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Rancher Fights Weeds With Borrowed Sheep
"Become a millionaire?" he asks. "No way. It's not going to happen." Even so, the rancher from Towner, ND says that using his neighbor's sheep to control leafy spurge is keeping some extra dollars in his pocket. After the cost of urban processing, farmers and ranchers like Mueller don't get much for themselves. With the added problem of leafy spurge, crop growers face another financial roadblock: buying weed-killing chemicals. "Spraying is really a tough problem," Mueller says. "It's expensive, and you can't spray in the trees - it would kill them." But Mueller's new method promises to brighten his farming prospects. It also gives other farmers an alternative to herbicidal control. A few years ago, Mueller and his neighbor struck a deal. The neighbor's sheep graze on Mueller's land in exchange for some light shearing and moving on Mueller's part. The payoff? The neighbor keeps the profits from the sheep and gets grazing space and labor from Mueller. The sheep reduce Mueller's spurge problem at no financial expense to him. The plan has worked. Mueller reports a significant decrease in the amount of leafy spurge on his land. "I don't think it's possible to eliminate the stuff," he says. "But I think it's really been helping." Thanks to the sheep, Mueller and his family have been able to save money that previously went to spraying and making up for lost crops. But initially, Mueller wanted nothing to do with the woolly creatures. "When I first thought about sheep, it gave me nightmares," he says. "I thought of all the extra work. It's a lot of hand-intensive labor." Now, after six years of success from the work of his new "friends," Mueller insists his method is the way to successfully sabotage leafy spurge.
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Scott Mueller knows
that his innovative method of cutting farming costs won't make him rich.