They toyed with the idea of a donkey, but they went with four sheep instead, and now four ewes are mowing the grounds of Paris’ Municipal Archives. It’s all part of a pilot program where, if successful, sheep will trim the grass of Parisian public spaces and burn no fossil fuels along the way. The New York Times has more on this old school solution to a modern environmental problem.
Will there be curious children near this electric fence? My children’s Montessori school had a miniature goat to mow the lawn but they never needed an electric fence. As for endangered orchids, wouldn’t the lawn mower do more damage? They didn’t even find the orchids until the sheep arrived. Did they pick sheep over donkeys because vellum (archives) comes from sheepskin?
They do pollute methane.
Google tried this out a few years ago.
http://techcrunch.com/2009/05/01/google-rents-goats-to-replace-lawnmowers-im-not-kidding/