Feeding Sheep?

[TAC2]

This post started in another topic on goat feed. Thought it might be helpful to move to a new topic on feeding sheep since there may be other folks out there just starting out.

 

My experience with sheep is also that they will do just fine on brush. I think, in fact, that they are better at bramble and hardwood brush control than most goats. Despite their reputation, goats can be very selective grazers and browsers. Sheep tend to eat what's in front of them.

 

Two sheep to the acre is an incredibly low stocking rate. Most improved pasture in your neck of the woods should carry five to eight ewes plus their lambs. Even dialing that back by 50 percent to allow for the fact that you're in reclamation makes me wonder if the reason that you need to feed so much is that your pasture is under-grazed, which is probably worse for reclaimed ground than overgrazing.

 

 

Bill:

 

The catch here is "improved pasture." Before we had goats and now sheep, we had horses. While we had them, we had a cycle of drought year followed by heavy rains & mud winter through summer, followed by drought again for two years. By the time we were done, our largest pasture was practically hard baked clay you couldn't drill through with almost no grass. We initially brought in the goats to help clear more land for pasture. Now the horses are gone, goats are down to three and we're just starting small with the sheep to determine what is best suited here (and what I like .) Pasture "reclamation" takes quite a bit of time and money to do, but we're back on track. I promised myself I wouldn't allow things to get so bad again. Sad to say, not every pasture in Virginia is lush and green and many are rocky with minimal soil cover. Lots of red clay here and further east, sandy loam. Best soils are in the along the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Valley and that's where you find the best farmland, which is already in use. Unfortunately, we have to live close to where we work the day jobs and I already commute 1.5 hours each way.

 

BTW, any more advice you care to share on sheep, please do!

 

~ Tru

 

ETA: Right now we use e-net from Premier to subdivide the large pasture and move the sheep as soon as they graze a section down. Is there something better to do to keep things well grazed?

[Bill Fosher]

This would be a subject for a farm visit and about 15 or 20 hours of discussion, but I'll hit some of the highlights.

 

The basic principles are:

 

The cheapest sheep feed is pasture in most cases.

The cheapest pasture is native pasture.

The cheapest way to improve native pasture is with animal impacts.

All other feeds should be considered supplements to or replacements for pasture.

 

Electronet is a fabulous tool. I've never used e net; I'm skeptical of anything with string uprights. Still, the idea is the same. How you use your animals to improve pasture is dependent upon their stage of production. For instance, asking lactating ewes with twins and triplets to clean up brush or unpalatable weeds is the short path to a lousy lamb crop. But dry ewes don't have anywhere near the nutritional requirements that lactating ewes do. My suggestion is that manage lambing time such that you have dry ewes for a good part of the growing season to work on improving your pasture. Reserve good pasture (or purchased feed) for late gestation, lactation, and lamb growth.

 

I should talk about what I mean when I talk about quality in pasture. I don't mean protein levels. This can be confusing, because a lot of people assume that quality=protein and vice versa. Sheep require relatively little protein when compared to dairy cattle, for instance, even though pound for pound a ewe with triplets is working harder than the average Holstein cow. What sheep need is energy in abundance, which is sugar or starch. They need some protein, but when forage is over about 18 percent, they start having to use a metabolically expensive process to convert protein to energy. They can actually lose weight if protein is too high and energy is too low.

 

So good, palatable grasses are what drive pasture quality. Legumes (clover, alfalfa, birdsfoot trefoil, and a few others) fix atmospheric nitrogen that feeds the grasses. They also provide highly palatable and digestible energy and protein for the sheep.

 

You need to manage your pastures so that you get a balance that is mostly grass with some legumes. I've heard targets of 70/30 or 80/20, but I can't be that fussy -- at some point I just take what's on offer.

 

Animal impact and recovery time are your two most important tools. What you want to have happen is that you have enough animals concentrated in an area that it is cleaned up in no more than five days (three would be better, particularly when grasses are growing rapidly) and enough space that they do not return to that area until the pasture has fully recovered. The idea is that animals never graze any regrowth of the desirable plants until they have recovered, but that everything is pretty well defoliated before you move them. This ensures strong growth of the roots and will eventually favor species that are adapted to grazing -- that is, grasses and legumes -- over weeds and brush.

 

In my experience, this requires a very high stocking density (different from stocking rate: stocking density is the amount of animal liveweight on a paddock at one time). Probably 100 to 150 ewes per acre would be a minimum, but you'll need to experiment with your own pasture. Bear in mind that 25 ewes on a quarter acre is 100 ewes per acre; you don't need a big flock to put these principles to work for your farm.

 

Over time, you'll be able to increase the stocking rate (the number of sheep on the place) because the pasture will become denser and lusher. Some outside inputs may be needed -- lime is almost always needed, and you may want to jump start the process by adding some seed.

 

As you've learned the hard way, you can't pug up pasture an expect it to recover well. During wet times, you need to keep your animals on dry spots or decide that you're going to sacrifice one paddock. But one of the nice things about sheep and goats is that they don't tend to pug nearly as badly as horses or cattle.

[Tea]

If you browse loose, as we do. Test local indigenous brush. You will find some of them have very good feed value and are high in protien, and are palatable. Of course you need to be familiar with toxic plants when browsing loose.

Some of this brush are evergreen through the winter and don't loose as much food value as pasture does.

 

In this way we save on our hay, we put up.

(Land around here is mostly forest.)

However you need to have sheep that do well on browse.

[Bill Fosher]

Tea raises a good point: the most important thing to do is to raise sheep that are right for the resource base that you have, as opposed to picking a breed based on what you think will sell, fiber specifications, or what not. Pick your sheep for your land and your management.

[Tea]

Thanks Bill,

 

Bill raises the best point, in my opinion, on pasture management.

[TAC2]

Many thanks to both of you (Tea and Bill). Lots of great easy to understand information. So many extension publications are far too technical.

[Wendy V]

Pick your sheep for your land and your management.

 

Bill, can you expand on that thought? As you know, I have a new farm and I have a mix of breeds, wool and hair, because I don't know what will work. How could I pick better? What variables should I consider when picking a breed? I've already selected against fiber, because I know nothing of that market and I won't spend the high prices on breeding stock. But besides that, I'm clueless.

[Tea]

I know you are asking Bill, but my tea water was just put on the wood stove and I thought I would add my two cents worth.

 

My land is wooded, very little pasture.

 

So I need hardy sheep that can browse. A lowland type wouldn't suit me. Dorset, suffock, They couldn't rustle enough feed.

I don't want to grain, or give much hay. And hay on our island just isn't that great. So again lowland type sheep wouldn't suit me.

 

But- my hardy crossbreds don't produce twins and triplets as often, singles are more the rule. They grow slowly so for meat, you will be keeping them longer. Since my forage is free that doesn't bother me that much. But if you were looking to sell lambs at 4- 6 months they wouldn't be at the weight you wanted. And if you had to FEED them well you wouldn't make any money.

 

My sheep need very little help at lambing, have plenty of milk for cheese etc. So low maintenance there.

(And I am thinking of doing the sheep dairy thing. Already they supply my family)

 

I use all my wool, so I want a sheep to have a long staple and good feel. The best way to get a idea of this is have someone teach you to spin. I sell my yarn and clothing at the local farmer's market.

I don't like the double coats of some primitive breeds so I cross breed that out. But it rains alot here so sheep whose wool parts down the back will freeze, so I breed that out too.

 

I like smart, tough sheep with horns. They are harder to work with but survive small predators. Frankly some of my rams are sons of guns, but no coyote is going to eat them.

 

I browse my sheep loose so they walk alot. They need to have good feet and grow some horn or they will be lame.

The parasite load on the island is high. So if a sheep does not show great resistance to parasites its culled.

If it even gets the idea of having bad feet its culled.

 

You have to figure out what your land is like, how much time and money you have and what you want to produce and go from there.

 

Hope that helps!

 

I am sure Bill has great ideas too!

[juliepoudrier]

You have to figure out what your land is like, how much time and money you have and what you want to produce and go from there.

I'd add to this to say that it doesn't hurt to find out what others in your area are raising, and why, especially if any of the breeds you encounter appeal to you. Compare their management systems to yours (because if, like Tea, they are browsing, and you plan to graze or feed, then you might choose different breeds) to see what's possible in your area. Also if folks are raising a particular breed in your area and not going broke doing so, then you can assume that the breed(s) they have are suitable for your climate (if they're breeds you might like to have).

 

I know folks in central and western VA who raise border cheviots, commercial wool sheep (dorset x cheviot x BFL and maybe some other stuff), montadales, and corriedales. There's a person on this list who has border leicesters and lives somewhere near Richmond. There are flocks of karakuls, tunis, and Scottish blackface, horned dorsets, and texels. And these are just the folks I know personally. I talked to someone the other day who has Hog Island sheep. But you can bet that most of those breeds will do well in VA, though not all under the same management systems.

 

Obviously if you want to sell wool to handspinners, you'll probably be looking for a fine-wooled (or at the least, medium wooled) breeds. If you also want milk and good meat, then you might consider a dual purpose breed like the tunis. You might find that what works best for you is to breed your own crossbreds to get the best fleeces, milk, and meat you can in one animal. One of the nicest fleeces I ever saw was on a tunis x lincoln. She had a good frame, threw nice sized lambs, and had a fleece to die for.

 

And of course if all you ever plan to keep is a few sheep (say, fewer than 10), your management costs and issues won't be the same as someone who keeps many more sheep.

 

I am a little different from other sheep breeders in that I am doing rare breed conservation, so my primary goals aren't quite the same as someone who's raising strictly to sell freezer lambs or for the handspinner market (or dealing with dairy). In my case, that doesn't mean that I don't expect to make some money off my sheep--just that I might have to market my products a bit differently. The karakuls originated in the steppes of Central Asia, so they are adapted to arid conditions and temperature extremes. And they do well in this part of the country--turning to browse last year when the drought destroyed our grass. So they're very hardy, but they are also a carpet wool sheep, which means handspinners aren't as interested in their wool. But weavers, felters, and rugmakers are, so I simply need to market to the niche that makes sense. If I wanted to make the most money the fastest, I'd probably be raising dorper x sheep and selling freezer lambs....

 

Long-stapled sheep either need to be shorn twice a year unless you're planning to do your own wool processing (commercial processors can't handle a full year's growth from long-stapled sheep).

 

Horned sheep can get caught in fences and feeders and so require more intensive management (i.e. checking fences and feeders) that polled sheep.

 

I don't have great pasture here, and this year and last I had to start feeding hay fairly early, but they manage on hay and a good mineral mix, with corn given for flushing and for ewes in late stage gestation and during lactation. They also get a good custom mineral mix designed for this area.

 

In the past, when I've put weaned lambs (and prior to weaning) on creep, I have gotten a custom mix from a mill near here. It's costlier than straight corn or weaning on to pasture, but I tend to lamb a bit earlier in the year, which means there's not a lot of grass when I'm weaning, and so I need to feed lambs to give them a good start. If you breed so that your lambs are weaned when the grass is lushest, then you can save the cost of feeding.

 

Sorry for the rambling--just throwing some thoughts out there.

 

J.

[sheepandakom]

I know folks in central and western VA who raise border cheviots, commercial wool sheep (dorset x cheviot x BFL and maybe some other stuff), montadales, and corriedales. There's a person on this list who has border leicesters and lives somewhere near Richmond. There are flocks of karakuls, tunis, and Scottish blackface, horned dorsets, and texels. And these are just the folks I know personally. I talked to someone the other day who has Hog Island sheep. But you can bet that most of those breeds will do well in VA, though not all under the same management systems.

 

I live near Richmond and I like my Border Leicesters, but they do require a good bit of grain, at least on my current pasture. I also have a small flock of Cheviot ewes that I have been crossbreeding with my Border Leicester rams. So far, I have been pleased with the lambs they've given me. The second generation have nicer fleeces and are a bit bigger than my tiny Cheviots. They seem to do well on limited grain and less than stellar pastures. I don't know about lambing since my '07 crop of crosses gave me only one ewe lamb. She was a late May baby so I didn't breed her last fall. She got marked the first week I had the ram in and hasn't been remarked.

 

I am still in the experimenting stage with my flock. I intend to keep a flock of show Border Leicesters and a flock of a more commercial type sheep. This fall I crossed the Cheviot ewes with the Border Leicester again, but next fall I am planning to add a Bluefaced Leicester ram, too so that I can compare the BLx lambs to the BFLx lambs. Julie will think I am crazy, but I am picking up three bred Scottish Blackface ewes in the next week or two. Next fall I will cross them with my BL and/or BFL ram. My ultimate goal is to have a medium sized sheep with a good mothering instinct that does well on pasture and limited grain.

 

My ewes are fed a grain mix that I buy from a local mill. I don't like pellets and was thrilled to find a place that mixes their own feeds. They mix custom batches as small as 500 pounds, but right now I am using one of their own 12% mixes for the adult ewes and a %16 percent they make for the lambs. Both feeds are actually horse feeds, but the mill doesn't put copper in any of their custom mixed feeds, so it isn't a problem.

 

This year I let the ewes graze the entire pasture, but I have several rolls of the premier electric netting sitting in the barn. I plan to put them to use this spring. My old property wasn't fenced well, so I kept the sheep behind the netting. The new property doesn't have a fencer and I just never got around to installing one. I have seen portable solar powered fencers but I am not sure how they are grounded if they are portable. For those if you that have used them, do you pound in a ground rod every time you move the fence or am I missing something? I am also concerned that a lot of my pasture doesn't have any shade. Should I just put the sheep in the open field at night? I would like to reseed my pastures but I may have to wait until spring. I am not sure if it is too late or not.

 

Emily