Sheep

Prairie Winter Priorities

Sheep / January 21, 2022 / By

Yesterday morning arrived with cold temps, stiff winds and snow. I chose to feed hay right where the ewes were bedded so they could remain where they were, snug and protected from the winds. The wind keep at it all day long creating drifts wherever the landscape allowed; drifts that had to be cleared the next morning in order to feed at all.

In the evening I did not bother getting the side by side vehicle out to drive out to the flock but instead I loaded dog food and bowls into a zippered grocery bag and went out on foot. The flock had not moved; the guardian dogs barked a warning at my unusual approach on foot. I dropped down into the hollow to feed them and sat for a spell in the stillness of the prairie cold but where the wind couldn’t reach. The snuffling noises of ewes and the nudges of a dog nose now and again provided small comforts at the close of another day.

Every winter there is a stretch that draws out the pure simplicity of what needs to be done. A prairie winter simplifies your priorities in a manner that a prairie summer can never do. The chief priority of every day is getting food to animals and getting them to shelter if needed. Each morning is an assessment of where to feed that day and how. It probably bears noting here that I don’t rear sheep with any intention of mass production and therefore do not lamb in the winter. I rear sheep with the intention of having grazers on the land and wool in my hands. This minimalist approach allows some leeway in the winter workload and means I do not spend my winter in a barn. It also means that while I use a tractor to feed nowadays (this was not always the case), I’m not running numerous pieces of equipment or heating barns during the coldest months of the year.

In a season when weather can present all manner of extra steps, like clearing snow so you can access the hay feed or the route to pasture, it’s getting the work done that matters. And wether it is a calm day or an ugly one, the feeling of relief and gratitude upon getting hay feed rolled out for the ewes is present all winter long but particularly when working on one’s own.

This is only our second year of feeding using a tractor with a cab on it. As I drive out with a hay bale for the ewes, sitting in the relative comfort of a tractor cab, I am baffled that prior to this we managed feeding with an open cab tractor for eight + years, and prior to that, we managed with no tractor at all. We arrived to this place with just the two of us, no left over equipment or livestock infrastructure to start us off. When crop farming proved a dismal failure (and thank god it did) we made it work because we had to, but from my seat in the cab today, being able to warm my hands and my face for a few moments, I can not believe we did so. Feeding a large flock without a tractor feels like a distant, forgotten life; like a story I told once a long time ago. And if I take into account the farms around us, each with three/four or more tractors parked in the yard, it seems more outlandish that in the twenty first century we went without one for as long as we did.

Not having equipment, and not able to go into more debt so we could have it, is one of the many occurrences that lead us down the road of getting where we are today. And I suppose the doing of it is what gives me the perspective of knowing that the efficiency promised us by way of using equipment doesn’t really add up. And of knowing there is always a way and sometimes not getting on the industry bandwagon in the first place is the only way.

Winter Grazing Sheep

Sheep / January 3, 2022 / By

January. A new calendar year is upon us. The longest night has passed, the daylight slowly lengthens and, on the prairie, the cold winter continues.

Speaking of grass based sheep in a place where winter reigns for 5 months of the year seems a little ill matched. Thoughts of grass blow out with the first wind swept snow and are replaced with more immediate thoughts of where to shelter and feed the flock. But even though grass is not first in our thoughts during winter the decision to keep the flock out on pasture is made with the prairie land in mind and the natural inclinations of livestock.

When people hear of sheep reared on grass in a cold climate place like the prairie there is curiosity with how well they do with foraging in the snow. I think sheep posses an exceptional will to forage from the land, and if I possessed half as much will as these ewes my life might be in a very different place. If there is morsels of grass where hay is being fed they will forage. Heavy snow, ice crust and bitter cold will stop them, but once these pass, exploration and grazing resumes. The tough part is stopping them if you do not want them to keep picking at the grass.

The ewes grazed on stockpiled forage up until Christmas when we moved them to a pasture that could use more hay residue and natural fertilizer that results in areas of hay feeding. However, the ewes are showing signs that they are not as content on this pasture and it took a couple days before they quit trying to return to the previous bed ground in the evening and use the new one.

Once snow load builds up and serious cold sets in one’s choices about where to feed become limited by the inability to get around out on the pasture. Then you balance what you can get done in extreme conditions with what you want to see happen. In this fashion winter provides a reprieve from obsessing about grass and grazing. I welcome this reprieve. I can shelf the worry and let Mother Nature hold on to it for the winter.

Plotting Ewes

Sheep / December 12, 2021 / 2 Comments / By

The conversation around here is a little one sided right now as ewes face off on a regular basis, showing their less than docile nature as they cycle for breeding. Sheep are often describe as sweet or docile, words that are perhaps derived more on account of their soft appearance rather than their actual nature.

When ewes get to fighting they are far less concerned with my presence then they are when they are causally hanging out or grazing. When moving them out to pasture there is often a pair or a trio too engaged in fighting to notice the flock is leaving and when made to move to catch up they will continue butting each other as they go. They don’t quit easy. The guardian dogs are unfazed by the antics of the ewes and so long as no fighting ewes bother them they bother no fighting ewes.

The rams were turned out yesterday morning so there is plenty more jostling going on in the flock right now as rams are occupied with keeping other rams off of cycling ewes and with breeding. Over the course of the next month they will be run a little ragged; the odd individual ram will even forgo eating. With the flock being smaller there is no concern over ram power (having enough rams) so if the ewes are cooperative in timely cycling I expect the breeding season to be a short one. This of course will play out at lambing time next May/June.

Even though breeding time is the beginning of the next production year I always feel a sense of completeness with the turning out of the rams. Perhaps on account of it being the last flock task in the calendar year; much like shearing is the first flock task of the next calendar year and so it feels like a beginning. With the rams out with the flock I feel as though I have a little breathing room and I’ll take the pauses where they come.