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New Farming Opportunity - Hay for the Winter - The Worst Part of the Farm and The Plan to Improve It
Opportunity Costs - we want to expand our acreage, knocking on doors of neighbors and offering row-cropping rent, but no takers. But we’ve finally got a new opportunity to expand for next year. This has sparked the conversation on opportunity costs, for example, we could move the Northern MN to get more land for less dollars, but we would have less fertility and a smaller customer base. What else is there to consider? Have you made changes to your farm based off of opportunity costs?
Hay for the winter - although they have an open salad bar, the sheep started eating the hay bales that we’ve placed in the field for winter eating. We will need to keep them from eating their winter food so we placed some wire around the bales as a deterrent.
Wethers, Puppies, and Lotsa Green
“while she is rather standoffish, she does a great job guarding the flock”
We had some wethers that we were not certain that the castration “took” so they are with our rams. Our first livestock guardian dog, Puppers, is acclimating to our rams and the other 2 puppies. Puppers has shown her worth - while she is rather standoffish, she does a great job guarding the flock. We discuss the plans we have for our male (Bob) and female (Shep) pups, how we keep the rams separate from the ewes.
We have been having excellent rain lately and now we are chasing the grass growth. We’ve had to adjust, re-grazing a paddock we thought we were done with for awhile.
Rain, Sweet Rain - Livestock Guardian Dogs
After the dry squeeze in southern MN, we were relieved with all the rain. We had been holding back some paddocks, now a tad overgrown, to make sure we had enough fresh forage for the flerd. We will now be able to more aggressively move forward in our paddocks.
Ever since we moved out of Highland cattle, we have found a need to add livestock guardian dogs. There’s been a learning curve for us in raising them, and we are focused on acclimating them to our set-up. We added a new dog this week, a male named Bob, so we can produce our own dogs in the future. We feed our dogs ground trim meat from our butchered steers, so they have no reason to want to leave, but the big dog, Puppers, likes to run if she gets scared. To keep her from running far, we tied her to a post pounder, a tip we learned from watching Greg Judy vids. We’d love to hear any advice you have on keeping livestock guardian dogs.
Livestock Guardian Dog Learning Curve
We had a lot to learn when it came to our livestock guardian dogs. Our first dog, Puppers, has slowly learned to relax with the rams; in fact our rams are tamer than Puppers. She is useful in that she barks away predators.
Our newest dog, Shep, is acclimating to living with the sheep. When raising a livestock guardian dog, you want them to bond onto the sheep and not humans, so we have to control our impulse to pet and cuddle her.
The sheep “put in her place” and the cow, “14” gets to know Shep.
Shep trying to hang out with the flock.
Shep getting sniffed by the cow, “14”.
She’s so tired…
Shep in baby gate - she hasn’t quite learned the one wire yet.
Our livestock guardian dog and puppy interacting with the flock and cow.
The Rams
I knew one thing starting out: I didn't want high maintenance animals.
On the topic of breeding sires, no matter the animal, there are numerous ways to go about choosing how to craft and mold your flock or herd. For our flock of sheep, I took the time to sort out precisely how I wanted to make those choices, what my goals were for genetics and traits and how to go about creating a top-shelf flock of sheep
First, I'm not super tied to a breed or standard. Instead, I'm looking for a series of traits in rams and ewes that will reliably be passed down to each year's lamb crop. I selected first for hardiness, carcass and then hair coat. I knew one thing starting out: I didn't want high maintenance animals.
I'm an avid reader and consumer of information on just about whatever catches my fancy and when I got into the sheep business I read all sorts of articles and books on the matter. I knew that I wanted hair sheep - it was hard to imagine voluntarily adding labor to the equation (shearing, hoof trimming). I knew parasites could be an issue too. In reading articles and books by Greg Judy, I was sold on the hardiness of his St Croix breed, but knew they had some drawbacks around frame and weight when it came to selling for meat. I decided to cross that St Croix against the heavier framed Katahdins
I emailed Greg and Jan and arranged to buy a ram from them, and then bought already-bred, registered Katahdin ewes from a great local farmer here in MN. Buying registered gave me peace of mind about reliable breed characteristics, I met the farmer several times (also a great commercial beekeeper) and was sure of the quality of his ewes. They lambed in spring and then I had the original ewes plus their ewe lambs when we went into December to breed with the St Croix ram. He bred them all within about a week as a 6 month old. It was pretty astounding.
Using this Greg Judy ram, we've had precisely zero lambing issues with the ewes, one still born lamb and no lamb deaths after birth in the two years we've used him. It really puts paid to the old saying about "the ram is half your flock"
This year we're keeping our ewe lambs back and trading rams with another MN farmer who bought seed stock from Greg. I also bought a Katahdin ram lamb from a different local farmer. She was selling ewe lambs to me and offered him to me at a fair price. We're in the process of scaling up our flock for this winter's breeding season and while I'm sure a grown ram could get the job done, I'd rather have a second ram batting cleanup then to have some ewes 'miss' or come late.
1. Buy good rams. You can improve your flock rapidly even if you start with mediocre ewes by using a good ram
2. Keep them separate. We keep our rams on the far corner of the farm by our house from June-December. We don't want dead winter lambs and we want to control the breeding window
3. Keep enough rams. Just because someone's ram can breed 100 ewes doesn't mean it's a good idea. I'd rather have two rams covering 40 ewes and then have a one week lambing window.
Moving the Flock
I find that my pasture conditions improve if I keep the sheep in tight, daily paddocks. It creates competition and they aren't picking and choosing what to eat.
The flock is awaiting their daily move.
From the time our sheep flock was just 2-3 ewes, we've been diligent about daily moves and appropriately sized paddocks. We do this for a few reasons. First and foremost, it's a flock health issue. We don't want to be in a place where we're worming sheep and doctoring them on a regular basis. Daily moves are the answer to this. Sheep tend to post up and sleep in the same place if given the opportunity. I will go out at sunset and will see a giant pile of sheep on the highest point they can find, even if this is only a few feet higher than the rest of the paddock. Moving them each day keeps them from laying down in their own manure. Second, I find that my pasture conditions improve if I keep the sheep in tight, daily paddocks. It creates competition and they aren't picking and choosing what to eat.
Note the dark line in the grass.
This is the line between yesterday’s eaten field and today’s un-eaten field.
Moving them daily prevents over-grazing — the the progression from each day.
I've tried moving sheep at different times of the day, and have settled on evening moves. When I moved sheep in the morning, I found that they ate for a little while in the morning, and then found some shade during the heat of the day. The result was that there wasn't an even and complete graze of the paddock and the 'competition' benefit wasn't as pronounced for body condition nor pasture condition. The same goes for mid-day moves, but even more pronounced. Further, animals tend to resist moving during the heat of the day, and if there's any length of drive up a lane, it can quickly go sideways. Evening produces the best results for animal and pasture alike: it is cooling off and they have a clean place to move to. They are ready to eat, and happy to bed down in a clean pasture.
The flock devours the new paddock of grass, clover, and alfalfa.
Moves are relatively straightforward. I diligently call them for every move so that they now associate that call "Here, sheep" with "Time to eat". We keep our remaining cattle and sheep flock in-paddock with one wire about 12 inches off the ground. I roll up about 15 feet of the cross fence and call them. They all run through and put their heads down and start eating. I particularly enjoy that moment where there is almost silence except for the rip and tear from cattle and the unique sheep-chewing noises. I put the cross fence back up (as a backfence) and fill their stock tanks and check minerals. I find it an excellent time to do the important and necessary task of eyeballing each animal for health concerns. For instance, our oldest ewe had triplets this year, and she just cannot seem to find a way to put condition back on. I make a note that it may be time to consider culling her out and head back to the house.
All of this sounds complicated, and I suppose it is to a relative newcomer. In terms of time, daily move and watering chores amount to about 30 minutes total. The constant and daily interaction with the animals ensures that there's little fussing and cursing and shaking of fists. The sheep know the drill and I am consistent. Symbiosis between farmer and livestock.
Moving the flock.
The Burkel Farm
The Burkel Farm from the beginning.
The Burkel Farm is in a state of transition. We started out with a roughly 50-50 mix of Highland cattle and our sheep flock. We've begun the process of scaling down cattle and heading into a full time sheep operation. Because of this, we're at around 35 ewes and two rams. This is particularly understocked for our property, but we wanted to capitalize on high prices for our Highlands along with timing of sending steers in for processing. The wonderful thing about sheep is, we can scale back out to our stocking rate with sheep in one breeding year. That being said, our sheep flock is excellent. We invested in Greg Judy rams and put them into a set of registered Katahdin ewes from a great local breeder as the start of our flock.
2020, summer - The start of our flock and steer. We began by farming small acres outside of the city we lived in from a generous family member, primarily chickens, bees and a small set of sheep.
2020, fall - We moved to our small farm with our starter flock and steer.
Winter, 2020-21 - We added two Highland heifers and eventually a Highland bull. We fed them high quality hay during the snow-covered months.
Spring, 2021 - Some of our flock’s new lambs.
Summer, 2021 - the flock continued to grow with new lambs.
Summer, 2021 - most of the flock and herd.
Summer, 2022 - after an amazing year of lambing, we decided to scale down in cattle and scale up in our sheep flock.