Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

Have you watched any YouTube videos from Sandi Brock / Sheepishly Me? She is a sheep farmer up in Canada and has a huge barn where the sheep all lamb. they are in a communal pen and as they lamb she moves them into jugs at one end of the pen so they can bond and the lambs don't get stolen by greedy ewes. She has moveable panels to put the jugs up as needed. She does a lot of videos each lambing season and has a lot of sheep.
 
That is the same way the farmer described doing it in the article I read, except it was a guy in Minnesota or Michigan. I will look for her videos. Lambing in very cold areas is harder than lambing in warmer areas. I had l9ts of trouble in August, losing a ewe and several lambs due to excess heat. I have lambed in the heat of August before without that sort of trouble, but this was the hottest August in years and was also humid.

We can lamb all year round here in southern California. Our only climate problem is when we have a rainy season like El Nino. Then we need to lamb under shelter so the lambs don't drown in mud, or get pneumonia. Texas will be a big change in management practices as well as in feed and parasite control.
 
I am worried about Barber Pole worm when we move to Texas with our White Dorpers. Dorpers (referring to the black headed Dorpers) have a reputation of limited resistance to Barber Pole. Katahdins have a reputation for Barber Pole resistance due to the St. Croix breed in their early development.

However, I remembered that Wes Patton told a seminar that they had started their White Dorper flock using St. Croix sheep which they then bred to Fullblood White Dorper rams, registering the offspring ewwes as ercentges until they reached the necessary % to register the final products as Purebreds. Reading Pal Lewis' home page I saw that he did the same thing using the St. Croix base ewes and upgrading with imported Fullblood rams and using AI. have calls in to Paul Lewis and Wes Patton whose bloodlines I use heavily. I want to discuss the Barber Pole problem with them. Since most of my foundation White Dorpers were purchased from Wes and Paul, or go back to their flocks, the White Dorpers I have may be less susceptible to parasites. :fl Paul Lewis is located in southeast Oregon and Wes Patton is located in northern California above San Francisco. Both of these places get considerably more rain than we do in southern California. Oregon is considerably colder in the winter, and northern California where Wes lives get a lot of humidity in the summer. Neither seem to have much problem with parasites so a discussion with them seems in order. Both of them sell a lot of sheep to Barber Pole afflicted areas so maybe checking with those breeders about parasite resistance would be helpful too. Gotta do my homework.
 
You might have parasite resistant stock and not know it. The change will be hard on your sheep.

I know with cattle, taking cattle from lush green east Texas to west Texas and they do very poorly. You’d think bringing west Texas cattle to the green grass of east Texas would be great for them, but it ain’t so.

You will have to be careful with the sheep. Let them out on the grass for limited time daily.
 
I hope that the flock will be somewhat resistant to parasites. :fl I will have to do fecals to make sure of the worm load. Even if the sheep prove to be somewhat resistant I will have to keep up the fecals.

On the rare seasons that we have water (El Nino) we have to be careful about turning our animals out to graze. We have to still feed them with dry hay in the mornings before turning them out to avoid founder and clostridia. Then they don't always want to come back in at night if there is sufficient green grazing. This draws the coyotes and makes the LGDs work harder. If we get a rainy season this year, I will pull all the sheep off the barn/creep field and off the breeding pen pasture in order to get some forage to grow. It won't be enough for the number of sheep I have now, but those 2 pastures will give them some grazing just for their enjoyment. When I had fewer sheep and we had an El Nino couple of years, we didn't have to buy hay for 4 months! :D And the lambs made 80 lbs. by 4 months on grass alone. Of course I now have about 4 times that number of sheep.

Any change in feed is a problem and there will be a BIG change in feed for the sheep when we move to Texas. I will have to gradually change the sheep over from alfalfa to grass hay and pasture. If I move the sheep back during the winter, and feed them on hay until the pastures come back in spring, I might be able to get them switched over to pasture easier.

I need to double check the protein content of alfalfa against pasture. And do a soil test to find out what minerals are present or lacking in my soil. Since I am currently feeding prime alfalfa (southern California alfalfa is some of the best, containing a good measure of selenium and other necessary minerals) I will have to test for selenium and other minerals in my pastures when switching the sheep onto Bermuda grass. Alfalfa is 14-20% protein while Bermuda grass hay is only about 8-10% protein, with changes in protein count depending on whether the hay is first, second third cutting and when it is mowed. Considering protein percentages, I may have to provide a protein supplement during breeding and lambing, particularly to my lactating ewes and lambs. Loose mineral and salt will be much more important on pasture. Right now we use a good quality trace mineral salt block in all pens which seems enough.

The calcium percentages in alfalfa are much higher too (about 3X) which can lead to a lack of phosphorus. This is why feeding alfalfa hay or pelleted feed to rams and bucks can lead to urinary calculi. Urinary calculi are tiny calcium stones that form in the bladder and when passed through the urethra can cause blockages. These blockages prevent the animal from urinating and can cause death if they are not dissolved or removed.
 
Is your Yantis pasture grass Bermuda or Bahia? You keep talking about Bermuda. Did the NRCS rep recommend Bermuda?

My sheep don’t want the Bermuda. It’s the LAST grass they will eat. They love Bahia and other grasses, forbs and weeds. Bermuda monoculture is the Golden Standard here, sprayed for those pesky weeds, lush, green and makes lovely pastures to look at hurtling down the highway. Those monocultures may make good hay, BUT are a wasteland for sheep. The sheep eat the Bermuda HAY, but don’t want the fresh grass. Go figure.

In the lack of hay this summer, I bought Bahia hay from son’s cousin. Guess what? Sheep loved it! Bahia hay is brown and ugly, but they like it.

When y’all come back, I want to walk your pasture with you. Maybe load up the Kawasaki mule and we’ll ride the pasture, since the 3 of us are members of the “Knee of the Month Club”. LOL

What I’m trying to tell you, is get off the Bermuda fixation. It is contrary to what the Ag experts preach, but when did either of us ever follow the status quo?
 
According to the NRCS guy most of the acreage is in Bermuda pasture. The front 2/3 of the property is straight Bermuda while the rear leg (1/3 of the property) is Bahia. The cows don't bother to graze that rear section. The cows stay up in front and near the pond. Since Bermuda is what we have the sheep will have to eat it. Too bad for them since I don't plan to feed them anything else. LOL I can overseed the front pastures with clover and broadleaf pasture mix.
Yantis color survey 2.jpg
 
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