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Comment by beachy | Hacker News Reader

> typical per-acre range of $250-750 for sheep to graze at its sites

Where we live, the farmer pays the landowner to graze his cattle on their land.

So I'd be interested to know why it's the other way around to have sheep graze your solar farm.

Isn't the benefit of animals that they are self-managing, that they can identify the sections that need grazing the most, and that they can even self-replicate without human involvement?

Why not just put up some predator fences and then let them do their own thing?

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It costs money to transport the sheep, provide care, farmer pay, and housing for the sheep. The sheep don't stay on site continuously.

What I wonder is why don't they seed plants that don't grow high? Like clovers or something and use bee keeping as an additional source of income.

> What I wonder is why don't they seed plants that don't grow high?

Because within a few years, there will be plants that grow high anyway. In a few years more, they will dominate.

In climates that support trees and bushes, the only way to have grassland is regular grazing or mowing.

Or burning! Though that requires regular dry conditions.

One of the links in the article talks bout the bee point: "Pollinator habitats: The bees' knees of rural solar development"

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/pollinator-habitats-the-bee...

That's my point. Why not let the sheep live more or less wild on the site?

The fencing mentioned is less for predator protection, and more to move the sheep around on the pasture. Left to their own devices, sheep will[1] overgraze.

(7 sheep is a hobby, not a flock. Shepherding does have a reputation as being for the lazy, but that's by agricultural standards. Even Giotto presumably did a fair amount of work in between developing his art.)

[1] The animals in Animal Farm are all well characterised. Sheep do do what the other sheep do. Dogs do love making sheep behave according to their master's dictates. Horses do have entirely too good a heart. Donkeys do get to live out their lives with no one paying attention to their carcass value. And pigs do resemble humans: compare long pig.

I'm reminded of a former colleague who really did keep goats as a hobby. Entertainingly, even a single goat (not recommended, they're social) had to be registered as a "flock" with DEFRA and kept in the national goat surveillance database.

I believe that the parent is referring to the translation of a term formerly used among the Maori and Polynesian peoples for human flesh as food [1]; their reasoning being that pigs resemble humans, since they taste alike.

This taste-based taxonomy is reminiscent of Ishmael's taxonomy of whales in Melville's Moby Dick [2].

It is known, and can indeed be readily proved by inspection, that everything tastes like chicken [3]. I thus propose a taste-based taxonomy of edible organisms, aiming at restoring the former prominent role of Gallus gallus [4].

[1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/long_pig

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetology_of_Moby-Dick

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tastes_like_chicken

[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallic_rooster

I'm not sure if they were going off a taste-based or a diet-based taxonomy on [1].

As to [2], back when the austrian alps were underwater, they were home to the today little-known (apart from the occasional frightful skeleton) Krampus Whale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piemont-Liguria_Ocean

[4] Makes a fair taxonomic proposal, however. Could you provide a machine-readable (to make sure it can't be beat) supporting argument, suitable for import into a formal proof management system?

The Krampus Whale appears to be a homophone chimera of the Grampus [1] in Melville's Moby Dick and the Krampus of Central European folklore [2].

Parent's final request is a clear reference to Coq [3]. I yield, mumbling something about lions and claws.

[1] https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/grampus

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus#Origins

[3] https://coq.inria.fr/

Pleasure chatting with you — this is my stop: Mornington Crescent[1]. Until next time!

Why is Xmas like a lion on the beach?[2]

The Gnat and the Lion and the Hares and the Lion both involve claws. I prefer paws, a genre which has produced Androcles, the Lion and the Mouse, the Elephants and the Mice, and even apparently (I can't find it, but my hanzi search-fu is weak) the Tiger and the Mouse.

On the hares and lion, a Swahili argument against Sith morality: "Ndovu wawili wakipigana, ziumiazo na nyasi."[3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mornington_Crescent_(game)

[2] They both have sandy claws.

[3] Some wag has added: even if the elephants are making love instead of fighting, the grass still gets trampled.

> why don't they seed plants that don't grow high?

Other, higher-growing plants get seeded in very effectively. Small trees. Nettles. Brambles. Ferns. Even tall grasses.

Have you kept sheep? They're not the most self sufficient creatures.

Actually my neighbour has a flock of 7 or so "Pitt Island" sheep. They literally do just run wild on his land. They get no attention at all as far as I know.

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