About the sheep

In the summer of 2021 I spent about a month putting up the fence on the eastern side of the driveway, which encloses about an acre. The idea was multi-purpose: have hoofed herbivores trimming the grass ahead of the chickens, pasture management, fire risk reduction, and eventually delicious 100% pasture-raised lamb from our own property. 

I looked at all kinds of animals - cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys, etc. I eventually settled on sheep for a few reasons. First, I don't have enough land to raise cattle on grass only. Sure, I could feed grain, but I wanted a grass-based operation.  With sheep, I can 'control' the ratio of grass to animal poundage more easily. 3 sheep are about a third of a cow, which is a lot easier to scale up or down easily based on the available forage, etc.  Plus, unlike goats which are browsers (eating bushes and low-hanging trees in addition to grass), sheep, properly, are grazers and want to eat grass. 

The next consideration was what kind of sheep - and here I knew I wanted a low-maintenance breed. Among all the considerations for raising sheep are parasite load, hoof-trimming, weather tolerance, the need to shear, and how often they lamb. I settled on Barbados Black Belly sheep (which is the breed of these sheep)  because they have 90% fewer parasites than other breeds, don't need hoof trimming, are hair sheep and naturally shed their winter coat (which means no shearing), and as the breed is from the warm and humid tropical island of Barbados, they are heat tolerant unlike other breeds of sheep.  Plus, they have a tendency to throw twins, and can lamb twice a year if managed properly, so have the potential to be prolific. What is more, they lamb in the pasture and don't require special containment or support.  In short, a very self-sufficient pasture animal. Plus, to me they're beautiful. I love the coloring. The only drawback is that they're quite averse to being in close contact with people; you can't pet them and are wary about getting any closer than five or six feet away.  They do love to follow a rattling feed bucket though! 

Plus, as the Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep says, you can get started with sheep with just pasture and fencing.  No need for barns and expensive containment facilities. These help, but on a small scale aren't necessary. They do need shade and a place to get out of the weather if they want it.

So then I did a lot of homework on fence that would contain and protect sheep. That then led me to fence the pasture with a 45' high, six-strand, high-tensile electric fence, powered with a solar 1 joule low-impedence charger that snaps 7000 volts every 1/30,000th of a second. The low impedence is important because it keeps the snap up even with grass contact, and the 1/30,000th of a second snap ensures that there is no fire risk from the fencing. Grass that's getting snapped will yellow and die, but, importantly, will never get hot enough to ignite. The fence is also set up with what is called pos-neg, so one strand is hot while the next is a ground, which is the best setup for dry soils like ours over the summer. Basically when a critter touches both (like, on the way through the fence), it closes the circuit and the critter gets zapped. If the grass is green, then they'll get zapped when they touch just the hot wire. 

So far the fence has proven effective against predators, as they have not been a problem. But as the flock gets bigger I'll get a livestock guardian dog. I think this is because the paddock, currently, is ringed within the exterior fence of the property, as well as being below and away from the forest at the top of Chatee, which is where most of the predator action occurs. 

So far we have Ramses, the ram, the two ewes - Milky (with the white face), Browny (with the darker face), and the lambs. The kids named Milky's one lamb Cookie (Get it.... Milk and Cookies), while Browny's two lambs don't have names yet. I do know that two of the three lambs are rams, and the smaller of Browny's lambs is a ewe. 

Stay tuned as I'll be fencing in more pasture this summer to make more of this beautiful land sheep friendly, in much the same manner as the first paddock.

Eventually, as I say, I look forward to having lamb for the family table, or perhaps live for sale.  For now, though, they're doing what they do best, which is eat grass!