Sokomine wrote:What did the other animals do? I hope you treat the sheep better than most Minetest players treat those ingame :) Single animals might feel lonely.
Single herd animals do get lonely, so I keep more than one. I have 8 sheep now.
As for the donkey Eeyore, someone brought him over and gave me a sob story about how he was being picked on by the other donkeys. So I bought him and moved him around between staying with the goats or the dogs. I was new to the country, and didn't know that donkeys don't get along with dogs normally, but Eeyore did fine. That is, until he realized there was a horse breeder about 2-3 miles away. Eeyore was very intelligent, and could even lift a latch with his nose to open the front gate. He was always escaping, and I knew where to go each time, the horse breeder. Finally, the horse breeder told me he was going to shoot Eeyore the next time he came over, so I found a new home for Eeyore. If I ever get a horse or donkey again, it will be castrated immediately or whatever the equine term is.
Goats are curious and somewhat intelligent animals. The grass is always greener on the other side, and they are intent on finding out how green it really is. I have sections of pasture with 6 foot field fencing, and they were still finding ways to escape. It was really bad when they were getting on the road (in my state drivers can sue the livestock owner if their car is damaged by hitting the livestock), and when they were getting into the central area and eating the roses and fruit trees. Also the friendliest goats would escape just to get to us and see what we were doing if we were outside, so they could demand attention, try to get my tobacco out of my pocket, lick the sweat off my arm, and just be nuisances in general. Sometimes they would even try to get in the house to be with us, because they didn't realize they weren't people. As for hardiness, my state is too wet and muddy. They do well in drier climates with lots of brush. I have mostly grass pastures, and so we had to trim their hooves several times a year, worm them regularly, and make sure they had plenty of supplements. Because I am more familiar with goats now and like their personality, it is not likely I will ever eat goat again. I don't like eating animals that I know have lots of personality and can return affection.
The calf I bought at a sale, probably because it was so wild. I had goats but was still new to the country, and thought that since it was not very old I could just leash it and treat it like a goat in leading it to the right pasture. I sure was wrong in that and don't want to go into more details other than that baby cow could have killed me. It certainly did try. I'm just not set up for or have the resources for cattle but have no problem eating beef.
We have thought about getting hogs and it has been recommended several times by different people to eat up the weeds around the pond and pack down the pond area. All I know about hogs is that people say they are intelligent, capable of affection, and like to escape. That's enough for me to know that I don't want them.
The sheep I have are Shetland Sheep. They are much more passive (except for some rams), don't want to escape (except for some rams), and low maintenance. This is an animal I can eat, since at least mine aren't very intelligent and affectionate. I get wool, some meat, and occasionally sell the extra sheep that we don't want to eat (nobody here wants to eat the lambs since we are city people at heart lol). I don't profit off of them but they almost pay for themselves and they keep the grass down. They also rarely need wormers, and these sheep haven't needed their hooves trimmed (we checked once a year at shearing). We just give them a mineral block supplement, a yearly tetanus vaccine, and let them do their grazing. I do feed them grain most mornings, just to train them to come to the barn/garage area so I can count them and catch them if I need to. The greatest nuisance about them is that stray and loose neighborhood dogs want to try to get in the pastures and kill them so I have to listen for my dogs barking and then check the pastures throughout the day.