Pasture design question

[ullbergm]

G'day, you are certainly doing the right thing consulting with the group before you start.

Sometimes I tend to over-analyze things to the point where I never actually get started, lol.

It has been our experience in over almost 50 years of livestock production that the key is to have your required infrastructure in "place", before you introduce the stock. The fact is that "starting from scratch" you have much to learn ,I am still learning about stock, landscape and water even after all these years.

That makes a lot of sense, much harder to build a barn if you have to worry about the animals escaping while you drive the tractor around.

Do you get snow? Can you graze year round? Are there other sheep folks nearby?

No snow to speak of here, I planted both a warm and a cold season pasture based on the recommendation from the local Ag Extension, so my hope would be that i could graze year round.
There are a few small sheep/goat operations within 50 miles, but not a lot.

On your plan you do not indicate where your house is? I would suggest about a level walk of about 50 meters.

The house/garden/etc. is on the west side, the house is about 75m from the gate on the map, all flat ground.

Bay is correct about a BIG BARN the largest you can afford. I would also suggest a set of yards with a drafting race and if you can include a sheep handler ,mores the better.

I'm not familiar with what a drafting race is/does. I have seen some of the sheep handling equipment in videos that help you sort them.

If at all possible stay away from the wool breeds unless you are going to learn ,"how to shear and have a shearing stand off of a small set of yards in the barn." However ,it could be you have a ready made market to hand spinners and weavers ?If this was the case enquire as to what type of wool they prefer? If you can secure the sheep a small flock of Naturally Colored Corridales would return a premium for the fleece and still produce an acceptable table lamb or sell excess boys as "lawnmowers." When Jenny and our girls were young I bred a flock like this because they took up spinning. Over time I had customers from the city who would travel to the farm and select a sheep and I would shear it on the spot.

From the research I have done, there is no market for wool around here (even though that's what my daughter would prefer we do rather than meat sheep..).

Now to your meat sheep choice, who will buy your lambs? If you breed a lamb for the white folks market ,you are immediately in competition with sheep farmers who may run 500/1000 ewes and you will struggle to produce a lamb at any where near the cost they can .I would look around your immediate area ,how far to your nearest large population center? What is the ethnic breakup, does the town have a mosque? here is an immediate market for the "right" type of lamb and will return a premium price ,if you are producing a sheep that looks in part like the sheep of their homeland. Setting up this flock will be more expensive than the "run of the mill sheep flock", but you will be a "price setter ,not a price taker."

I have been doing market research and we have a mosque in our town and a sizable Hispanic population as well.

The other major market would be the affluent areas of one of the large cities that is not too far away (80km).

I had not considered that the breed looking like what they are used to from their home land would make a difference.

In closing can I suggest you take a look at FB Australian Painted Sheep, this is my group ,made up of about 75% female sheep farmers and a great group of girls to boot.......T.O.R.

I'll check that out, thanks.

 

[ullbergm]

I have 15 acres, which has several shelters and cross fencing. First mini horses, now a few old minis and a lot of goats...more coming. I have trees but, none when I bought 20 yr ago....huge peanut field before....open land.

That's pretty much where we are at now, we got 15 acres from a field that has been farmed for a long time and now we are trying to make something of it.

Grasses here are mixed, along with forages that some may consider undesirable BUT goats do not. Yes I encourage dandelions and routinely toss seed for chicory, turnips, vetch, etc. In fall, barley is added. No chemicals used here. Some forage is only good for certain seasons (heat/cool) and that's fine as there is a good stand of mixed grass established. You plant for what your animals need. Sheep graze grasses better than goats.

I keep honey bees so i encourage dandelions and random wild flowers as well.

Varieties of the grasses you suggest have different growth and nutrition factors, so check that out. Bermuda has good forage type and others that are not so productive. Fescue, use less toxic endophyte types.

I've been taking soil samples and got some suggestions as far as what to fertilize with, i'm trying to get up with the Ag Extension now to see what they recommend. I'm afraid of feeding the weeds as well if i fertilize..

You will need shade for these animals. Areas like a a carport are easy to add. I'm in VA, SE corner, so only a few miles from NC line. We get heat!

It does get hot in the summers around here, that's for sure..

 

[Baymule]

I definitely like the barn in the pasture. Dry lot fence in front and in the back too. It gives you options.

I built a Pig Palace. LOL It is a 12'x12' three sided shed with a 200' roll of wire enclosure with a 12' gate. So they had plenty of room. It is between the garden fence, a pasture fence and an outside boundary fence. My husband wanted to use the existing fences, I refused, preferring to double fence the pig pen. Why? Because if the pigs got out, they were still contained. If I used the existing fences and they got in the garden, it would be destroyed. If they got out on the outside fence, they would be OUT and GONE.

So use the same thought on your barn and dry lot. Out can mean an inconvenience or it can mean GONE.

If you buy round bales, be sure you have a big enough tractor to move them.

Water. I have a small flock ATM. I'll be moving with 14 ewes and a ram. Since only one of my pastures is connected to the barn, I have to haul water to the daily pastures. Big pain in the behind. I don't plan on doing that again.

When you run water lines, put a cut off valve on EVERY faucet. If you get lots of freezing weather, use frost free faucets. I don't have any of those, but I can see how they would be very useful. On below freezing weather, I cut off the water to the faucets and open the faucets all the way.

Temporary netting. If you are going to set it up, run the lane, then "move" the pastures to see if you like the lane idea.

Pastures. I use a mix of cool season and warm season grasses. The more variety, the better. Pure bermuda and pure fescue is boring and can be nutritionally deficient. Think of it this way. Say your favorite food is broccoli. You LOVE broccoli. But you only get broccoli for every meal and nothing else. How long will it take for you to be starving for something else, something with a different nutrition in in that your body craves? As @Mini Horses said, Chicory, dandelion, vetch and other "weeds" and grass roots all reach to different depths in the soil and bring up different nutrients in their leaves.

In early spring when the grasses are vibrant green and soft, they are also watery. My sheep will come off pasture and hit the hay for the fiber in it. I keep baking soda out for them to stave off bloat. The new green grasses will bloat them up and they die. When coming off dry lot, I limit their time on new grass to 2 hours, then back to dry lot with hay and baking soda.

My sheep are hitting a patch of chickweed that grows rampant in horse manure behind the big barn. It is high in vitamin C and minerals. It is actually pretty good, makes a good salad or tacos. LOL But I pick mine where the livestock doesn't graze.

If you decide to divide your land into pastures, you might plant patches of different plants in them. Sheep will eat chicory to the ground and kill it. So if you had a chicory pasture and rotated them on/off you wouldn't let them eat it to the ground. Plus you could let it bloom and go to seed in the fall, thus replenishing your chicory stand.

I have a mix of clovers on the land too. Clovers will bloat sheep, so must be planted with other cool season grasses such as fescue and rye grass. Keep out the baking soda! I found the white clovers to reseed and come back the best. Arrow leaf clover did not do well for me.

I hope all this makes sense and helps you. The best thing about getting advice from so many different people, is that you can choose what applies to you, your land and what you want to do. None of this is chiseled in granite and is for you to make up your own farm plan that best suits you.

 

[Baymule]

Have you checked out any livestock auctions in your area? See which ones offer a sheep/goat auction and go to it. See what is selling, ask buyers questions, watch and learn.

I was selling the meat. but the slaughter facilities got so backed up, they are booking 1 1/2 years out in advance. It is crazy. How can I set a slaughter date on a lamb that hasn't even been conceived yet? It might be better in your area, call slaughter places and make inquiries. If you sell the meat, it must be slaughtered at a USDA facility. If you sell the whole live animal to an individual, you can deliver it as a courtesy to the buyer. Then they can call and give cutting instructions and pick up their meat and pay the processing. Then you can use a state licensed custom slaughter facility.

It got to be a headache, so I just started taking mine to auction and have been happy with the results.

Some auctions do not handle sheep and goats, only cattle. Call around, go to the auctions and see for yourself. I'll be moving to an area where the sheep and goat sales are limited and really, pretty lousy. I'll probably be loading up and coming back up here to the auction I go to now. I'll be doing some auction shopping myself. LOL LOL

 

[Alaskan]

Any ideas as to about where the line is between small and big flock where temporary netting and moving water would get impractical? 5, 10, 50?

When the water hauling is too much trouble. That is the cut off.

I'm guessing its like most things, you never hear someone say they built the barn too big?

So true!

And look at some old barns too... Most barns now a days are just big pole barns.. really just a huge rectangle. But, there are other options.

There is one old barn (back in Texas) we have where the main floor is an elevated wood floor... and it also has a loft... but then you walk out of the hay area on a walkway that puts your feet at the height of the feed troughs. It has a really long feed trough the entire long side of the barn. I like the height that barn gives you, looking out over the backs of the cattle. Great conditions for hay storage too.

The barn we built up here is a drive through pole barn with a loft. The loft is nice and big, great hay storage. if I could do anything different I would shift the roof so rain and snow didn't dump right at the door (but spouse thought it looked prettier so that is what we have)

Also... with barns.... we put our barn up at the winter paddock. We rarely if ever feed hay in summer. So the summer pasture has no barn. The summer pasture has a clump of trees cut back to make a natural run-in.

Now with you.... would you feed hay all year? Or mostly summer? Or, mostly winter?

if you feed hay mostly in the winter... I would put the barn in the winter pasture area.

Make sure you make room for sorting pens, with a squeeze shoot so you can doctor, and a ramp to get them up into the truck.

 

[Mini Horses]

Toting water. When I first moved here...no house completed, a travel trailer...water transport was an issue. I bought a 50 gal container, flat bottom, longish. It fit beautifully in a tow trailer behind a mower. Fill, transport, open nozzle, fill water tanks. Still have and haved used for only water. Storm coming? No power. Fill and use.

It was handy to water trees where not enough hose to reach them!

 

[secuono]

Wow, so many good answers from a lot of people, i'll try to answer them as best i can.



That's a good point, and after making the post I did some more research and moving the water seems like a better idea for the pasture even if it adds a little work for me.



Did you continue to rotate them and added some extra food in the form of hay so that they did not trample one part of the pasture?


Sounds easy enough (assuming he is not a trouble maker..)


That's good to know.

I'm kinda thinking of just some young ewes first and run them without a ram for the first year in order to learn some of the management practices and then plan on lambing next spring.

Yes, they kept moving and hay was in a new spot.



ullbergm said:
Any ideas as to about where the line is between small and big flock where temporary netting and moving water would get impractical? 5, 10, 50?


I use 15gal rubber bins, a float valve and lots of garden hose. I just dump them to rinse out as needed.