Any sheep, goat, or cattle operation needs to provide feed for their animals through the cold winter months when the grass is growing slowly or isn’t growing at all. That’s where having a big, dry barn comes in. Traditionally this problem is overcome by cutting grass in the spring and summer months, drying it, and putting the now “hay” in the barn to store it until winter. This is often referred to as “putting up hay”, most likely because the hay is kept on the second story of the barn.
Modern hay farms use two essential resources to grow hay in our area; water and petroleum. Pastures are heavily irrigated to maximize numerous cuttings, similar to alfalfa in production. The grass is mowed using heavy equipment (typically tractors) and baled to bring in the harvest. A very efficient system.
Since hay can be expensive, we try to buy as little as possible. We figure the less reliance on off-farm inputs, the better. This may be a drop in the bucket, but the less demand we have for hay the less demand is placed upon the resources named above. But most importantly, ruminants by their very nature are grass-harvesting machines and will do the job without using any of those valuable and costly resources.
By dividing our pasture into smaller paddocks and planning the amount of grass the sheep self-harvest, we have shifted our attention away from micro-management of our livestock to the holistic management of our pastures. This method contributes to healthier animals and grasslands because our sheep spend little time in any one place. Through better land management this season, we didn’t have to feed hay until the 1st of December.
Tag: Rotational grazing
Katahdin
As you can see from reading through our earlier posts, most of our attention is focused on the chicken. But equally important is our small, cloven-hoofed, sunlight-harvesters raised in conjunction with our poultry; also know as sheep.
The breed we raise is called Katahdin. They function as the grass mowers, water conservationists, worm habitat enhancers, and mineral recyclers, as well as being just all around fun in our fields. Focusing our management on our grassland eco system instead of on the sheep helps us to achieve these things. We mob them up (keep them in closer together with electric nets) and keep them moving (restrict the amount of time they have access to a given paddock).
Referred to as a hair sheep, Katahdin shed their wool coats naturally every summer and are a nice fit for our Mediterranean-like climate.
Because this type of sheep sheds it wool, they have less lanolin wax (a water-proofing substance that wooly sheep create to protect themselves in wetter climates). Less lanolin makes for mild, delicious meat.
Pradaria Farm 