We are doing a check up on the sheep every couple weeks this year and a weigh-in for the lambs once a month. The flock as a whole are looking very healthy with only a couple needing a dose of wormer. The largest lamb is 86lbs and the average weight is 67lbs. The lambs are averaging about 10lbs larger this year than the same time in the previous season! We have also had zero losses this season so the more frequent check-ups seem to be paying off. I wonder if we will end up growing more pounds of lamb per acre this year even though we have fewer lambs total?
#permaculture #permies #homesteading #grownostr #meshtadel #selfsovereignty #sheep #lamb #rotationalgrazing #hairsheep #katahdin #regenag #regenerativeagriculture
quotingKatahdin hair sheep wrapped up the third grazing loop and have begun the fourth pass of pastures here at the homestead.
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The sheep quickly ate through the pastures in the yurt field. There is a sheep we call lonestar which refused to stay in the paddocks in this area. We were forced to keep the sheep moving a bit more quickly than we wanted to keep lonestar happy and stop her from teaching all the other sheep how to push under the fencing.
We sold off a pair of ram lambs as breeding stock which will help to reduce the pressure on the pastures now that the regrowth is starting to slow down. Last year we kept too many sheep on pasture late in the season and had to take the sheep to a neighbor's pasture to let ours rest for a couple weeks.
After 39 days the sheep returned to where they started to begin the 4th pass grazing the pastures for the season, once again in a heavily wooded paddock. I continued to break the tops of the sapling trees to offer more food for the sheep while the grass in the understory gets more established.
Now the sheep are working thier way through some of the best pasture on the homestead and will be heading up to the higher ground in a day or two.
#permaculture #permies #grownostr #homesteading #sovereignfood #selfsovereignty #sheep #hairsheep #rotationalgrazing #regenag #regenerativeagriculture #silvopasture