First off, there’s an expression, “a sick sheep is a dead one”.  Sheep are pretty hardy.  They don’t show symptoms until they are critical, and then it’s often too late to save them.  And where I’m at, there just aren’t that many sheep farms, so vets may be a bit rusty.  Maybe there’s just too few vets for too many farms, and they can afford to be picky?  It’s pretty rediculous, though.  I had one vet 45 miles away to treat my llamas.  Another vet 30 miles away in the opposite direction for the dogs.  We had a vet who raised sheep 60 miles away, and would help me when he could, but he wasn’t often available.  There was yet another vet 10 miles away to help with the cows.  And no one would treat our horses, period.  Gone are the days when one could develop a relationship with just one vet who would treat all the critters on the farm?

Okay, I’ll get off my soap box now, and get to the point.  There are some basic supplies every shepherd will want to keep on hand.  I started with a plastic container with a handle.  It was probably meant to carry sponges and sprays while cleaning house, but it suited my purpose.  I’ve got too much stuff in it now, but when I get a barn built, I can have some shelves mounted and a small refrigerator installed to hold some of the stuff.  So, here’s what I carry:

1. antibiotics
2. syringes
3. needles
4. cotton balls
5. sterile plastic gloves
6. selenium
7. dewormer
8. vitamin B
9. iron
10. sheep nutri-drench
11. hoof trimmers
12. rectal thermometer
13. sterile wipes
14. scissors
15. vet wrap
16. sterile bandages
17. uterine boluses
18. iodine
19. liquid benadryl
20. pepto-bismol

The uterine boluses only get put in the kit during lambing season. They are antibiotics in a pill, that goes into the ewe any time you have to put your hand in there.  So hopefully, not every often!  But there may be times when you have to assist with a delivery.  Even if you just feel around, and decide she can deliver the lamb alone, if your hand went in, the bolus goes in when you’re done.  Otherwise she could come down with an infection two days later, and it would be too late to save her. (See comment above, a sick sheep is a dead sheep)

Selenium may or may not be needed, depending on the breed of sheep you raise and where you are located.  The soil in the USA is low in selenium pretty  much all over, and I raise Icelandics, which originated in a land that tests high for selenium.  We find our sheep do much better with two injections a year of selenium.  When we skip the injections, we see poor horn growth, horns that are ridged and cracked, hooves with cracks, and lambs are unthrifty.  Be careful, though.  I’ve been told that selenium overdose symptoms can be the same as underdosing.

Antibiotics: I usually get Tetracycline, because it doesn’t have to be refrigerated, unlike penicillin.  I give this to a sheep any time I see more than a small spot of blood.  I don’t over-use the drug, as there has been so much talk lately about the overuse of antibiotics and bugs that are developing an immunity to it.  But my sheep are pretty healthy most of the time.  When they head butt, sometimes there’s specks of blood at the base of the horns. I ignore that.  Sometimes they’ll tear the skin on a thorn, and a speck of blood appears.  These are minor.  But if I’m trimming the hoof and it bleeds, I put iodine on the spot, and follow up with a shot of antibiotic.  The hoof steps in manure, there’s just not a good way to keep it sanitary.  If you notice a ewe or lamb coughing much, it could be pneumonia.  Sheep will cough when they eat hay, especially if it’s dusty.  This is normal.  So you have to notice if the coughing is the same sheep all the time, or excessive.  Does the sheep have a fever?  (See list item #10).  Sheep’s normal temp is 103.  Anything higher than that is a sign of infection.  Give a shot.

Syringes and needles: I buy disposable, and I dispose them.  I don’t like boiling needles, and I’m never sure that they are really clean.  Icelandic sheep typically cost $400 each and up, so why save a few cents on needles?  That said, I do re-use a needle sometimes.  For instance, if I am giving CD&T vaccine, the dosage is 2 mm each, regardless whether it’s a newborn lamb or a full grown ram.  So I’ll get a 12 cc syringe, and a single 18 gauge, 5/8 inch needle, and pull out the full amount.  Then I can vaccinate six sheep.  I dispose of the needle (I pop it into a small, empty soda bottle), get a new needle, and use the same syringe until all the sheep are vaccinated.  I dispose the syringe then, and use a clean, new one next year.

You’ll want syringes in several sizes, but only one style!  I personally hate the “slip lip” syringe style, where the needle just pops on the end.  It has just popped off the end on me too many times, sticking into the sheep!  Sheep do not hold still while you are treating them.  The other style is called “lock tip”.  The needle twists on and off, and remains in place securely until you are done.  The price is about the same for each.  I keep 12 cc syringes, 6 cc, and 3 cc.  Then I get some 60 cc syringes (no needles) for giving sheep oral drench.  They chomp on it, and eventually crack it.  I’m looking into getting a metal drencher for the dewormers.  For needles, I prefer 18 gauge, 5/8th inch.  You don’t want a needle too thin that it bends or breaks off in the sheep.  Too thin, and thicker medicines won’t want to come out.  Too thick, and you make a big hole in the sheep’s skin, for the meds to trickle back out, or bacteria to wander in.  All sheep shots are given subcutaneously (under the skin) so you don’t need to have a longer needle.

Vet Wrap is an invaluable tool, even if I’m allergic to it.  It is stretchy latex, comes in bright colors, and it sticks to itself, so you don’t need tape to hold bandages in place.  Put a gauze pad over the wound, wrap it on securely (not too tight!) with vet wrap, and it will hold long enough until the bleeding stops before the animal figures out a way to rub it off.  Usually.  This vet wrap kind of looks like the old elastic ACE bandages for people, which are getting harder to find now.  Now the stores are stocking “vet wrap” for people.  Hello!  What about us who are latex allergic?  I think there was some latex in the old elastic bandages, but not as much.  It was well-padded with cotton.

Sterile plastic gloves: these are sometimes sold singly.  They are clear plastic, disposable, and come all the way up the arm to the shoulder.  You put one on after washing up thoroughly with soap and water, before putting your hand inside the ewe, if you need to help her deliver a lamb.  The long plastic protects your clothing, as well as her.  The gloves are really cheap, like 25 cents a piece where I am.  I have only used three gloves in five years, which I will discuss in a future post about lambing problems.

Vitamins: I’ve given vitamin B anytime a sheep seems under the weather.  It is supposed to give them a little extra boost.  I give sheep nutri-drench to newborn lambs, and again a few days later.  Sometimes I’ve added vitamin E to the drinking water.  I had to give shots of iron one year when we were hit hard with parasites.  To my knowledge, not one single sheep that got the iron survived anyway, but if I had anemic animals, I’d still give them the iron.  As long as they are still standing, there is still hope.  (See comment above, a sick sheep is a dead sheep.)

Benadryl: Once in a while, you may see a sheep with an allergic reaction to a bee sting.  Benadryl can save their life.

Pepto-bismol: when a sheep stops eating, it can get severe gas build up in the rumen.  Pepto-bismol relieves the gas.  You still need to find out why the sheep isn’t eating, but this is a first step.

Not all sick sheep die, otherwise, it would be pointless to try to treat them.  The important thing to learn is that a sick sheep may not show symptoms for a very long time, until they are critically ill.  Or the symtoms are very slight.  So in a future post, I’ll discuss what to look for and what it means.  Until then, start collecting your “emergency kit” now, before you need it.  And maybe you’ll be lucky!  We didn’t need our kit at all the first year.

Today is Earth Day, so I thought it appropriate to post a short article on the cleansers I use, which are affordable, efficient, and non-toxic to the planet.

Nearly everything around the house can be cleaned with one of three basic cleansers.  You need a spray for light-duty cleaning, a spray for heavy-duty cleaning, and a scrubbing powder for stains.  These basic three are even listed in some of the major home-cleaning manuals on the market, only they recommend a commercial name-brand.  I found that most commercial cleansers have harmful ingredients that irritate my allergies as well as damaging the planet.

For a light duty cleanser, you really can’t beat straight white vinegar in a spray bottle!  You can buy a gallon of vinegar for around two dollars, depending on where you live, and it will last you for months.  There are literally a thousand and one uses for this ancient liquid made from acetic acid and water, then fermented.  (An older method was to allow a distilled alcohol like wine, gin, or vodka to oxidize and ferment).  It can cut grease, remove mineral deposits, remove stains, eliminate odors and sterilize inhalers and baby bottles.  Sometimes it is used full-strength, sometimes diluted with water, or sometimes mixed with either salt or baking soda.  For a more detailed list of uses, check out Vinegar Tips.

I fill a plastic reusable spray bottle with full-strength vinegar.  I spritz it on mirrors and windows and wipe clean.  It takes a little more rubbing than window cleaner, but it works.  The recipe on the above vinegar tips page says to mix it with ammonia and cornstarch.  I haven’t tried that.  I don’t like ammonia and don’t have it around the house, but you might find that it works better for you.

I spritz the counter tops and sinks with full-strength vinegar and wipe clean.  The vinegar removes mildew, mold, and mineral deposits, and leaves a fresh smell behind.  The chrome faucets look almost shiny new.  I spray the tub and shower area well, then wipe dry with a cleaning rag.  I spray a wad of toilet tissue with vinegar and wipe the outside of the toilet, then flush the paper.  You can spray light switches and door knobs with vinegar to disinfect.  Lastly, I pour vinegar from the jug into the toilet - about two cups - and let sit for an hour or two.  Then brush and flush - you haven’t added chemical toxins to the waste water, and your bathroom is sparkling clean and disinfected.

For heavy duty cleaning, add some liquid laundry detergent and water to white vinegar.  Use this when straight vinegar alone doesn’t get the job done.  The only time I use this is on something VERY dirty that hasn’t been washed in a while.  Like toys that have been stored in the attic for years, after my kids outgrew them while I waited for the grandkids to come along.  I can clean pet dishes with this, gardening tools, and stubborn stains.

I forgot to mention that the straight white vinegar is great for cleaning carpets!  Even pet accidents come up without staining.  Pick up any solid mess, blot up liquid mess with paper towels.  Spray the area and blot with paper towels, continue to spray and blot until all stain is gone.  The vinegar spray worked on spilled grape juice, red playdough, and wine, as well.  For really old stains, you need to combine vinegar, salt, and baking soda.  Pour into stain, scrub, let dry, then vacuum.  This took up some three year old carpet stains that other cleaning products left behind.

Finally, for scrubbing, I use either baking soda or plain white salt.  Baking soda is less abrasive, so use on anything you don’t want scratched.  Salt has more scratch to it, so use on severe stains and deposits.

With these three cleansers, I keep everything clean and sanitary, and best of all, I don’t need to use an inhaler afterwards.  I don’t have to wear protective gloves (thank goodness, as I’m allergic to latex, too).  And I can feel good about it, because I know I’m not contributing to global warming or filling up the landfills.  I buy in bulk and reuse small containers.

The best activity you can do with your family for Earth Day is to practice greener living yourself. Children listen to our actions much more than they listen to our words.

“Maybe you’d like to take art lessons again? And do portraits like your grandma?”

No - that means dealing with people. And not all customers are satisified ones. I mean, my grandmother is the best portrait artist alive today, but even she can’t please all of the people all of the time. But working with people is more than facing crabby complainers. It means actually talking to them. Having to advertise for business. Yuck. Just not my style.

“Maybe you’d like to study interior decorating?” She wasn’t really too far off with that one. I do like to watch the home shows, but I’m more interested in fixing up my own place, not in developing a business and working with customers again.

But one day she suggested raising sheep and spinning their wool. Something about that just struck a chord and I couldn’t ignore it. The more I thought about it, the more it was something I thought I could do. The only thing holding me back was the money. My mom loves to dream up things, but my parents don’t have the resources to do most of them. I mean, I always had a roof over my head, clothes to wear, and they even gave me art lessons, but I always wanted a horse when I was a little girl, and I wanted to learn to play the harp, and neither of those things worked out. So when Mom told me about the FSA Youth Loans, I finally allowed myself to dream.

FSA- Farm Services Agency - is a government office designed to help farmers through C.C.C.D.- commodities, conservation, credit, and disaster. The FSA helps develop economic stability for farmers by helping them to adjust production to meet demand. They may back farm loans when the banks won’t, and they help distribute disaster relief. Another little known branch of the FSA though, is to encourage young people to consider a future in farming. They do this mainly through their FSA Youth Loans program.

This program allocates funds to help children between the ages of 10 and 20 develop an agribusiness, generally on their parents’ land. It is a small loan, a maximum of $5,000, so it doesn’t cover buying land. It may buy livestock, though, or fencing, or equipment, but not generally something consumable like feed.

To qualify, the youth must participate in a farm-related organization such as 4H or FFA. The project must be modest in size, and capable of creating an income so the youth can pay back the loan (which is generally at a very low interest rate). The project must be educational, and provide the youth with practical business and agricultural skills. For more information about this program, check out Rural Youth Loans.

One other girl in my 4H club had already applied for and received an FSA loan. She bought a single stud llama. She and her mom already raised, bred, showed, and sold llamas, but this new male would improve their breeding program significantly. They had lovely llamas, and marketed their lovely soft fiber. (Only sheep fiber is called “wool”. The fiber from other animals is just called fiber or hair.)

I had to write a business plan, but my loan officer was very supportive. He helped me as much as he could. He seemed genuinely proud of my efforts, and asked if he could talk about my program to others. I said okay. As long as I didn’t have to do the talking, I didn’t have a problem.

My business plan was to buy five sheep (one ram, four ewes) and two llamas, some fencing, some equipment, and some medicines. I would breed the sheep, and hope for around six lambs, as twinning is not uncommon in the breed I chose. As luck would have it, I had exactly six lambs. Two sets of twins, and two singles. I started with two white ewes, a black ewe, and a moorit ewe, and a black ram. I had a moorit lamb, some white lambs, a black lamb, and a black and white spotted lamb that looked like a mini holstein cow! They were so precious!

In my plan, I would shear their fleece twice a year, hoping to get at least $10 / pound for it. They produce about 7 pounds of fleece annually (not the lambs) so that wasn’t going to make me rich but it would help. I didn’t plan to sell any lambs the first year, but keep them to grow my flock. The second year I hoped to sell some of them, and the third year to sell all of them. At $400 a sheep, that could really add up quick!

But it is hard to find a market for a rare-breed sheep. And the common breeds sell for so much less, that first-time buyers hesitate to spend that much. I would have to do a lot more advertising to create a market if I wanted to be successful. This is something I’m still working on. But it was in the business plan, anyway.

Then once a year my loan officer visits the farm, talks with me about how things are going, and what do I want to do differently. He’s encouraged me to get more training, which I need to do. Anyone who takes a loan from the FSA agrees to get some education. They can’t really force you to do that, but if you don’t, you may be turned down for future loans. However, attending a pasture walk, subscribing to trade magazines, going to organic conventions - these all count towards your educational requirements. It doesn’t mean you have to take full-time classes at a university. I have done all three - the pasture walk, the magazines, and the MOSES (Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service) convention.

I had a neighbor girl also apply for an FSA loan to buy sheep, and then my little sister got an FSA loan to buy some calves to get started in a grass-fed beef project. Our loan officer kind of laughed about it, like we were all neighbors, and all in this little Youth Loans Club of our own!

Well, it was educational. Not always fun, as sheep do get sick and sometimes they die. You have to go out and feed them and water them even when it’s nasty outside. If you can’t find a shearer, then you have to shear them yourself, by hand with scissors because no one is going to spend $500 for shears you only use twice a year on a handful of sheep. And I learned that you shouldn’t let your flock grow faster than your pasture. We had some overcrowding, which contributed to a parasite problem.

But most of all, I learned that I really love sheep. That the worst day I ever had with sheep was still better than a single day at a factory job. I have some new ideas now to make my sheep business profitable - if it works out, I’ll be sharing that with you as well. Until then, I can only try to describe the unimaginable pleasure of standing out in your pasture on a sunny afternoon watching your ewes graze. Or laughing at the silly antics of the rambunctious lambs. Or seeing a newborn lamb struggle to spindly legs just minutes after birth as it tries to nurse for the first time. Raising sheep is truly an incredible experience.

DE also kills fleas. Sprinkle it lightly on your dog’s coat and massage it in to the fur. Sprinkle it on the dog bed. Shake it in the dog kennel area, or in the yard where your dog spends most of his time. To make it easier to spread in the yard, you can mix it with plenty of water and put it in a garden sprayer. The DE won’t work until it dries out again, but it is a good way to get it distributed. You can sprinkle a little DE on your dog’s food along with some garlic powder to prevent fleas and internal parasites. Lightly shake it on the carpets to kill fleas in the house. Let it work into the carpet for a while, then vacuum up only what remains on the top. DE may clog your vacuum if you shake it too heavily, but so does chemical flea-killing powders. Ask me how I know?

DE kills potato bugs, slugs, and a host of garden pests. Generously spray your garden with DE and water in a garden sprayer. Be sure to get under the leaves as well. You can shake dry powder De on the surface of the soil near plants to kill off slugs as they draw near. It isn’t strong enough to harm garden mice. This is how I’ve always applied DE, but I see now that Wolf Creek (listed above) now markets a sprayer for the DE powder dry. Worth checking out! It would be a lot lighter. The wet DE gets very heavy.

DE kills algae. You can shake it in your livestock troughs. At first it will mix with the water to make it cloudy, but then it settles to the ground. I don’t know why it works, but the algae dies out and settles to the bottom of the tank as well. When you rinse out the water tank, add fresh DE.

Shake DE around the perimeter of the house to kill off ants or beetles that may want to come in. Shake it around the mouth of ant hills. Shake it over your cat’s pet food to prevent worms - but not if your cat is pregnant or may become pregnant. It may harm the unborn of small mammals. Feed DE to any pet or livestock, but keep it away from your compost worms.

Mix DE into your feed order, it will kill off bugs in your grain bin. It also adds minerals to your livestock’s diet - calcium, mostly.

You can use a little DE on a damp sponge for scrubbing stubborn stains and burned on crud off your dishes. DE can be used to polish metal.

Mix it in with potting soil for house plants. It holds water, yet does not clump up, allowing oxygen to travel freely in the soil.

Sprinkle DE around the barn or shed when you clean. Shake it on top of manure piles to kill off fly larvae. With diligence, you can nearly eliminate fleas, ticks, and flies from your property.

I think the Icelandic sheep are just so majestic looking with their wide spread, curving horns. Horns on sheep are not dangerous, as they could be on goats and cows. The Icelandic horns curve to the side on rams, and curve back from the head on ewes. No one on my property has been injured by a horn. Yet, the horns make a great place to nab and grab a sheep for whatever reason. And the horns are another tool you can use to diagnose your sheep’s overall health.

A rough, ridged horn can be a sign of selenium deficiency. A thin horn might suggest a ram that is unthrifty, therefore not a good choice for breeding. Sometimes a horn will grow too close to the face and must be trimmed before sores occur. If the horn is growing close naturally, that ram might be better used for mutton than for breeding. Sometimes, though, an injury may cause the horn to to take an inward turn. While that ram may still need to have his horn trimmed, it shouldn’t be a characteristic he’d pass on to his progeny.

One website I came across claimed that horns posed absolutely no useful purpose, and should routinely be trimmed short! Just goes to show that you can find anything on the web if you look hard enough. Which, if you do, you’ll see another webpage that claims horns help the sheep to regulate their body temperature, keeping them cooler in the summer!

Trimming a horn is stressful on the ram, so don’t trim close to breeding season. Watch the horn first. If it isn’t going to harm him, block his face and eyesight or make it hard for him to eat, leave it alone. If it does need trimming, get yourself a giggly wire. This tool, also known as saw wire, is a small, flexible saw like dental floss. If one person holds the ram still, a second person can saw off the end of the horn quickly with this tool, which is far less stressful than using a chain saw. This tool is available from your vet, or a vet supply catalog. Your local farm store might be able to order one for you.

photo credits: top photo by Foxypar4

Icelandics really prefer browse to good pasture. They devoured the blackberries and goldenrod. They stripped off the lower leaves of the trees, but didn’t eat the bark of the birch or alders. They did kill a few pine trees and an apple tree by skirting their bark, though. The second year, with all the brush gone, the pasture grasses came back.

I had the extension agent come out and walk through my pasture. He told me I had mostly Kentucky bluegrass, with some bird’s foot trefoil. (If I’d been a good shepherd then and not a neophyte, I might have discovered that there isn’t a lot of nutrition in Kentucky bluegrass. I didn’t learn that for two more years, and might have lost a few lambs unnecessarily because of it. ) He recommended burning off the thatch, the thick layer of dead grasses knotted over the soil.

Burning is a controversial issue, and I’m not here to tell you to do it. Only to tell you what I know. You can do more research, and make your own decision.

Many farmers believe that burning improves the health of the pasture. They believe that burning kills not just the thatch, but the heat burns off the surface weed seeds, too. It puts ash into the soil, and adjusts the pH. Then they go out and reseed the pasture. They say that the fields are healthier, with fewer weeds, and well worth the effort.

Many townships will no longer issue burn permits for this practice.

There have been studies done which show that burning has no effect whatsoever on the health of the field.

We didn’t burn our fields, because we could not get a burn permit.

Now, if you decide you do want to burn, this is how I was told to do it. Pick a day without wind, or very little wind. Pick a day in early spring, when there are still plenty of patches of snow. Light a small fire, and keep it contained. Only burn a square yard at once, then tamp it out with the snow, and burn the next patch. This method could take a long, long time!

I’ve seen some farmers dig a ditch downwind, then start a field on fire upwind, and let it burn to the ditch. Sounds a lot easier! But what would you do if the fire got out of control? I guess if you had enough friends come over to help, you could try it.

In the end, I’d have to say that if I could have gotten the permit, I would have tried to burn the field. I think the thatch cover helped keep parasites alive longer, by giving them a safe harbor from the sun.

D.E. is a natural product. It is the fossilized remains of tiny hard-shelled algae called diatoms. It puts the “scratch” in many common household cleansers. It is mostly safe, although people with allergies should wear a face mask to prevent breathing in the fine, white powder. It has been used for years to treat both livestock and humans for worms. It works by drawing moisture from the outer layer of the parasites, causing them to dehydrate and die.

You can mix D.E. in with your sheep’s mineral or food, although if you just fill a small dish with it, the sheep often eat it straight. You could sprinkle it on top of their hay for a few weeks to get them used to the taste. Make certain to provide plenty of fresh water!

I wouldn’t recommend depending on D.E. alone, especially when you first start out. You should contact your local extension agent for deworming practices in your area, but many shepherds I’ve met (okay, they’re all in my area) will deworm in the spring about a month before the lambs are due. They deworm each ewe when she gives birth then, and maybe once more about a month later, depending on how their flock is doing. Provide D.E. all summer long. Don’t deworm with a chemical dewormer in the summer and fall unless you see a problem - then deworm only the ewes or lambs that are affected. Deworm the entire flock in late fall, after you’ve had a hard, killing frost.

How to check for a worm problem? Three ways. I routinely check a couple of sheep every day. Catch one, gently hold the head and pull down the skin around the eye to expose the flesh on the inside. It should be a nice, healthy pink. If it is pale, you have worms (causing anemia). If it is white, your sheep is near death. Sheep don’t look sick until it’s almost too late. They can be up, running around, eating, playing, and dead a few hours later. That’s why it is so important to check their eyelids often.

The second way to check for worms is to do a fecal test. Grab a couple of little turds from several sheep. Keep them refrigerated until you can get them to the vet. He’ll send them in to a lab, and in a few days you’ll get a result. In New Zealand they do the test even further, I’m told. They actually hatch and grow a few of the worms so they can test which dewormer will be most effective! Wow, wish they did that here, but there just aren’t enough shepherds in the United States. The problem with how the labs test for worms here, is that I’ve heard that while the test will accurately tell you if you have worms, it is far less accurate on what type of worm you have. In their egg form, there is very little difference between barberpole and brown stomach worms.

The third way to check is to observe your flock carefully. Sheep infected with barberpole will develop bottle jaw - a thick swelling below the chin. This is quite startling the first time you see it, but can be cured if you act fast. Sheep infected with the brown stomach worm will develop diarrhea if it is left untreated. Some websites also suggest looking for signs of illness - weightloss, weakness, and scours (diarrhea), but if you do, you’ll discover a problem too late to fix it. By the time your sheep actually looks sick, you might as well start digging a hole.

Finding D. E. can be a challenge. Check with your local farmer’s coop or feed mill. If there are Amish in your area, check the coop they frequent, as they use D.E. in their flocks. You can look online, but you will pay two to three times as much for it. I can get a bag at my nearest feed mill for around $30. If I drive twenty miles to the Amish feed mill, I get it for $17. Online I’ve seen it for upwards of $50 for a smaller bag. Just make sure that you only buy Food Grade diatomaceous earth! Some companies bake raw D.E. at high temperatures, and market this product for pool filtration. After it has been baked, D.E. is no longer safe to handle. It is toxic!

Providing free access to a dish a diatomaceous earth can and should be part of your total parasite control program. There are other natural dewormers, which I’ll go into more later.

First, timing. You want there to still be patches of snow in the pasture. The melting snow will keep the seed moist, so that it can sprout quickly, before the hungry spring birds gobble it up. Also, the ground swelling in the afternoon sun and contracting in the chilly night temperatures sort of works the seed into the soil where it will root, rather than letting it bake on the surface.

Next, method. For a small pasture, just buy seed, pour it into buckets you can carry, and walk out in the pasture and sprinkle it by hand. We did this our first year, with great success! I’m told that you could use a grass seeder for larger pastures, or if you have tractor equipment, by all means, use it. But I’m guessing that many small farms do not have access to that kind of equipment. My mom and I frost seeded a five-acre pasture in three afternoons. We might have done it all in one day, but we didn’t actually want to spread the seed in a pasture with sheep in it, as we were afraid they’d just eat it. Later we’d heard that the sheep might eat some, but their hooves would trample more seed into the ground where it would have a better chance of sprouting, so whether you sprinkle among the sheep or not, is up to you.

Finally, seed. Talk to your extension agent about what grasses grow best in your area, and what might benefit from frost seeding. We chose to frost seed white clover. There wasn’t any in our pasture, it’s great for soil health and sheep are supposed to love it (ours didn’t), and it takes really well to this method of planting. Some grasses don’t, and you’d just be wasting your money.

As for the clover, I heard later at a sheep and wool festival that if your sheep don’t eat your clover, then you need more calcium in your soil. Calcium is supposed to sweeten up the clover. We bought lime, but haven’t seen a big change in our sheep’s eating habits yet. Maybe we’ll do a second application this year. I’ll have a soil sample tested first.

And don’t go frost seeding red clover until you’ve read more about it! I’ve heard that red clover fed to ewes a month before or a month after mating will cause spontaneous abortions! I’ve seen it in several websites, as well. Yet red clover is full of nutrients for the sheep and for the soil. So, if you chose to put it in your pastures, make sure that you have your ewes off pasture for a full month before you put the ram in with them. Now this probably doesn’t mean that you have to pluck every red clover stem and blossom out of the hay you feed them. But don’t buy hay that is packed with clover, either.

Frost seeding can be a really fun family activity! Don’t do it on a really windy day, or right before a torrential rain storm. Other than that, there’s not a lot to it. Even a toddler could help. Happy seeding!

Both MIG and rotational grazing require moving sheep on and off the pasture for periods of time. The reason for this is to let the grass recover, grow back a bit, and kill of the parasites before the sheep return. With rotational grazing you can divide your pasture up into smaller paddocks with permanent fencing and move your sheep through them. But with MIG you use much smaller paddocks. You use temporary fencing, such as “ElectroNet” from Premier 1. The goal is to put the sheep out in a rich grassy paddock for only a day or two - in a paddock small enough that by the end of the second day all of the grass is eaten down to about four to six inches tall. Then the sheep are moved to the next paddock, and not returned to this one for at least 45 days. If the grass grows too tall too fast, it needs to be cut and baled. Do not return the sheep for 45 days, longer if you have a parasite problem. Some parasites can stay alive for as much as six months in optimum conditions.

With rotational grazing, the sheep are turned out into a large paddock, and they nibble here, nibble there, and leave some plants untouched. This means that they eat and eat what they like, but ignore something less palatable because there is so much to chose from. So after time, the stuff they don’t like (weeds) have taken over the pasture!

With MIG, they eat everything down quickly. Weeds don’t get a chance to take over. You can use “frost seeding” with more success, because the sheep’s hooves help pound the seed into the soil. With MIG, you can eliminate a parasite problem, improve soil health, grow better pasture grasses - therefore, growing better sheep! In fact, I’d heard more than once that farmers who use MIG actually call themselves “grass farmers” rather than shepherds or cattlemen. They grow grass. The livestock grows by default.

A fence won’t keep coyotes out, but it should at least keep your sheep in. I use 42″ tall woven field wire on 6 foot T-posts, with a single strand of electric along the top of the posts. This has mostly worked for me. The only time I lost a sheep to predation, the electric fence wasn’t working.

For your next line of defence, you’ll want to consider getting a livestock guardian. There are several choices available. You can use guard dogs, guard llamas, or even a donkey. Each has its own pros and cons.

Guard dogs have been used for centuries. They’ve been bred to live with sheep yet not harm them, and will chase, perhaps kill, a coyote that trespasses on their territory. They are also beautiful dogs, in my oppinion. I love dogs! But I don’t use a guard dog any more. When I had a sheep dog, he dug gigantic holes in the pasture. One was so big, we called it a subway. It was all of eight feet long and two and a half feet in diameter. A ewe wandered into the hole and got stuck there, and I didn’t find her for hours. Luckily, she pulled through her harrowing adventure. But any stress can injure a sheep!

We also have sled dogs on our property. (My mom owns Mushpuppy Kennel.) My guard dog jumped out of the sheep fence several times to get scrappy with our Siberian Huskies. The dog was only doing what he was supposed to do, but we didn’t want him doing it!

Finally, having a guard dog means having a separate place to feed him, so he won’t growl at a curious lamb trying to taste his food. It means having doggy “residue” in your pasture. It means having to lug his food out there. And it may mean having to cart his dog house around. Some sheep dogs will sleep in the barn with the sheep, but if you don’t have a barn, but are using the baled hay method of shelter for your sheep, then your guard dog will need a dog house.

I love using llamas for guardian animals. They eat pretty much the same foods that sheep eat, so it is simpler. Their long wool is sheared once a year in the spring, and is a luxury to spin. They have the same medical needs - regular deworming, yearly foot trimming, etc. And they can be quite aggressive at chasing coyotes out of the pasture, yet will not bite a child. (They don’t have upper teeth, so even if they do nip, they don’t draw blood, but don’t let your llama nip anybody!)

I don’t have any experience with donkeys as guard animals, but I have seen other shepherds use them with good results.

There is one more method of protection I should mention. It doesn’t work as well for large operations, but if you only have a few sheep, this might be the best way for you, at least at first. That is simply to put the sheep in a barn every night and lock the door. This can be a method of parasite control as well, but more on that in another post!

All that’s left to do now, is put up your fence!