with how and what goats eat. Goats will eat just about anything and everything they can get their teeth on. They will even strip the bark off trees and cause them to die. Since I have a wooded lot I figured sheep would be better as sheep will usually eat just grasses and grain which matched my goal as a lawn mower.

So my next requirement was to find pygmy sheep and that lead me to the Southdown breed of sheep. After some more research I discovered that these sheep would probably fit the bill perfectly for size. Typically Southdown sheep are raised for meat or wool. My intention here is for the wool since I can't eat the meat. I'll probably end up using the wool as insulation in the house, or spin it or something. Their are however two different sub-breeds of Southdown sheep.

There are also two kinds of Southdown sheep the American breed which is much larger than the original Southdown sheep and bread for meat production. The second is the breed that I want and consider pygmy sheep and that is the Old English Babydoll sheelp.

A few groups and organizations exist for this breed many of which can be found on the Old English Babydoll Sheep registry http://www.oldeenglishbabydollregistry.com/

Here is a brief history of the breed found on http://www.oldeenglishbabydollregistry.com/about_the_breed.htm

"In 1780 John Ellman, realized the potential of these animals and set out to standardize the Southdown breed. In England, these small Southdowns grew in popularity up until 1908 when there were approximately 367 registered flocks totaling about 110,000 ewes. The growth in this breed's development slowed in the early 1900s as World War I brought a sharp decline in their numbers. By the end of the World War II, the demand for larger cuts of meat had almost forced the breed into extinction.

It is believed that the breed reached the United States in 1803. Their popularity grew and later declined in nearly the same pattern that had occurred in England. The small Southdown could not satisfy the consumer demand for larger meat cuts. This was a significant factor in the development and mass production of the larger, leggier Southdown of today. This divergence from the original breed standards was the beginning of what would later become two distinct lines: The Southdown and the miniature (or original) Southdown. In breeding for these larger characteristics however, many of the original "miniature" attributes were bred out and nearly lost. Each year brought a further decline in the number of these "original" Southdowns."

The video I discovered on youtube from Jowler Creek Vineyard shows the perfect example of what I want to do. Sustainable mowing by Babydoll sheep.