Sheep and goats will generally get along fine if you have only females and weathers, but don't mix rams and bucks unless they have a big area to get away from each other. (Once the girls start to cycle, they will fight, and will need to be seperated from early fall to late winter.) The nice part about keeping the two species together is their feeding habits compliment each other; goats browse woody brush, sheep are strictly in it for the grass. Caveat: all of them will kill a fruit tree if they can get to it. The goats will rear up and pull down branches or push a young tree to the ground, the sheep will gnaw the bark at the trunk. As far as commercial feed goes, they can eat the same thing and they require the same wormers, although goats need more copper in their minerals. Unless you opt for hair sheep (which shed their wool), they'll need to be sheared annually; something to think about in terms of extra work. Llamas will also need an annual haircut. If you do get a Llama, make sure it has been raised with goats, and, if it's a male, that it has been castrated. Accept no subsitutes about this. Intact male Llamas are like intact male sheep and goats and cattle; frequently unpredictable and can be dangerous. I will say we actually have very good luck with our bucks. (intact male goats) but we train them from day one as bottle babies to be well behaved. The sheep, eh. Bottle fed or not, after the third year, rams naturally tend to get "pushy". If you keep a ram, watch your back: they are surprisingly fast and even a small one can hit hard enough to break bones. I've seen bottle raised intact male Llamas and imho, they seem to be the most onbnoxious; no natural respect for humans, and the playful antics that were so cute when they were little crias are downright dangerous when they are grown. A quick trip to the Vet for a little "macho-ectomy" might help with that. ;^) If you keep a pony or mini horse, (what I would recommend) unless the goats have horns, the horse becomes the Boss by default. If you feed a pelleted goat ration, make sure it's safe for horses just in case he happens to get into some. Really, you don't want to allow the horse to have access to it at all, as it's very easy to founder the little guys, but it's better to be safe than have a sick pony. Anyway, that's my free advice on the subject, hopefully worth every penny. ;^) Here is a link that might be useful: DD's Dairy Goat site

We do have native mantis species, though none are particularly large. The imported invasives are huge. They are much more common in tropical and semi-tropical locations. The tiny hatchlings will eat aphids but not the adults. The ootheca needs to be located near a food source of some kind so that the brood doesn't completely devour each other. Beng, it's depressing to see a pile of butterfly wings on the ground, isn't it? I agree that they are an incredible creature, fascinating to watch. One sunny spring day in Virginia, I was doing playground duty at the daycare center where I had one of my many part-time jobs while going to school. There were dozens of big Chinese mantids swarming the area and the kids were terrified. One landed on my coat and thinking to make it a "teaching moment", I picked it up to show the little ones how interesting these insects were, how harmless. Well, I'm sure that I single handedly scarred those babes for life. The mantis swiveled its head around and bit me in the soft skin between my thumb and forefinger and hung on until I was dripping blood. The poor things ran away screaming, lol!

Moles. I have them as well.

I have a critter doing the same to my 2 year asparagus plants, stems are cut off 4" to 6" high and only the very tops of the fern are gone leaving most of it on the ground. Thing is the asparagus is in a deer and rabbit proof fence and no foot tracts are ever found, even after a good rain. Now I have a another plot with strawberries, asparagus and garlic with no fence where deer & rabbits graze at will, but the guilty critter is confirmed with foot tracks, but no tracks in this plot either on the severed ferns. So what is it? Tracks confirm Deer top off big and small plants but eat the entire thing to the point it stops. Rabbits do the same thing as high as they can reach but leave larger plants alone. I've been watching this topic for the mystery critter not really knowing what It may be. But now I believe Marie is correct, squirrels. No tracks but they're light, so no smoking gun and only circumstantial evidence, they are now my top suspect. After watched baby squirrels, never the adults, chew off and discard my new oak leaves and then eating just the new stem growth (I think), and after reading the first spring is the hardest on new squirrels looking for food I'm just assuming they are desperate. Never had the problem with baby squirrels because I never had them, a neighbor was killing every one he could for 20 yrs, he stopped and I don't mind them.....I think.