Hi Friends, I often receive “SOS” emails from beginner shepherds. They go something like: “My sheep are dying, what do I do?” ​ 🪱Usually it’s a parasite (worm) problem – especially when the emails come through in June or July. ​ So in honor of June, I am going to share my 3-step RESCUE TREATMENT. This is a process I use to revive a sheep that is down with parasites – specifically the Barber’s Pole worm. ​ BUT FIRST: diagnose. There are 3 ways to (visually) know you are dealing with a Barber’s Pole worm infection: Sluggish movement, droopy ears, loss of appetite (not grazing). Pale eyelids Bottle jaw Pale eyelids indicate anemia. Anemia is a primary symptom of the Barber’s Pole Worm. You need to act quick if your sheep have pale pink or white eyelids. Bottle jaw (a swollen chin) is another symptom of the Barber’s Pole Worm. Bottle jaw indicates a severe infection. Bottle jaw is typically “final stages” (aka, the last stop before death) of infection. If your sheep develops bottle jaw you need to act quickly if you want to save it! ​ MY 3-STEP RESCUE TREATMENT: The following steps are in the context of the Barber’s Pole worm (which is prevalent in pastured flocks from May-July). Disclaimer: this is what I do, not what I recommend you do… consult your vet as an authority on this topic.😉 1. Get rid of the infection. First up, I get rid of the infection – which means deworming. Prohibit (Levamisol) and Cydectin are widely effective dewormers for sheep and available at most farm stores. If you do not want to use chemical dewormers, check out my video on experimenting with LYE AS A DEWORMER. Just be aware that Lye can kill your sheep (necessary disclaimer 😅). ​ 2. Supplement with Iron ​ Severe anemia warrants an iron supplement. I keep 3 options handy for my flock. Keep in mind, I pick one… I do not use all 3 together. ​ Goat and Sheep Nutridrench. **Redglo (similar to Redcell. I give 6 CC orally for an adult ewe) **ANEM-X 100 (I inject 2 mil intramuscular for an adult ewe) **Redglo and ANEM-X are not FDA approved for sheep; however I use them “off-label” for my flock. These off-label options are very potent, so I use them when a sheep is severely anemic (“at death’s door”). Vitamin B-12 is also helpful to provide in tandem with the iron. It speeds up the process of rebuilding the red blood cell count. ​ Here is a short video on how I administer the rescue treatment. RESCUE TREATMENT (video) ​ 3. Long-term Solution Copper deficiency causes anemia in sheep – making them more susceptible to parasite infections. Black sheep (or black-headed sheep) need more copper than the average woolly-white sheep. In 2023 I became suspicious of a copper deficiency in my flock. I began giving each ewe a copper bolus once per year. ​ After launching this protocol, my flock’s natural immunity to the Barber’s Pole worm skyrocketed! ​Here is a short video on the topic of sheep and copper.​ ​ Stay the course, June and July can be rough… but I hope this helps you through! -the Shepherdess P.S. This is advice from my 252 page book: “the Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture”. Buy it with free shipping at Shepherdess.com! Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps. Psalm 85:13

Hi friends,

My neighbor Karl Ebel had no farming background, purchased land that had been farmed into the ground, and turned it into one of the most intentional regenerative ranches I’ve ever seen. In this episode, Karl shares what that journey actually looked like: rehabilitating exhausted soil, choosing the right genetics, matching livestock to your land, and making the numbers work long-term. We also dig into your listener questions on herd size, winter grazing, multi-species pastures, livestock guardian animals, and getting started with cattle on a small budget.

If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s possible to build a profitable and fulfilling farm business starting from nothing, this conversation is for you.

-the Shepherdess

TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess I am here with Mr. Karl Ebel of Ebel Grasslands Ranch in upper East Texas. That’s where we’re from. How many miles away from me do you live? 

Karl Ebel I think it’s just about 10 miles up the road to the east a little bit. 

the Shepherdess It didn’t take you 15 minutes to get here. I teased, and I said that we should probably do it in the same room so that the people who came over from the YouTube video will actually believe that we are neighbors. So today we’re going to get a little bit of information on his operation. A lot of people ask me—and I guess this is somewhere I want to draw you in—is like, “How do I get started if I can’t afford land and if I don’t have any resources of my own?”

Getting started on a budget and finding land opportunities

Karl Ebel There are a lot of small acreage farmers that are on the edge of urban areas that really just don’t quite know what to do with their property. And they’re looking for somebody with a lot of energy that can handle the work. Maybe they’re retired, maybe they don’t have that much energy or whatever. There’s some opportunity there. And if you can demonstrate that you’re capable, you understand how to do it, and you’re willing to stick with it and see it through, there’s probably some opportunity there that people are not really taking advantage of. 

the Shepherdess And you might have to be a young person that goes and knocks on some doors just to show your willingness. But I think that’s a really good point there. 

the Shepherdess If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com; you’ll find a direct link in the description. 

the Shepherdess Okay, so I’m just going to get straight to it with some questions for Mr. Karl Ebel on his ranch. Mr. Karl, what was your background? Did you come from a ranching family? 

Karl Ebel My immediate family did not have any background in agriculture. I had an uncle and part of my father’s family that were still on a farm and we would go visit the farm once every three or four years. It was just amazing to me as a kid. That was probably the first draw. After that I really never had any opportunity. We lived in kind of urban areas. But I was always drawn to it. And so I kind of did college for a little bit and then I had a pretty good job. And then when I was about 24, I decided I was going to go to Montana and work on a ranch. 

the Shepherdess That was your first large scale experience. 

Karl Ebel That was my first dive in head first, and it was fantastic. I loved it.

the Shepherdess So how long did you spend there? 

Karl Ebel Two years, two winters. Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I also had some other goals that I wanted to do. And then I got away from being immediately in touch with the ranching for probably 20 years. I worked off and on. I have a wonderful brother whose husbandry was just a really good source for me. And I would work with them on different ranches whenever I had time. But I was able to come back to ranching when I was in my early 40s. By then I had some fairly successful careers before that so I had enough funds to get in and have a place of my own. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, so you were able to actually go straight to buying your land because you did have that bit of a career before you, and you had sort of some capital to get going with. 

Karl Ebel That’s right.

Reclaiming exhausted soil and managing grass production

the Shepherdess When you bought your land, what was its previous use? And you’re a regenerative rancher—how would you have described it when you came into ownership of it? 

Karl Ebel Like most of this area, this was cotton area. Cotton was king. Just about all this land here was under row-crop cultivation for over a hundred years. Now, if you pause a moment and you think about starting row crop farming in let’s say about 1860, this soil was phenomenal. They did not fertilize. They did that for about a hundred years with hardly any fertilizer. It must’ve been amazing soil. This was prairie soil here. But by the time we came, it had been very exhausted. Most of the families could no longer make a living with row crops. And so it was very marginal land. It was not something that could sustain a living. They were trying. And that was a mass exodus in the 1950s and 1960s. They couldn’t raise their families anymore. And so it was worn out. 

the Shepherdess It was depleted to the place where it could not provide the living that it once did for so many who moved here? Is that right?

Karl Ebel That’s correct. That’s right, Grace. And so for lack of anything else to do, they just started running livestock, started running a few cows. They call it “go-back land.” Go-back land is just you don’t do anything. You don’t plant anything; you just let it go back and you put some cows there. 

the Shepherdess Right, right. 

Karl Ebel And so that’s what we started with. And we’re in about 45 inches of rainfall here. And so the woody species encroachment, the trees are constantly looking to come in and take over again. So that was very much happening on the property that we started with, and without some pretty quick intervention and trying to do brush control, and basically any way you could do it, it would have been taken over very quickly by woody species. 

the Shepherdess We live about an hour east of Dallas-Fort Worth. Do you think that would be accurate?

Karl Ebel About an hour and thirty minutes, yeah.

the Shepherdess And then somebody wants to know how long it took you, essentially, before, you know, your investment-intensive period was over and it started to sort of float on its own. 

Karl Ebel We went through a pretty intense grass-planting phase, and that lasted about three years or so, and we started with a small herd of cows—I started with 10 and then I would add another 10 two or three years later. And I just basically watched the grass resource and I knew that if it’s a newly planted stand of grass, we’re going to have to do this slowly and not put too much pressure on it. So as the grass would progress, I’d add a few more. 

the Shepherdess So you managed for what your resources could sustain. You know, you didn’t just put in a bunch of hay and say, “I wanted 50 cows,” and, you know, you didn’t chuck in the resources. You worked with your resources. 

Karl Ebel That’s a very good point, Grace. Because we’re people and we’re American and we want what we do to seem important and big and so we want to say more numbers—”I have more cows” or whatever—but pay real close attention to that resource because that grass is your resource. The cattle, the sheep, the goats, the livestock—that’s just something to offer you a means to harvest that resource. But the grass is your resource, and that’s what you need to focus on. 

the Shepherdess So why regenerative? Was it something you initially went into thinking, I want to go make this land better, or was it sort of an evolution of mindset for you? How did it kind of come? You know, you were 45 when you bought that land. 

Karl Ebel Basically, I want to make this better, and I want to try to eventually do this where this is my only job. And so I’ve got to get it improved enough so that my forage production is enough that it will sustain a living for me. So it was a long-term—I want to make this all better, and I want the grassland ecology to be better. I had traveled quite a bit, I’d seen some different grasslands, I knew it could be better, I wanted to do that. But in the short term, I still have to pay my bills, I still have to provide for my family. So that’s all got to be meshed together and work together. 

the Shepherdess And for you, I mean, could you share a timeline? You’ve been at this for 20 years. Did it take you 10 years before that? 

Karl Ebel Well, that’s a very good point. My wife was still working at the college about six years after we started, and at that point, we began our family. I was getting a little bit older, and we had to kind of make a decision for our family, and so we basically said, “OK.” she was going to spend her time with the family, and so that meant that income stream was going to stop. And so I was like, “You know, I think it’s progressed enough where I think we can do that. Let’s go for it.”

the Shepherdess So you sort of went out on a limb a little bit, but you cannot think that’s where everybody is in this particular line of work. With respect to going occupational for it, I have not heard a story yet where somebody was able to comfortably make that decision and, you know, it is going out on a limb. Somebody wants to know what cattle you started with. 

Selecting the right genetics for grass-fed livestock

Karl Ebel My idea was Angus-based black cattle. They tend to bring a little bit better price here, but I must say I was not picky enough with the first cattle that I bought. 

the Shepherdess That’s a good point. 

Karl Ebel Focusing on something that’s grass-fed, focusing on something that is a good quality grass-fed genetics is important. Because once you start, it takes a long time to change what you already have. 

the Shepherdess Yes. Right. 

Karl Ebel So if you can start with something really good, man, you’re way ahead. I probably had 20 cows that were pretty good cows, but after I looked at it and studied it a little bit more, they weren’t really just what I wanted. And then I started really focusing on what I wanted.

the Shepherdess That’s a good question and a good point. And I think for so many people being here, who are just starting in, can you put a little plug in for genetics or, you know, how can we find good genetics? What should we look for? And well, I guess another question would be: do you think that your genetics that you have now, which are really good, play into an increase or uptick in profitability? 

Karl Ebel It does. A lot of people, again, view what they’re raising in livestock as a resource. But let’s take a step back and look at the resource as the forage or the grass. So now, you’ve got basically these tons of forage and you’re turning them into a product. So, whatever you can do to increase dollars per pound, to me, that’s what’s giving me the most for my resource. So I can try to aim for, you know, there’s a lot of, say, bragging rights in high weaning weight. “Oh, I weaned calves that were so big.” Okay, but what did you get per pound for that? What’d you produce in grass? So if you’ve got grass-based genetics and you can produce something that’s high quality, and I mean, I’m Angus-Hereford Cross and both of those bloodlines, both of the genetics that I use are grass-based genetics—some of the older genetics. Some of the newer genetics are more leaning towards the grain part of it. 

the Shepherdess And by older you mean like a pre-grain system. 

Karl Ebel There were a lot of good grass genetics back in the 40s and 50s, and everybody in the last 30 or 40 years has leaned the other way, and they want bigger animals, and then they want… 

the Shepherdess Big bones. 

Karl Ebel And so, anyway, that’s the genetics that I go with. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, so you started with Angus, but you’ve combined Hereford, but more than a breed, it is an eye for what, you know, like you called it old genetics. Is it an eye more than a specific breed? 

Karl Ebel Well, an animal that’s grass-based genetics does well just on grazing, and those cows that are grass-based genetics will breed back for you better just on grass with a minimum amount of supplement because that’s what they’re designed to do. Typically, they have a little bit shorter stance, a little broader, so that—and I like to think of it as a grass processor—that expanded gut is allowing them to take a few more pounds of forage an hour or a day, and that puts that efficiency back into that animal. 

the Shepherdess Somebody asked, “How do you find good grass-fed sheep and cows to buy? Where do you source your animals from? 

Karl Ebel Yes, I talk to a lot of people. There’s some other groups. There is a National Grazing Land Coalition. That’s a really good group that’s across the whole United States, and a lot of those guys that are embracing these rotational-grazing methods and this grass ecology are on those sites. NatGLC. Each of the states also has one like Texas GLC, and Louisiana, or Kansas or whatever. 

the Shepherdess And so they themselves would be sellers of the stock?

Karl Ebel There will be groups of people that would have seedstock within those groups. You can start asking. 

the Shepherdess Yeah. With National Grazing Lands, I think the emphasis is forage resources as primary, and so I guess the cattle that will be coming from there would be as well. A good question would be: so sheep and goats—the smaller ruminants—are typically considered better forage converters. Do you think that is true and that you can be less picky about genetics with those? 

Karl Ebel Not really. I think, of course, if you’re leaning towards, you know, a lamb that’s for meat, you want to go towards those breeds that are more geared for meat. And of course, sheep are grazers, and goats are primarily browsers. So sheep are going to compete with your cattle a little bit, whereas goats are not going to compete very much with your cattle. So depending on the piece of property that you have access to, that really is what you want to look at—your resource, again. Back to the grass—do I mostly have a place that’s got grass or some forage, or is it a little brushy? Maybe there’s a creek bottom or something that offers something for goats? But if you have clean pastures with just grass, then goats, you know, are not going to do the best there. 

the Shepherdess Well that’s an interesting point because you’re large scale on the beef cattle now, but you started with goats. 

Karl Ebel Yeah, because it was so brushy. 

the Shepherdess Right. So again, you paired the animal that would do well to the resource.

Karl Ebel That’s right.

the Shepherdess Yeah. Somebody asked you: “How do you sell your products? How do you sell your livestock?” 

Karl Ebel I sell mine mainly directly to larger cattle sales. I found markets that offer the best price for me. With my cattle, I do a preconditioning program that’s quite intensive. When you do those and you have them preconditioned, weaned from their mothers for 60+ days, you get a premium for those calves. You can do direct marketing and you can realize quite a lot of additional profit there. But with what I have to take care of, I don’t have the time to do the marketing and to do the extra steps to get that extra profit, but many people do it. It’s a lot of work to make sure you get your customers lined up and your market and so forth.

the Shepherdess Yeah, that’s a good point. And kind of the direction I’m going is direct marketing, but it is a time-consuming thing. And I was thinking the other day, you know, there’s a lot that we need to consider as far as our systems, and matching our systems as much with our human resource as we do with our natural resource, really. 

Karl Ebel You don’t want to burn out, you know. You’re trying to make it pleasurable. You don’t mind working hard cause it’s going to be hard work, but at the same time you want it to be enjoyable. 

the Shepherdess And I think that’s something I’m coming to understand is that, yes, let’s consider our forage resource, but let’s also consider our human resource with respect to our systems overall. Because I think I have this set of ideals, you know? It would be ideal if I could move my sheep once a day and this, and this, and this. But I came to the point where I’m like, they’re fine moving twice a week, and that’s a better match. 

Karl Ebel There you go. 

the Shepherdess And that’s a better match for my human resource. So I hope that encourages someone out there who might be finding themselves adjusting their ideals. 

Karl Ebel I’m just going to make one comment: that’s a really good interval on your move, because the length of time after that parasite is… The parasite thing is huge with small ruminants. So the parasite needs about five to seven days after it’s expelled with the feces; the eggs take about five or seven days to hatch. So if you’re moving them twice a week—

the Shepherdess That’ll do it. 

Karl Ebel That’ll do it. 

the Shepherdess And that’s encouraging because that’s primarily what pushes me with the management-intensive grazing into it—is just that the sheep do struggle a lot with that. I talk about it a lot on my YouTube channel—and some people don’t understand it because they live in South Texas where it’s really dry—but it has a lot to do with where I’m at. We get above-average rainfall if I’m right?

Karl Ebel We get 45 inches, and a bunch of it comes in the time of year when the parasites are just going nuts. 

the Shepherdess Justine: “Shepherdess, do you have goats? I was going to start buying goats first to clear the weeds, thorns, etc.” No, I don’t have goats. I’ve got my hands full with sheep. So I’ll probably not do goats at the moment. Jimette says he never ranched before. He got a beginner farmer loan from the FSA. He says, “The local authority is leasing 100 acres for an affordable price. Grass is six foot tall. How many head would you recommend? I was thinking of getting 50 cow-calf pairs, imported blacks. What’s your opinion?” Can you give an opinion on that? 

Karl Ebel Yes, 100 acres, and the rainfall is one thing that I would key in on. If you’re in 30 inches of rainfall, I would not start with 50 cows. I would start with 25, and then you can add as you go. And you’re going to have heifers coming off of the cows that you pick. You can build your own stuff—if you like your genetics and you want to keep with that.

the Shepherdess Andre says, “What do you think about finishing cows on grain?” 

Karl Ebel I think it’s good. It has its place. I’m a bigger proponent of grass-fed, but the grain-fed stuff is good. I, as a forage-based beef producer, realize a better profit from doing it on grass. 

the Shepherdess That’s a good point, that’s a really good point. That goes back to growing with your resources as well, because if somebody was to bring in 50 cows on a piece of barren land, it might be cheaper to feed them a little bit of grain. 

Karl Ebel You won’t have any choice. They’ll fall apart.

the Shepherdess Right. James asks, “How did you deal with the tree encroachment? Much of our property has been left to rest for five to seven years and has a lot of mesquite growing on it, but we want to have animals graze.” 

Karl Ebel Okay. I’ve cleared land extensively in many different ways. If you can use a chainsaw and there’s a herbicide called Remedy or Relegate, and you mix that with diesel—whatever live tree you cut off with that saw, or whatever you cut it all, you poison that stump with that diesel-and-Remedy mixture and that’s the end of it. It’ll kill it. 

the Shepherdess So that’s your recipe. 

Karl Ebel Yeah, and so you can do it with heavy equipment too. It depends on your time frame, really, and how much time you can devote, and how physically fit you are because it’s quite a lot of work, but I’ve cleared several hundred acres. 

the Shepherdess Somebody asked, if you don’t mind sharing, how much acreage you have, if you don’t mind divulging that.

Karl Ebel We have a little over 1,000 acres, and probably 750 of that is what I would call open pasture. And then we have some, what’s kind of a savanna, which is oaks and grassland. And then we have some wooded areas that are creek bottom with big mature timber in them. But about 750 is open pasture land. And with trees nearby, those open pastures—that’s what those woodies are trying to spread into—so it’s a continual process. 

Predator control, low-stress weaning, and multi-species pasture dynamics

the Shepherdess Somebody says, “What about livestock guardian dogs? Would you do dogs or donkeys?” I’ve heard the donkey thing and I’ve been curious about it. Have you heard of it?

Karl Ebel I was very reluctant at the beginning to get a guardian dog because when we started I had little toddlers, but I have totally enjoyed the guardian dogs. We’ve had nine or ten over the past 15 to 20 years. They’ve never had an aggressive moment with anyone—guests, family members, or anybody. And without those dogs, I would not be able to raise goats. You’re turning these goats loose in big pastures. There’s coyotes, bobcats, and all kinds of things. 

the Shepherdess Because you’re working on a huge amount of acreage compared to… 

Karl Ebel If you have something that’s right next to your house, and you have maybe a family dog that’s making the round a little bit and leaving its scent, you might be okay if you have like a mesh fence that the coyotes can’t get in through easily. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, just a small-scale perspective on that is that we have 30 acres, and if we can keep them within, I would say, well, let’s just say our house is set right in the middle of the 30 acres. And as we get to the 20% outer edge, we begin to have enough trouble to where we got to bring them back.

the Shepherdess Picture this: you are looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20-plus acres. The sun is setting, and your flock is grazing across a green pasture. Something inside you affirms this is real wealth—at least when it comes to material things. You know how to take care of your sheep, your grazing system is improving your land, and you have a way to direct market each lamb that is born. This is how I feel when I look at my flock, and I want the same for you. So, I put together a free one-hour class that answers some of your most frequently asked questions concerning how I raise, rotational graze, and market my sheep for $480 per head. Go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast to sign up and receive the free on-demand class. What’s more is that I will follow up over the course of three days, providing you with even more free resources—including a free ebook, a free grazing sheep kickstart guide, and a free marketing sheep kickstart guide. This information is worth paying for, but I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast for how I raise, graze, and market my sheep for $480 each.

the Shepherdess What do you think about donkeys?

Karl Ebel The thing is about donkeys, I’ve heard probably 50% have had a negative experience. The donkeys can get aggressive. They can actually pick up the sheep and thrash them, or the kid goat and thrash it and hurt them. Or you get one, I’m going to say, you know, two or three donkeys out of 10—and this is just what I hear people talking about who tried a donkey—two or three out of ten would be like, okay, yeah, they’re good, but you got quite a few to go through to get those two or three.

the Shepherdess Somebody says, “What do you feed during preconditioning?”

Karl Ebel During preconditioning? The key I find to preconditioning is save some pasture right where those calves are being weaned, and do what’s called a fence-line weaning so those calves are on good forage with their moms just across the fence. Any animal with a full belly is going to wean much healthier than something you’ve locked in a dusty trap, and you’re trying to wean them, and they’re breathing dust, and they’re not familiar with the feed. But I also supplement them with just a little bit of creep feed in troughs right there where the fence is, where those calves are congregating to bawl at their moms—I put some feed in those troughs, and over about four or five days they gradually start to figure out, hey this is pretty good. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, that’s neat. And that’s as much about stress levels as anything with respect to getting a good, I mean, I wouldn’t initially think that that would impact body condition, but stress does. 

Karl Ebel It impacts everything, it does. Absolutely, Grace. It is just like us.

the Shepherdess Right. For humans it does horrible things, so… 

Karl Ebel Immune system, and so yeah, that’s huge. We wean about a little over a hundred calves a year. In the last 10 years, I might treat one calf a year when I’m trying to wean them. 

the Shepherdess That’s good. 

Karl Ebel It’s very good. 

the Shepherdess That’s really good. So Jeremy Hammer asks, “What is your opinion for the number of sheep to cows per acre ratio with rotational grazing?” It’s a bit of a broad question, but…

Karl Ebel It is. I have a friend of mine who’s experimenting there in Kansas, and he’s running the cattle and the sheep in the same pasture at the same time. He’s gotten his guard dogs used to that. It takes making sure that those cows are familiar with those guard dogs. Their natural instinct is to drive those guard dogs away. So you’ve got to make sure they’re conditioned before you mix the two together. 

the Shepherdess More so than the sheep, the cows will drive them off? 

Karl Ebel Yeah, because they see this dog, and if they’ve never been around guard dogs, they’re like, “No, you ain’t getting by my calf,” and they’ll drive them away. 

the Shepherdess That makes a lot of sense. 

Karl Ebel Anyway, it takes a little while to get them conditioned. I run mine separately because I’ve experienced calves that got excited and so forth because the dogs don’t know. And so I run my goats and my cattle separate. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, I did try the multi-species thing on a small scale last fall. It worked until I had to start supplementing them for winter. And then the sheep ate everything I put out for the cows and vice versa. I had to separate them. Now I’m trying to put them back together, but the cows are jumping the fence really bad. 

Karl Ebel So you got to get one more line up… 

the Shepherdess Yeah, I’ve got to string up another one. Somebody asked, “Did you get into livestock management as a passion or because you saw it as an opportunity for profit?” 

Karl Ebel Definitely as a passion. As I was mentioning before, when I was 20-something, you know, I left everything I knew as home and everything I knew as a living, and I went and worked on a ranch. I just found it the most amazing adventure you could have. So that’s my passion. But at the same time, let’s be real, we have to provide a living for our families and so forth, so now I’ve got to turn this passion into a way that I can navigate and make a living for my family. 

the Shepherdess Oh, did you answer “what is your opinion for the number of sheep to cows ratio?”

Karl Ebel I really don’t know. I can tell you this: it’s about six to one, and that’s just based on body size and forage intake. But the thing with the sheep and the goats is one more thing of a limiting factor is where are you going to kid those ewes or those mama goats out, okay? Because kidding can be very intensive if you want to be real successful. So if you say, “Wow, I could run 150 ewes,” you could, but one of your limiting things may be that in the kidding time, are you willing, or can you physically—you may have other obligations or whatever, or you may not have a shed that’s big enough to get them out of the freezing rain or whatever. So when you’re kidding or lambing, that’s going to be one of your limiting factors too. 

the Shepherdess Okay, that’s good. All right, so yeah, the six, and then “what breed of guardian dogs did you buy? I heard Great Pyrenees bark all night,” is what Justine says. 

Karl Ebel I like the temperament of the Pyrenees, I’ve done the Akbash. I like the temperament of Akbash, which is a short hair; he looks sort of like a white lab. So the Akbash is good, and the Pyrenees is good. I have a Maremma. Of course, Maremma is an Italian, it’s just the Italians got to have their big dog compared to the Frenchman, you know, he’s got the Pyrenees. Maremma is a very good dog as well. I like the temperament. I have also used Anatolian. They—and it may be the particular dog that I have—he’s a little bit more assertive with young animals. I didn’t like that quite as much, but he’s doing a good job now. 

the Shepherdess Which breed was that? I missed it. 

Karl Ebel The Anatolian. But the Maremma, the Akbash, and the Pyrenees would be my pick. 

the Shepherdess Mike Eon says, “What do you feel is the max area each dog could cover as far as acreage?”

Karl Ebel If I get in big pastures of a hundred acres, I want two dogs. If I’m in something like 30 acres, one dog is plenty. So you can kind of extrapolate from there. And if I get into really big pastures in the 200-acre size, then I want three dogs. 

the Shepherdess Okay. I thought they moved with the flock. 

Karl Ebel They do, but what happens in those big pastures, the flock can separate, and so you see a lot more dynamic movement where you need another dog in one area or another to cover. 

the Shepherdess All right, so somebody here says, “How do you get your sheep to go in the pen every night?” I don’t put my sheep in a pen every night.

Karl Ebel But you could easily with a bucket of feed. I mean, a lot of what I handle my livestock with is a bucket of feed. And you don’t have to give them much, but everybody likes a candy bar. 

Getting expert help and managing winter forage

the Shepherdess That’s a good one. Gilbert asks, “What kind of resources do you use for creating a grazing management plan, resource evaluation plan, pasture conditions, future weather forecasts, etc.?”

Karl Ebel There’s several really good resources. The NRCS is available to each and every person in the United States. You just simply have to call and visit with them. They have some good people on their staff. And if the person that you happen to get on the phone is not specialized in the question that you have, they can put you in touch with somebody, and they’re a great bunch. They work with the National Grazing Land Coalition, they work with other grazing groups, and they are a very good resource. They also do—for all of you who are starting these projects—they do cost share. They do technical advising, but they also do cost share on some of the projects—fences, waters, brush control, and some other stuff. You can get cost share. You have to apply, and it’s a government entity, so you have to fill out some paperwork, but it can be very rewarding. And I will say those guys helped me tremendously in the early days when I had some real projects to get through some economic times that I was right on the fringe of. I don’t know if I could have done it without some of their cost share.

the Shepherdess So, you would recommend they head over to NRCS to get some resource consultation, essentially?

Karl Ebel Yes, resource consultation, and ask them about the cost share on the projects that you would like to do. There’s also another real good group that I’ve worked with in Ardmore, Oklahoma, the Noble Foundation. It’s now called the Noble Research Institute. They are a super bunch of people. They’re very, very good at what they do, and very realistic about their advice on livestock. They do almost all free consultation. They will come out if you’re in a certain radius, it is limited to a certain radius, but real good guys, and they actually have an advice line, a hotline, you can call. You could find it on the web, the Noble Research Institute. They have a hotline for questions. And if I run into like, really detailed stuff with my feed or whatever I’m doing, and I’m like, I have not found the real answer to this question, I go to them. Man, they’ve answered it one way or another every time I’ve called them. And they’ll call you back within an hour with a specialist. They’ve got a staff of PhDs and other guys that are great. They really are. 

the Shepherdess So one of the things I wanted to touch on was that you don’t feed any hay over winter. Is this exclusively because of the native grasses you’re working with, or could I build a pasture that would do the same thing for me? 

Karl Ebel You can, to a certain extent, build a pasture without the native grasses, but it’s the difficult months and where we are—heavy rainfall. So you put some cold, freezing, frost conditions on the forage, and then you turn loose a deluge of rain, you’re taking the protein and the structure of that plant is just going to go to the ground and it’s not going to be available for those cows. So in this area, we have Bermuda grass, Bahia grass, and Dallas grass. And those three grasses are the introduced grasses that most people have planted over the years. Bermuda grass stockpiles, and we call stockpiling forage, and that is what you do for your winter forage. So when you stockpile it, which one lasts the best? So out of the introduced species, Bermuda grass lasts the best, Bahia is probably second, and Dallas grass is the poorest. Dallas grass has a great forage, super forage. But when you put two or three hard frosts on it, and then a rain, it’s just not very good anymore. 

the Shepherdess Somebody says, “Have you utilized the Kerr Foundation in Poteau, Oklahoma?”

Karl Ebel The Kerr? No, I have not. That may be another very good resource. The one I use in Oklahoma is that Noble Foundation, that Noble Research Institute. 

the Shepherdess I was going to ask, you just got done with kidding, but how does your calving fall in line with that? 

Karl Ebel Same time. 

the Shepherdess Same time, that’s crazy. Well, the kidding was hands-on intensive. You showed me the kidding barn. Is the calving a little bit less intense? 

Karl Ebel For my mature cows, I don’t do anything but basically try to get a birthday for most of the cows so I know what their performance is. And then I’ve got a group of heifers that can be… Heifers.

the Shepherdess Yeah, just the first timers. Yeah. All right, so Annette and Joe ask, “Are you using hard electric or solar electric chargers? If solar, which one have you found to be the best? We are off grid and don’t want to waste money on subpar systems.”

Karl Ebel I don’t use solar. I use a 12-volt marine battery with a charger. There are several good ones—the StaFix, the Patriot, and what’s the New Zealand one? 

the Shepherdess Gallagher. 

Karl Ebel Gallaghar. Yeah. But when you size that fence and you think, okay, this is what the design people are telling me on the paperwork—put another 50%. And when it’s hot, you’re doing what you need to do. 

the Shepherdess That’s good advice.

Karl Ebel If those animals contact that fence and they’re not getting a good belt out of it, you’re just not doing yourself any favors.

the Shepherdess If it’s not, it really will increase your workload. I’ve made a bit of a mistake with the weak charger, and I’m upping it. But yeah, what he says is right. I’m herding sheep way more than I need to right now. All right. So, “How many sheep can I have on 10 acres?” Can you answer that question, you know, broadly? 

Karl Ebel So on 10 acres I would start with probably… If you’ve never run sheep before, I would start with 10 ewes and I would see what this entails. And if you’re going to do rotation, you’ve got some other challenges out there—you’re trying to provide water while you’re rotating them, you’re learning about fences, you are learning about how sheep behave. There’s a lot of different things. So I think I would start there, and then the second year, if you think, man, I have loads of forage, it’s really not that big a deal to up it another five or whatever you need to do. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, that’s a really good point. I think that the risk of burnout with just overloading or overstocking is worth starting small. 

Karl Ebel Especially when you’re starting and you’re kind of learning as you go, don’t make it so stressful on yourself. 

the Shepherdess Justine asks, “Do either of you sell baby sheep or cattle?” I guess she means breeding stock. You did a private sale for me because we’re neighbors, but do you do that broadly or would you do it broadly? 

Karl Ebel Yeah, I would. I would do heifers. I have several heifers that I sell in the fall. The fall time would be the time to get in touch with me. 

the Shepherdess Definitely. And I can vouch for the genetics. He did give me three of his best, but they are doing really well on my grass right now. So maybe by fall you’ll have a couple of people interested.

Karl Ebel Well, we’re going to be doing another grass-finished steer, and we have a harvest date in June and we have another harvest date in September, and those animals are looking like they’re going to finish real good. 

the Shepherdess And you have a source… Well, your brother, actually, USDA grades them a bit. 

Karl Ebel He’s not in that business for the USDA. He’s an NRCS range specialist, but he has experience with a lot of university—

the Shepherdess Grading? 

Yeah. And so he knows very well where they fall in the grade, and that’s going to be really helpful. 

the Shepherdess I’m going to try to ask one more question from my sheet that I felt like was a really good one. So there’s a quote by Alan Nation, and it says, “Grassland agriculture is the most profitable form of agriculture when it is structured and managed correctly.” Now, this was a quote that was made 30 years ago. Do you feel like it’s relevant in today’s world? 

Karl Ebel I think it’s very relevant, but you also have to take the resource that you’re looking at, which is the land and the rainfall where you’re located in different areas. I mean, if you go to the Midwest—Iowa and the Corn Belt, where there are huge yields on their row crops, I mean that’s kind of a judgment question there. If you take where we live, this used to be full of row crops. There are no row crops here anymore. That tells you this is marginal land. Why? Everybody went broke doing row crops. It won’t do row crops. So in this case where we live, I would say the grazing thing is yeah, it’s the top, but that may not be the case for every location. 

the Shepherdess I have a friend. She’s in Colorado and she struggles with the irrigation issue. And she can’t grow grass as prolifically as we can here. So I do think that’s a good point that that grassland agriculture comment needs to be taken in context where you’re farming, and what your landscape looks like. 

Karl Ebel The irrigation thing is huge.

the Shepherdess Yeah. All right, so Rachel says, “What is the most important piece of advice you can leave for aspiring livestock farmers?”

Karl Ebel You need to have a passion about what you’re doing, and you need to see a way ahead for it to be economically successful. The passion that drives you is grazing land ecology. Grazing land ecology is everything from the health of the soil, the grass plants that are there, the livestock that live there, and the wildlife that lives there. To me, as you can tell, it’s a passion. It’s fascinating. It’s an adventure. There is no limit on the challenges that are there for us to improve it. And it’s just fascinating to me. But that’s what has to drive it really. 

the Shepherdess It does. We’ve got to think about the economics, but at the end of the day, I think you’ll probably have to work harder at this than you will at anything else you could choose to do. And it’s like what you said, you’ve got to have a passion for it. 

Karl Ebel One thing about the economics: you were asking about the hay, and that’s one thing that makes my program very economically successful because I don’t have all the equipment, the time, the fertilizers—the long list of stuff that goes into the time it takes to produce hay. I don’t have to do that. I can do other things to improve what I’m doing. The other thing is if you get in, say, a 30 acre, or if your acreage gets a little bit bigger, and you’re almost going to have to have—depending on how much upkeep you have on your property—you may have to have a tractor. There are some tractor models—some John Deere tractor models—that don’t lose their value. Okay, so you’re looking at your economics and you are saying, “I’m going to need a tractor, but I know this tractor is going to depreciate over the 20 years I own it,” there are some models of tractors that don’t depreciate. They actually appreciate. Those are the 40 series, the 50 series, the 55 series John Deere. There’s also a 7,000 series and an 8,000 series. So just chop those numbers down, and when you’re looking for a tractor—these are older tractors, but if you buy them today, you probably can sell them in 20 years for what you pay for them today. 

the Shepherdess That’s a really good pro tip there. Mr. Ebel, thank you, sir, for being here.

Karl Ebel You’re welcome. Very good. I’m glad I could be here with y’all.

the Shepherdess I enjoyed this so much. We’re going to end this here. Thank you, guys. Thank you everyone.

Karl Ebel Have a good evening. 

Hi friends,

The cattle industry is in a unique season right now.  Record-high beef prices have many producers wondering whether they should expand their herds, get started in cattle for the first time, or simply wait to see what happens next.

In this episode, I sit down with my friend and regenerative rancher Karl Ebel, who has spent more than 20 years managing a grass-based cattle operation on over 1,000 acres, to discuss what is driving today’s cattle market and how producers can position themselves for long-term success regardless of where prices go from here.  We talk through stocking rates, rotational grazing, winter feeding strategies, cattle selection, and why Karl views livestock as a tool for improving the land rather than simply a product to sell.  We also discuss the practical realities of raising profitable cattle in today’s market and what beginners should know before making major investments.

Whether you’re considering your first cow or looking for ways to improve an existing operation, my hope is that this conversation helps you build a more resilient and profitable livestock enterprise.

-the Shepherdess

TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess All right, guys, good evening. I am not flying solo tonight. I am bringing you Mr. Karl Ebel, one of my favorite co-hosts. Thank you so much for being here tonight. 

Karl Ebel It’s a pleasure to be here, Grace. 

the Shepherdess You know, we probably would not be here on whole if it was not for Mr. Karl and his wife. But I was just thinking back—it was a really funny story. It was actually your son, Christian. He came to the door with your wife when we had just first moved here, and he brought us this big welcome basket. We were 15 miles away, but that was just kind of the community that welcomed us when we were here. So it’s a really neat story and a really nice start. All right, we’re going to get going tonight, but tonight we’re going to be talking with Mr. Karl, who’s been running a regenerative ranching for about 15 or 20 years. Are we right at 20 or am I undercutting you even there? 

Karl Ebel A little bit more than 20.

the Shepherdess Okay, a little bit more than 20. So tonight we have a jam-packed night. We’re going to be talking about the cattle industry, and the cattle market. We are going to be talking about starting a herd, input costs, meat goats, and beef cattle. Thank you guys so much for being here. Mr. Karl, would you go ahead and just introduce where you’re at and what you’re farming, just simply? 

Land restoration through regenerative grazing

Karl Ebel Well, I’ve been a friend of Miss Grace for probably six or seven years. We’re just down the road, probably 10 miles or so. We bought a pretty rough piece of property about 2001, and we started a renovation of that about 2003. And it’s been a great journey, and very satisfying. What the before-and-after pictures look like are quite amazing. In this area we get very high rainfall. The brush encroachment thing is a huge thing if you’re not watching that, and so that was a big part of what we did—pushed the brush back. In the early days we used some goats, and we moved more from the goats towards the cattle as we restored more grasslands. 

the Shepherdess And what’s the size of the land base that you’re working on right now? 

Karl Ebel Our place is a little over 1,000 acres, so it’s a full-time job for one guy that’s willing to roll up his sleeves, but very satisfying. 

the Shepherdess If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com; you’ll find a direct link in the description. 

I have an entire list of questions for Mr. Karl surrounding the record-high cattle market that we’re seeing today, and some questions surrounding his operation. I just want to let you guys know that this is kind of just my excuse to get him in for about two hours of conversation once every three years, so I’m going to be prioritizing my questions and we’re going to take questions from you guys as well. In terms of the goats, now you run the meat goats, what is the breed or breed cross that you’ve found the most success with? 

Karl Ebel We have kind of a mixed breed with a very… Probably Boer. If you look at the herd, that’s when you would say it’s more dominantly a Boer. But there’s some Spanish in there and some other stuff that basically, if the mama goat is a good-quality goat with no real problems—feet, udder—and we put a good solid Boer billy across the mamas, we get some really nice kids. 

the Shepherdess Because you are really pushing for that carcass for the commodity market. 

Karl Ebel That meaty, real heavy carcass. You’re right. 

the Shepherdess So, okay, I’m going to jump right in here with my questions, but I really want to attack sort of the cattle market that we’re seeing here. I think that February 2023 was the last time that I had you on the live stream. And at that time, I think prices on feeder calves were hovering… Where were we at? 

Cattle price trends and market shifts

Karl Ebel Yeah, so I looked back a little bit in my records. It was good that you asked me some of that, Grace. I looked back in my records, and so here’s the striking thing: in the fall of 2020, we were getting $1.58 for that 500-pound calf. Then jump ahead to 2023, and we’re getting $2.15. 

the Shepherdess Gotcha, so I was a little bit low-balling on that. 

Karl Ebel Well, you probably had a 600-pound calf, which was $1.89, but for that 500-pound calf—which is kind of what my target is—yeah, $2.15. And we thought, man, we’re doing good. We finally have a little breathing room here. And of course, today, it’s just phenomenal. 

the Shepherdess Where are we at today? 

Karl Ebel In 2025, we were at about—for that same 500-pound calf, high-quality, good genetics—over $5.00, $5.40. So you’re going from in 2020, that same calf was about $750, and now you’re looking at a calf that’s $2,700. 

the Shepherdess Wow. Did you ever think that it would get to this place? I mean, what are people’s thoughts within the industry in terms of the cattle? 

Karl Ebel No, I never imagined it. I mean, I was thinking, well, you know, we might get up towards $3, and that would be nice. Then we’d have some breathing room, you know, but not $5 and something. But it’s just supply and demand. It’s the nature of what we do. And the weather—environmental climate, whatever conditions that pushing us towards, I think, if we had a bunch of rain, a lot of the guys would be saying, “Okay, I’ve got these heifers that are really good and they’re bringing good money, but now I’ve got the extra grass, I’m going to keep a few.” And the drought is still… 

the Shepherdess So people aren’t extending their herds right now. That’s interesting.

Karl Ebel And there are some great guys that do a super job on summarizing the cattle market—what’s going on, kind of where we’re headed. There’s a guy at OSU that I really like, Dr. Derrell Peel. There’s some other ones too. There’s one at A&M and at K-State, and I was fortunate to see all three of them together at one time. But anyway, they give some great reports. Those guys are super at what they do, so I just kind of borrow and watch what they do, witness it kind of, you know, and apply that to what I do. 

the Shepherdess So you’re talking in terms of management, pasture management, or are you talking in terms of predictions for the cattle industry with respect to those names you just dropped? 

Karl Ebel It’s just a big picture of where is this going and where do I fit with my skill set and the resources that I have in my place? So as this thing evolves—and it’s going to change—what can I do to be in the right spot? 

the Shepherdess Exactly. 

Why finishing beef is less profitable in today’s market 

Karl Ebel And we do a limited amount of grass finishing, we sell finished beef, but when a calf brings $2,700 at 500 pounds, you can quickly do the math—and probably some of y’all that are watching know this. I mean, you’ve got to get $5,000 for a finished beef to make it halfway exciting because you’ve taken him from 500 pounds to 1200 pounds. Now the resources that you’ve got to put into that animal are way more than it took you to get from zero to 500. 

the Shepherdess And that’s the funny thing, because when we met six years ago, people were getting excited about finishing out a portion of their herd and direct marketing the grass-fed beef. And we totally flipped—you can hardly convince people that the margins are there because if you’re smart, you’re doing math, and they’re not. We’re just in a record-high cattle market. And I’ve got tons more questions about the market, but Mr. Karl works in a regenerative, pasture-based system for his cattle. And one of the interesting things that you really emphasized, or made me understand up front, was that you got into raising livestock by seeing the animals as a means of managing the land rather than vice versa. 

Karl Ebel That’s right. That’s very important. I mean, when I was in my younger years, I did the cowboy thing and I loved it. And I was more involved in what, really, the whole grazing ecology was about. It began to really fascinate me, and I began to understand more about what was at the base of all this that I was enjoying. It’s a grazing land ecology—that is the resource. And that’s what we have to nurture and take care of and grow. That’s the soil that’s under that and the grazing ecology. That’s where we’re going to get the return in the long term. And that is not an easy thing for a lot of Americans. We want to put the effort in and we want to see the progress right now. But it’s a little bit of a slow process to rebuild and start building up soil health—all the different grasses, all the different forages that we need to establish—and then go into something where we really have a great resource. So that takes time. 

the Shepherdess Yep. All right, we’re going to get into some questions, again, connected to the cattle industry. Some people here in the comment section are asking for guidance in terms of getting in. Those are all questions I have on my list tonight, and we’re really going to get to them, but Mr. Karl—for people who are just totally new to you—give us some context on your land base: when you purchased it, what was the history of the land, what it had been previously used for, kind of carrying capacity, improvements over time—little things like that that’ll help people to get a picture of where you’re at. 

Karl Ebel So, in this area, it was almost 100% row crops, and mostly cotton. Cotton is very hard on the soil, and so they farmed it and they farmed it and they farmed it. They farmed it for well over 100 years. So there wasn’t a whole lot of nutrients going back. So the soil was quite exhausted. When we first got our place, there were jackrabbits. If you know what a jackrabbit likes, he likes a lot of bare ground, so he can really book it when the coyote’s coming. So a lot of bare ground. And so that tells you what the state of the soil health was—it was not really great. But slowly but surely, with rotational grazing—there’s a lot of regenerative stuff that you can do, but for me, that is the cornerstone of what builds what I’m doing with raising land ecology. 

the Shepherdess That’s really good. All right. So let’s go ahead and go back to the list of questions that I have here. Now, you decided the last time you were on the show was 2023, you were at $2.15 per pound for one of the 500-pound steers that you were taking to market. Today we’re over $5.40, right? Now it sort of feels like, as an onlooker, we’ve had somewhat of a perfect storm—inflation, drought, we’re at record lows in terms of cattle inventory in the USA, tariffs, bans for screwworms. Is there any one factor that you would say is contributing more than another? 

Karl Ebel Yes. So, you know, really, if the drought was not just there, keeping us on our toes, there would be more producers committing to that rebuild. We went through something a little bit similar to this in 2014, and the rebuild was pretty quick. But we had rain, and we had a lot of people that were willing to go ahead and say, “Okay, let’s go.” But now that the drought is hanging around, then that’s going to be one more thing. With any investment, anytime you add uncertainty, right?—because a lot of this investment is going to be on borrowed money, so then the risk is a little bit higher when they’re not real certain what’s going on—then they’re going to just kind of hold back a little bit, and I think that’s probably what’s going on now. 

the Shepherdess So you would attribute a lot of it to just where we’re at climate wise. The drought is just causing people to be… They’re selling their heifers instead of keeping them back. 

Karl Ebel If they had extra grass, they would be kind of looking at it the other way: “I’m going to keep them. I want to utilize this resource.” But if they’re like, “Man, if it gets dry, then I got to get hay and I got to do all this other stuff,” then it’s not going to come out very good. 

the Shepherdess Well, yeah, because when you’re feeding your cows out of a brown paper bag, the profits kind of go out the window. So I mentioned some things. Am I overlooking factors? You mentioned the climate and some of the factors I mentioned—we got low inventories, tariffs, drought, import bans. Is there anything I’m overlooking in terms of what could be driving the market up? 

Karl Ebel Not really. I think a little bit on the tariff thing, it was just a little bit of uncertainty. Really, after we’ve come through a lot of reiterations of kind of how that was going to be, the beef guys kind of benefited. Yeah, because the grain guys, you know, the row crop guys, they had countertariffs or whatever you want to call it. And so grain prices are down and they just…

the Shepherdess Because the global demand was sort of cut off with the retaliatory stuff?

Karl Ebel That’s right. 

the Shepherdess Gotcha. Yeah.

Karl Ebel So the grain guys—they’re the ones that are going to be having a hard go here for a little while. 

the Shepherdess Interesting. All right, so I’m going to go ahead and throw up a graph here—because I’m hitting the cattle market questions pretty hard—just as a matter of personal curiosity. So this is what we were looking at—a cattle market graph from, I guess it was, 2013 to 2022. I’ll pull one up that’s a little bit more recent here. Now, from 2013 to 2015, the cattle market was on a pretty steep ascent, I guess you could say. And then in 2016, it hit a really big crash. You were in the market, you were in the business at that point in time. What’s a little bit of context for what we’re seeing, basically, on screen here in 2013 to 2016? 

Karl Ebel Well, again, it’s back to supply and demand. So when the numbers started building after the high prices in ’14 and everybody thought, hey, there’s a little bit of change to be made here. I’m getting back in. And they did, and they started building the numbers again. Well, then the favor shifts to the packers and the people that are selling the meat, and so they have the leverage, right? And so that’s what you saw when the market kind of hit the bottom in 2016. 

the Shepherdess Now, explain that for somebody who doesn’t understand the industry or the monopoly. How would something like a packer have the ability to influence such a downturn as we see here? 

Karl Ebel If they have really more beef than they need, they can pause. But the people that are raising those cattle and finishing those cattle in the feedlot cannot pause. They can pause a little and grow those steers a little bigger in the feedlot, but they can’t pause a lot. And the packers can kind of use that to their benefit. 

the Shepherdess So basically, I mean, they have things like cold storage and inventories, you know, on the backside. So they’re able to basically leverage that ability to, I guess… 

Karl Ebel Slow it all down, and then the guys that need to be making money on the production end…

the Shepherdess So you’re saying that in 2015 and 2016, we saw this horrible crash. You’re saying that the packers were able to leverage inventories to stay in the market, purposely or not. You know, you can’t say purposely, but… 

Karl Ebel They just make a profit.

the Shepherdess Yeah. Interesting. So is there any parallel? I mean, we’re here 10 years later. Will history repeat itself? Are we at that risk? What would contribute to it?

Karl Ebel I would say that that’s a very good question, and the same guys that were predicting the markets they were predicting to rebuild when ’14 kind of came to the high, and they said, “Okay numbers are starting to rebuild,” and they were right. I mean, not every little, you know, peak and valley, but for the most part, they predicted it pretty close. And those same guys now are saying, “The rebuild hasn’t started yet.”

the Shepherdess So what metrics were they watching? Just herd sizes? 

Karl Ebel Herd sizes, and they get numbers from the entire sales sheet, basically, of beef in the United States. 

the Shepherdess Interesting. So they’re sitting there—the ones that predicted the crash that we saw in ’15 and ’16, really well—they’re saying we don’t have the climate right now to recreate this in ’26 or ’27.

Karl Ebel It’s not happening right now and it doesn’t look like it… I mean, it’s not like raising something that has a quick production time because cattle, that’s not the case. So it’s going to take a couple of years before we see, wow, yeah, it’s really started back the other way again. And they’re not seeing that right now. 

the Shepherdess So, in context of that, another question that I had was imports. So I guess for some context here, I’ll build up with a couple more questions: did Trump ever put import tariffs on cattle specifically? I couldn’t really find any information.

Karl Ebel No, not really. There were a couple in the early days that were basically under tariffs for imports. Then there were some reviews done, and they removed them from the beef part of imports to try to keep a stable food, you know, try to help with inflation and so forth. 

the Shepherdess So this is what we’re looking at here. This is a graph that I found from 2017, basically, to present day. They’re citing a 368 average for feeder cattle. But there were no import tariffs on cattle specifically. But in November of 2025, so just last year, Trump dropped tariffs on things like beef, coffee, another kind of exotic product. Was there any conversation in the community about that? Did it make a big impact? 

Karl Ebel I don’t see that any of those particular measures made, you know, a big impact. What it did was the uncertainty. I mean, it doesn’t take you long to do the math. And there is the big portion of this beef cattle sector—these guys call it ‘running yearlings” or “running stockers.” One stocker is $2,700, and they need 200. Now, do the math on that and figure out—they’re going to be borrowing quite a bit of money. So uncertainty makes—and I would be too, I don’t know how they sleep at night—makes people really nervous and they’re like, oh, pump the brakes here. 

the Shepherdess So those people that have to make the big investments financially, they would probably be the feeder or the stocker guys—which category? 

Karl Ebel The cow-calf guys—mostly like myself—we hold our own yearling, but we don’t buy any. But the cow-calf guys—if he’s watching his numbers in his budget and inputs, his input cost increases a little but not tremendously. But the guys that are in the next section where you take this 500-pound calf, and you bring it to a wheat pasture or place to graze him through the summer—a lot of those guys buy those calves. So you can see the difference. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, that makes sense. Because they’re not raising a herd, their inventories are just constantly a revolving door. 

Karl Ebel And I would say—I’m just throwing a number out there, you know—60% of those guys are going to talk to a banker. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, right. Those that are leveraged out the wazoo. Okay, so that’s a really good insight. So you came over in 2020, I think it was, and we had our first conversation on cattle. One of the first things you talked about was the imports from Argentina, just importing the full carcasses and cutting them in the United States and then marking them “Product of USA.” Do we still have that going on now or was that repealed? 

Karl Ebel That is a good question. That was referred to back in those days as the cool… Whatever that bill was that they passed. And I know there was some more talk on revising that to protect some of our U.S. products that are made here, that are raised here, and so I’m not sure, to be honest. But I think maybe they have done a little to fix that so that the stuff that comes in from other countries is… Some of it is necessary because we have too much fat—I say too much, we have a lot of fat in our beef that we don’t want to just discard. So they bring in a lot—Brazil, Argentina—they were bringing a lot of lean beef and then we would blend those and then we would have something that would be a very good, very usable product. 

the Shepherdess That brings me to—I think, what happened just maybe a week or two ago—when Trump allowed for, I think, it was like $800 million in trim from Argentina to be imported tariff free. A lot of people were throwing that around in a context that maybe wasn’t entirely accurate to be a little bit sensational. Did that at all cool the market? Do those kinds of things put the market at risk? 

Karl Ebel I don’t think it had any measurable impact when you look at it, and that’s what these experts will—I mean, they go by the numbers, they’re like, “This is what we have for the amount of beef we’re processing; this is what these potential imports could represent bringing something else in. It’s not going to have a huge impact on it.” I would say the thing with Mexico probably has a little bit more impact. And it’s all based around this screwworm—this new world screwworm. That’s yet to be seen as we approach summer, what happened with that. 

the Shepherdess Okay, that’s really good information. So you’re referencing those people in the industry that you follow for market information. Could you drop their names again in case anybody wants to go start following? 

Karl Ebel Derrell Peel, and he does some good audio, so it’s a very good video broadcast. He’s just a great guy. 

the Shepherdess Okay, great. So I think that gives some really good context. Well, one other question I had is just a straightforward question: are we at risk—and nobody can really answer this because they’re not really in the minds of these people—but are we at risk of, basically, enough imports being led in to produce a more favorable price for the consumer? And if that was something that was done, how would it impact the cattle market? Is that a question that can even be answered right now? 

Karl Ebel That’s a good question. I don’t know… I mean, there are some countries that may have enough volume to affect that. Obviously, their exports are going somewhere now, and somebody else is asking for those exports, so they already have a market for them. Whether ours would be favorable enough to say, “Oh, we’re going to stop sending it over here; we’re going to send it to the U.S.” I’m just not sure. I kind of don’t think it would switch that big. 

the Shepherdess Or maybe not that fast, at least. Yeah, that’s a good point. All right, guys, we are here with Mr. Karl Ebel, halfway through our hour. He is regenerative-ranching beef cattle, as well as meat goats. We’re going to start taking questions from the audience, but I’m just working through my list here because we’re at a really interesting and exciting time in the cattle industry for a lot of people. But we’re just painting a picture in terms of the context that is surrounding it. I know that a lot of you have listened to me—and really us in a lot of ways—talk about value-adding to your operation through just adding that finished beef or that grass-finished direct-to-consumer. We’re at a unique time where that’s just not playing out to be as profitable. A lot of people are just shifting their focus to the commodity market to capitalize on this time period. So in that context, you got a lot of people that are excited about getting into the cattle industry. It’s good because we need that, but in that spirit, you know, what kind of information, words of caution, or encouragement, would you give that first-timer jumping into cattle in 2026? What would you look him in the face and tell him?

Advice for new producers and managing a low-input grazing system

Karl Ebel I would say, you know, when you start, get some quality cattle that are going to finish at a very high-quality finish. And that’s going to be your product. And those guys that buy your calves—if you’re a cow-calf guy and you’re selling calves—those buyers can spot those good quality cattle in a second. And I would say precondition those cattle and background those cattle so that you get a premium price for them. And, you know, it just depends on what your circumstances are. But if you’re just taking them straight off of the mama cow and they’re balling and you take them to the sale like that, they’re going to hit you with a big discount because those calves now are high risk. And at the prices we have today, nobody can stand that much of a death loss at all, so they want good, solid cattle that have been weaned 45 days, 60 days, and have had proper vaccinations to make sure they’re not going to get sick. 

the Shepherdess That’s really good. And I’m going to ask for definition of terms here on a few things in case we have newbies: you talk about preconditioning your cattle. Break that down. What does that process look like on your ranch? 

Karl Ebel Very good question. It’s actually the biggest part of preconditions is planning. Because when that calf is about six or seven months old, you’re going to have to wean it. When you do that, he’s under a lot of stress: “I can’t get to mama. That’s what I’ve known for all of my life.” So fence line wean those calves if at all possible. Mom’s on the other side of the fence—they can almost touch her, they can talk to her, they can see her—and then where those calves are standing, when you wean them, you need to have some good forage. That requires a little planning. But in the fall, you might say, “Okay, I’m going to wean my calves”—I’m just picking a number—”October 1st.” So now when you’re in mid-August, or even before that, you’re saying, “Okay, I know I’m going to wean those calves in this paddock. I’m saving some forage in that paddock, so when those calves are balling and looking for their moms, all they have to do is lower their nose and they’ve got something good to eat.” If they got a full belly, man, oh man, they do so much better, and they don’t get sick. 

the Shepherdess They forget their mom’s a little bit faster. 

Karl Ebel But it takes a little planning.

the Shepherdess Yeah. So basically, your pasture management plays into every phase of the life cycle of that cow, and really of that calf all the way up to weaning. 

Karl Ebel It does, Grace. You know, we talk about rotational grazing. Some simple polywire sets to carve off a piece where those calves are going to go down to that fence line to meet their moms who are in the next pasture over—take your polywire and just leave that out of your grazing. Don’t let any cattle in there. And then when you get ready to turn those calves in there, man, you’re way ahead of the game. 

the Shepherdess All right. I’ve kind of answered this question already, but it comes through a lot to me for sheep, and the question is: is investing in quality cattle early on important or can I just make corrections down the road—start with low quality, build quality later? 

Karl Ebel I did the same thing. I got—I wouldn’t say low quality—but I got some cattle that five years later, after I was better informed, I would have made different choices. I would’ve picked some higher-quality cattle. And everybody has an idea of the best quality, but I’m in English, Angus and Hereford. I lean more and more to the Angus, but they do a great job finishing. Those guys that are bidding on wherever you’re selling them, they can see them, they know they’re going to perform at the next stage when they’re grazing yearlings, and when they go to the feed yard, they’re going to perform in the feed yard. And so they pay you the premium for them.

the Shepherdess So that brings me to another question—again, sort of answered it—but what does a beginner look for when he’s shopping for cattle? What kind of questions does he ask? What does he look for in the operation? How can he make those wise decisions as a beginner and upfront? 

Karl Ebel So the guys that are doing it—grazing—there’s a certain cattle type that is a little bit more efficient. Now, we’re not going to say we’re going to redesign the cow here, they’re just a little more efficient, and they’re going to give you a calf every year. So, if you’re just looking at a set of heifers, “I want to see the mama cow because I want to see their udders, and I want to see what these heifers are going to look like when they grow into cows for me.” So ask to see what the moms look like. Pay close attention to the udders. And ask that guy who’s raising them what percentage of calf crop that he weans. You need to be in the high 80s, around 90 percent. If he’s doing his business right, and those cattle are doing good—they’re efficient, and they’re doing a good job for him—he ought to be able to tell you, 87, 89, 90, whatever, somewhere around there, and then you know that if you take care of these cows properly, they can produce good weaned calf crop.

the Shepherdess So you want to look for good udders, you want to look for a good calf crop, and then would you ask about feed inputs at all or what would you do there? 

Karl Ebel You can. That’s very helpful, Grace, because there are some cattle that have been selected that want to really lean into the grain finish ration. That is not exactly what I look for. I look for something that’s going to do really well grazing. And to be honest, I finished several steers and they finished very well. But the cattle that I’m looking for are going to have a little bit bigger girth because they’re going to be able to consume a little more forage. They’re not going to have real tall legs. They’re going to be a little bit shorter, moderate frame. My cows are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,150 to 1,200 pounds, the bigger ones, and so they’re moderate. I mean, when everybody was just pushing for bigger, bigger, bigger, people would probably call my cow small. But they’re more of a moderate size. They tend to be more efficient. Almost all of the research that’s been done about taking a cow and what percentage of her body weight she weaned. Okay, that’s the calf. What percentage did she wean? So if she weighs 1,700 pounds, and she weaned a calf that was 600 pounds, and my little cows that are 1,150 pounds are weaning a 500-pound calf, start working the math a little bit there. 

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the Shepherdess The math involves the feed that they’re consuming. You know, we’re going to get to the inputs, but what percentage of body weight do they typically consume? 

Karl Ebel You know, I shouldn’t have that percentage on my brain. I just work in terms of what I know I’ve fed. In a situation where it was snow and ice, I know how many pounds of good hay that I’ve fed to those cows. They need about a good, you know, say 1,200-pound cow—if she doesn’t have anything to pick on or nothing, just the hay you’re bringing, you’re probably looking at about 30 pounds a day. Somewhere in that neighborhood. 

the Shepherdess Okay, that’s good. All right, so just as a recap, in terms of the cattle that you choose, you’re looking for an English breed, something in the Angus. I think I’ve seen Hereford as well that would fall in the same category. A low line, which means you don’t want a lot of legs essentially. And then you want a big gut. 

Karl Ebel A big girth. They say spring of ribs, so the ribs come out, and you can imagine, oh, that’s the processing component inside those ribs. Great. Now I’ve got this big processing component. 

the Shepherdess And then 1,150 to 1,200 pounds is kind of where your sweet spot is. 

Karl Ebel You could go a little above that, but I wouldn’t go much. 

the Shepherdess And then, when you’re shopping for cattle, if you’re looking at those young heifers, you want to see their moms. And then you want to check the udders. What are you looking for in a good udder? 

Karl Ebel You’re looking for a moderate size, nothing that’s pendulous, swinging. Those tend to have more problems. Something that’s well attached with teats, you know, not much bigger than your thumb, and something that’s going to be just well attached and not… There’s some more technical terms. You can go online and get more technical terms. I just can’t remember, but it has to do with how it’s attached. 

the Shepherdess So, basically compact—nothing that’s swinging around or hanging down like a dairy cow, essentially. 

Karl Ebel So what you do is, some people will say, “Yeah, but she doesn’t have much milk.” Okay, well let’s talk about the genetics of what you’re raising. So you’re raising a cow breed, a type of cattle that does well on grass. And they breed early. So now they’re going to have their calves on time in March. What comes in March is superb. 

the Shepherdess Best grass. 

Karl Ebel That’s right, the best grass, Grace. So now, okay, maybe she’s not this huge milk producer. Not a problem. Junior is going to transfer to the grass a lot quicker and use that efficiently. And so she doesn’t need to have the extra milk. And therefore, the resources in her body can go to reproduction, so she’ll cycle that much quicker. And the next time, your next year’s calf crop will be early too. 

the Shepherdess And that’s just the tandem bike, essentially, of genetics and pasture management, because you can’t have one without the other. I mean, that cow that we’re talking about that’s working really well in your grass-based system may or may not. Well, yours performed pretty well, no matter where they’re at, to be honest. But if you were to bring something that was really grain dependent into your system, again, you probably have the difficulty there. 

Karl Ebel You may have lower fertility.

the Shepherdess Yeah. Because you were talking, I was about to say, your cattle may not do as well on the grain feedlots, but you were just talking about how the buyers search your cattle out at the market because they know if they perform well on a pasture-based system, I mean, they’re going to… 

Karl Ebel And the grade, I mean, I sold private treaty to a guy that was feeding in a feedlot—it was a mixture of grain and silage—and he said the calves I brought him did top-of-the-line. 

the Shepherdess Outperformed. That’s amazing. All right, so let’s go ahead and get into the… Well, this is a question. If somebody’s looking to get into the cattle industry right now, would you recommend the new cowboy, you know, start his herd right now, or should he wait for prices to cool? What’s your opinion on that? 

Karl Ebel I think that is a very good question, and I see where the guys are deliberating over some of that. And I think you’re probably going to have two or three more years—the next two are probably going to be really good, and there’s probably going to be a third one that’s going to be good. So, if you bought some heifers now and say, you know, put the bull on this May, June or whatever, you’re probably going to be getting back most of that money. 

the Shepherdess So, say I went out and invested in a herd of cows, bred them. I could probably expect to have one good calf crop sale before the market starts to descend on that? I mean, just generally, if you were to give your best guess.

Karl Ebel That would be my guess based on, you know, what these experts—Peele and them—are saying. 

the Shepherdess Right. And something that is very elementary, but the life cycle of beef cattle is just a little bit longer than something like a sheep or a goat, so you have to factor that in with the markets and all. It would have been better off to buy a herd five or six years ago when everybody was—

Karl Ebel Even two years ago. 

the Shepherdess —liquidating. All right, we’re going to go ahead and segue into the input costs because your system is really something I want people to learn from as much as possible. Go ahead and talk about stocking rate on your land—how you manage that, and how you would encourage people not to just load it up. 

How grazing management lowers feed inputs and improves efficiency

Karl Ebel That’s very good. So before you go into the cattle, it all starts with trying to do a fairly accurate assessment of what you have for a grazing resource. If you start stocking whatever pasture you have in a conservative manner and you watch what’s going on—how the grass responds to the cattle, how the cattle respond to the forage that they’re ingesting—you’re learning all the time. And then after the first year you’re going, “Hey, I could have had five more cows,” then you add, but don’t ever get ahead of your grazing resource, because then—the cattle. You’ve got them to take care of—you’re going to buy hay, they may overgraze, they may actually set your grazing resource back. So start conservatively. You can always add. You can always add when you say, “Well, man, I had grass left over.” And of course weather cycles are going to be throwing you a curve all the time, too. You might have had a real extra wet summer one year, and the next time, you know, got droughty on you. But if you have extra forage standing in the pasture, that’s insurance. If a drought comes, if something, you know, out of the ordinary happens, you’ve got something to fall back on. Even if it’s not great quality forage, you can supplement with some protein, and you can make it through the storm and keep those cattle in good shape. 

the Shepherdess Now, in your operation—let’s just say it’s an average year, nothing too good, nothing too bad—what do you budget in terms of carrying capacity, cows to acres? 

Karl Ebel I have about five acres to the cow. I’ve got probably 750 open acres. I’ve got what’s called savanna—some trees with grass underneath—and then I’ve got wooded areas that the cow really isn’t going to make much of a living there. But if you look at how many mama cows I have, how many yearlings I generally carry, and how many… The goats are kind of off by themselves because they mostly eat the brush and stuff, but I do about five acres to the cow. And where we live, there are people that stock much heavier. But all those people, in this area, are feeding a lot of hay. And so that’s what I’ve eliminated, and that’s what’s been really profitable for me. When I’m looking at my winter plan, I’m considering how much stockpile, so to speak, of what I have in standing forage. So going into the winter, I’m like, yeah I got plenty of standing stockpiled forage. Now, as you get into late January to February, the quality of that forage continues to go down. The weather has been working on it all winter. So you got to keep some protein going in those cows so they can do what they need to do. I’ve got to do my job. If I’m saying, you know, my cows have got to have a calf every year on time, I can do my job too.

the Shepherdess Right. And you answered the question that came next in terms of hay inputs. You don’t, on an average year, don’t have any to speak of at least. 

Karl Ebel No, I keep about 40 round bales under a covered storage. We have ice storms here. We had one this year that lasted about five days. There was not a bite of anything for a cow except what you brought them. So those hay bales, I used about half—about 20 bales—to feed my whole bunch. And then it all melted and went back green again. 

the Shepherdess So that five acres to a cow is factoring year-round feeding—you’re not bringing in a lot of feed inputs. Tell about the protein cubes that you’ll feed, and how you feed them in tandem with that stockpile. 

Karl Ebel I use a high protein—they’re 38% protein—and the main component is cottonseed meal. You have to be a little careful. You don’t want to overfeed that type of feed, but it’s very efficient. Just to give you an example, if you’re eating a 20% range cube, you’re handling twice as many cubes as I’m handling. That means hauling, distributing, whatever you’re doing, you’re handling twice as many. And so if you look at it on a cost basis, those 38% cubes are roughly 50% cheaper than the 20% grain-based cubes. So both in cost, in labor, the amount that you have to handle, it just works out. It works out really well. And you can feed those cubes—if it’s a commodity feed that’s loose and it gets real muddy, you’re going to have to have a trough. Now, try messing with a trough for a hundred-something cows. You know, that’s a nightmare. These cubes, I can find a place on an old terrace next to a road or something that’s got some good turf, and I can feed those kit cubes and walk through. 

the Shepherdess And that 38% cube is working in tandem with just the lower quality forage, but it provides—you explained it sort of simplistically to me—it provides just enough protein for the gut to do its thing with the rest of the dry matter. 

Karl Ebel It does. They have to have the forage in some form or fashion for their rumen to perform properly. But as long as they have some forage, even if it’s poor quality, you can kind of adjust the nutritive value of what their total intake is by adding those and high-protein cubes. 

the Shepherdess Now at what rate do you feed those? 

Karl Ebel Through the whole winter, I’ll feed them about—and sometimes I feed them every day, sometimes I feed them every other day, sometimes I’ll feed them every third day—but if you took an average from about the first of October to about the middle of March, I feed about 2.8, 2.9 pounds of those 38s per head per day.

the Shepherdess So that would be, as you mentioned, when you feed just hay, they’ll eat about 30 pounds of hay per head. So about 10% of total daily intake would be this high protein. Okay, that’s really good. The question also that I’m coming up on here is, in your operation, what’s the cost of raising a cow in one year, here in 2026? 

Karl Ebel Very good, very good. So it’s gradually come up—as everything else has as well with inflation—but right now for the national average, it’s over $1,000 per cow. 

the Shepherdess For one year. 

Karl Ebel For one year. So I’ve got—let’s just pick a number—I’ve got 10 mama cows, and I’m going to feed them, and I’m going to let them graze as much as I can. And I’m going to have other inputs whether it’s machinery, whether it’s property taxes—whatever it is—all the stuff that you have to pay to make your place run. And then you divide that operating cost by 10 cows or a hundred cows or whatever you have. And you get this number and the national average is about $1,050 to keep a cow for a year. 

the Shepherdess So I’m rewinding my mind to those times when people were just getting $750 to $800 a calf.

Karl Ebel Very good, Grace, very good. That’s what everybody needs to be… I don’t think it’ll go back down there again, but it’s still, it’s not going to be where it is now. And so you need to be thinking about—even though, like now, nobody can mess up very bad, a cow-calf guy can’t, because the calf price is just phenomenal—but it’s just not going to stay like that. 

the Shepherdess And when you’re talking $1,000 a year national average, those are your guys who have their systems down. When you’re just starting, you’re spending a good bit of extra money as you get your feet under you, and get your systems in place. So as a beginner, your per cow cost might be a little bit higher over the course of the year.

Karl Ebel Right. Well, part of it is when you first start to put the infrastructure in whether you’ve got to develop water, and whether you got, you know, your fences. Now, these poly fences are very cost-effective—you use the same thing—and so you can really cut costs, and open up your options for grazing a lot more. It’s a little more work, yeah. You’ve got to get out there, do the posts, and string the poly out, make sure to check it every day, and make sure it’s good and hot, but it gives you a lot more options and it gives a lot cheaper cost. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, and I mean, you said it takes a little extra work, but sometimes I look at the work it takes to, you know, haul the hay out there over winter, or, you know, treat health problems that manifest as a result of not keeping your animals moving. I mean, I would maybe argue if somebody was to put that up and say, “It takes me too long to rotate my animals.” I mean, what are you doing because you’re not. 

Karl Ebel Right. I would agree with you, Grace, and so the bonus with the rotation or with, you know, moving these animals is you’re going to get a little more grass production. 

the Shepherdess Yeah.

Karl Ebel If somebody said, “Hey, I’ll sell you 100 acres, you know, for this price.” And somebody said, “I’ll sell you 100 acres and I’ll throw in another 25 acres, same price.” They wouldn’t pause, they wouldn’t hesitate. They know what they would take. So if you’re rotating the grazing and you can increase your grass production, your forest production by just 25%, that’s meaningful. 

the Shepherdess That pays for itself. I mean, it pays for your time. 

Karl Ebel Well, and you will see in the literature, you will see, on the internet, things like people claiming “double your stocking rate,” but be cautious. Try conservative, learn how it works, and you’ll see where you can increase. Maybe this guy that doubled his stocking rate has phenomenal soil health when he starts. Maybe I don’t, so I’m not going to say, “Oh, I’m going to double my stocking rate just because I’m rotationally grazing.” 

the Shepherdess Yeah, that’s a very, very good point as well. Be conservative, but get excited at the same time. 

Karl Ebel You can add anytime you want to when you see you’ve got extra resources. 

the Shepherdess Good. All right, so you touched on $1,000 a year national average. Is that about your average? 

Karl Ebel No, I’m probably somewhere around $500. 

the Shepherdess Wow, okay. That’s great. And what is your highest input cost in your operation? 

Karl Ebel Probably my feed cost—my supplement cost, Grace. You know, you want to put a good-quality mineral out there. Minerals are getting more and more expensive. I vaccinate all my cattle. If I treat one or two calves a year, then that’s about all I treat. If I have a little run—you know, some of you folks might know what pink eye is—pink eye is kind of a wild card because there’s some vaccines and things that you can do to minimize it, but it can still bite you. If I have a year where I have a little pink eye, I might treat 10 calves, but certainly not the stories that I hear from other guys saying, “Man, we had it ruin the respiratory and I lost so many calves, and treated so many.” I just don’t do that. I give them the vaccine, I do the preconditioning, and keep them healthy and give them what they need, and I just don’t treat that many calves at all. 

the Shepherdess Yeah. All right, we’re going to go ahead. We’ve got two more minutes, but would you mind just doing a couple of minutes of overtime because we’re going to get to a couple of audience questions here. Would that work? 

Karl Ebel Sure. 

the Shepherdess All right, so Jim asks, “I’m taking over for an elderly man who has let things go, and this layout has several choke points that become deep mud pits every winter. It’s causing foot problems and makes for poor soil regeneration. I ordered a regenerative farming book called Salad Bar Beef, but I haven’t received it yet.” What other books or resources would you recommend to help improve the management situation here?

Karl Ebel The mud. This gentleman has a very good point that is often overlooked, and I call it mud management. And we’re in 40-something inches of rain here, so, man, I know where you’re coming from. It can be a challenge. It may be that you have certain areas of your operation that don’t get so muddy and have fairly good drainage. Or it may be, if you see a rain forecast—you know, depending on what your logistics are, sometimes you can’t move them—but I know when I’ve had to leave them in a place that was too muddy, don’t… When it’s going to be muddy, try not to confine them. Try to let them spread out and they’ll do a lot less damage in general. But those choke points, I know what you mean—moving them back and forth through there, and chop it all up. You may need another gate or two, another route that you can take them if possible. Sometimes the way they lay the land doesn’t allow that, but yes, that is a real challenge. 

the Shepherdess So spreading out, maybe creating more choke points.

Karl Ebel Well, it just depends on the lay of the land really. I mean, some people just, you know, they have sacrifice areas and it’s like, okay, I’ve got some place that’s fairly high and well drained. They’re going to chop it up a little bit with the hoof action, but that’s where they have to stay when we have those events. 

the Shepherdess Any specific resources or books or places that he should go for management? 

Karl Ebel I don’t, other than just that basic premise, you know, if you can spread them out when it’s wet and so they don’t just stay confined. They can really tear some pasture up bad. 

the Shepherdess Yeah. There is a very high-density rotational grazing that’s promoted, but you really cautioned me. You said, “When the climate is muddy like this, that high-density stuff will push you back in terms of your forage.” And explain exactly why. I mean, why do people want to avoid high density when it’s super wet like that? 

Karl Ebel They’ll just chop it up. Now, where we live, we have Bermuda grass. And so, Bermuda grass, as long as it has fairly high fertility, you can really abuse it and just tear it to pieces and it comes back in summertime real good. But the native forages don’t. You put those cattle in there and it’s wet, and they stand there in a concentrated bunch—where you would want the hoof action for part of the year when it’s fairly dry—but when it is wet and they chop it all up, they’ll damage, they’ll kill, they’ll stomp them in the mud. 

the Shepherdess Yeah. Jared asks, “Is Red Angus a good breed for a grass-based operation?” 

Karl Ebel Yes, yes it is. I have some Red Angus. 

the Shepherdess Yeah. All right, so another question is, “Anyone have any guidance as to mini cows or Scottish Highlands?” Hadassah’s asking that. 

Karl Ebel Those are not going to be mainstream cattle; in other words, if you have those two breeds and you bring them and sell the calves from those two breeds, they’re not going to fit in a big program to move on through the traditional cattle-raising system. And so the buyers are going to back off a little bit from those. If you had something similar, if you had a good solid black Angus with a moderate to small frame, not the really small ones, then you’re going to get a premium price. The Highlanders—the ones with the long hair—I think they’re a pretty good beef breed. They’re horned cattle. So you have to take some precaution there, and sometimes they don’t fit with some of the cattle that don’t have horns. So unless you dehorn them at a young age, some of the buyers are going to back off a little bit there too. 

the Shepherdess That’s a good point. Jim says, “Does that five acres per cow include all of your calf count, or is that just your breeding moms?” 

Karl Ebel No, that’s the moms.

the Shepherdess But when you budget five acres per cow, you need to have a little bit of extra for once those calves are weaned? 

Karl Ebel Well, you’re looking at what they call an animal unit, and so that’s really about a 1,000-pound cow with a calf up to about 400 pounds. That’s an animal unit. Now, if you had yearling heifers, if they weighed 750 pounds, you see, what you would do with that—I’ve got three-quarters of an animal unit, and that’s how you would do the calculation. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, that’s a good point. 

Karl Ebel Because I have my replacement heifers, and they just fall into that same calculation. 

the Shepherdess Okay. That makes a good point. 

the Shepherdess I think this is going to be the last question of the night: Susanna says, “Sorry for jumping in late. Can anyone give advice on how to get rid of Japanese grass in the grazing fields?” It’s cogongrass?

Karl Ebel That’s one that I’m not familiar with. 

the Shepherdess Yeah, I’ve never heard of that one as well. She lives in Alabama. But what would you say? Any guidance for invasive species on whole and how to manage them? 

Karl Ebel You can put grazing pressure on it with the cattle. I mean, trying to take a grass out when you’re trying to raise grass in general, you know your herbicides are going to be really tough because they’re mostly designed to kill grasses or broadleaf. So taking a particular grass out of the other grasses you have is really hard. If you can give it conditions that it doesn’t like—if it doesn’t like to be grazed close, try to put some pressure on it. 

the Shepherdess So that’s a really good point. So get to know that grass and get to what it doesn’t like, and then give it exactly that. All right. 

Karl Ebel One more point, Grace, as everybody is trying to look at the markets that we have now and trying to figure out where they fit—this is the time when maybe the direct marketing thing is not so attractive, but you need that skill set. Okay? So if you’re thinking, well, I kind of want to do the direct marketing, that is good. So learn all about it because there’s a lot of moving pieces to that direct marketing, as this young lady can tell you. So, get some real experience. Do one or two, you know, steers or whatever for your family and friends and figure out, I mean, here’s my finished product. Am I happy with that? Are my customers happy with it? And how did I get here? I’m going to have to move through these steps. I’m going to have to take it and have it processed. Then how am I going to transport? How am I going to market it, etc., etc.? So do it maybe in a little bit of an abbreviated way so when the time comes, and it is profitable—it won’t be long, you know, four or five years—you’ll think, okay, I have it figured out. Now I’m ready to shift. I’m going to pivot and get in where I need to. 

the Shepherdess That’s a really good point. So whereas, you know, in 2020, it might’ve been tempting to establish an operation—it was 50/50, you know, 50% commodity, 50% retail—today, you know, 90/10 might be more appealing financially, but you do need to maintain sort of… Because when the market does shift—and it will—then you can just scale up a portion of your operation for those different climates, market-wise. Anything that you made notes on that you really think people need to carry forward that I didn’t touch on in my questions?

Karl Ebel Not really, Grace. You did a great job of trying to summarize and anticipate where this market might be going. It looked really good for the cow-calf guy. I mean, it took it 60 years to get to record prices, but we’re here. And of course put some of the money back into your resources. I have some creek crossings that I’ve repaired. I have just different things that have needed a little more attention, and now that I have a little bit more cashflow, that’s where I’m trying to put it back into my grazing resource so that when times are not quite as good, my grazing resources need to be strong. 

the Shepherdess That’s really good. So putting it back into your resource because that’s sort of like your bank account for when the times are tough. All right, guys, thank you so much for joining us tonight. This was an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for being here, Mr. Ebel. 

Karl Ebel You’re welcome, I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

the Shepherdess All right, thank you guys. 

Karl Ebel Good luck, stay with it! 

Hey Friends! Here is a link to a replay from last night (it was a packed livestream – thank you!!). I taught LAMBING BASICS: from prepping the ewe to assisting during lambing process (as a beginner). WATCH REPLAY In tandem with this free class, I am offering my complete 12-video BUNDLE on raising a sheep from birth to 8 mos at (about) 50% off!! Here is the link to BUY:👇👇 ​ What I shared in this class was a small section of my best paid course: RAISING SHEEP 101… which walks you through raising a lamb from 0-8 months! If you want the complete course definitely jump on this offer! ​ Enjoy! -the Shepherdess “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.” Psalm 37:3

Hi friends,

Rotational grazing, worms, lambing seasons, fencing, marketing, livestock guardian dogs… we are covering a little bit of everything in today’s sheep farming Q&A.  I sat down and answered some of the most common questions I receive about raising sheep on pasture, including what has worked well on my own farm and a few hard lessons learned along the way.

From building strong grass-based genetics to managing parasites and selling sheep direct to consumers, this conversation is packed with practical advice for shepherds trying to build a healthier and more profitable flock.

-the Shepherdess

TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess Guys, I got a mega load of questions this month. I probably have 40 or 60 questions here pertaining to sheep farming, even some marketing, some business stuff with respect to sheep, and maybe even monetizing your farm, that I’m going to try to power through tonight. But I am so incredibly excited to be here with you. I’m going to specifically talk about, tonight, The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. A lot of the questions I’m getting ready to answer are embodied in this book, which is available at Shepherdess.com. It’s also just packed full of, basically, The basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. You get 250 pages, full color, of answers to questions that I had when I jumped into sheep farming as a beginner. I’m also going to be talking about this resource, which is Butchering by Adam Danforth, guys. Every homestead library really, really needs this. And I might be getting a little bit salesy upfront, but these two books are worth having on your shelf. Butchering by Adam Danforth really does the visual picture job of walking you through taking a live animal and putting it on a plate for dinner. So guys, these are the two books available at Shepherdess.com, and you can purchase them there with free shipping. I’m going to be talking a little bit about them tonight. 

If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com; you’ll find a direct link in the description. 

Building a grazing system: paddocks, fencing, and water

All right, first question of the night, I’m going to be answering Angie. And Angie actually emailed me. I couldn’t really get to all of these questions within one email, so I promised her I would address her questions first thing in the meetup tonight. I think she mentioned she had 20 or 30 acres that she’s getting started with a sheep farm. So this is a question I get a lot. Angie says, “Assuming we can create enough paddocks to allow for full recovery on pasture of 30 to 60 days, what is the longest you would recommend leaving sheep in a single paddock?” So, right now, I would recommend—at a minimum—moving them about two times per week during the growing season. The growing season is, for me, March through November. Try to move them a minimum of two times a week. For me personally, once the wintertime hits, I am leaving them stationary just a little bit longer—10 days, 14 days. I do try to rotate them a little bit over winter, but because, kind of, once the grass is gone, the grass is gone, and I’m a little bit less pressured to move them. 

Question number two is: “Given the water situation, do you have any recommendations for getting water to these various paddocks?” Grazing Sheep Kickstart Guide, and that Grazing Sheep Kickstart guide, the PDF, it’s going to have three individual resources for you. Number one is paddock sizing worksheet, number two is all of the supplies I use within my grazing system, and then number three—what is the third one?—bonus. It’s related to grazing sheep, but it’s fantastic, if you ask me. Anyways, you’ve got three in there, but the one that you want to look at for that, Angie, is the supplies list. And you’re going to want to find on that supplies list polyethylene tubing. I use that, and I have that all over my property. I will use 500-foot lengths, so like $100 to $150 for that 500-foot length, and I get water all over the place. We have hose spigots up close to the house, and I will use those extra-long polyethylene tubing lengths to get the water to where I need it to go. 

All right, question number four: “As far as the temporary paddock fences, what would you use to create them?” I use poly tape, which will, again, be referenced on that Grazing Sheep Kickstart Guide supplies list. I use poly tape because the netting is absolutely exhausting. What I have to do to keep the sheep contained—because sheep are super, super sneaky, constantly testing that fence—I have got to pair that with a 12-joule fence charger. And that’s an AC unit; it’s not a solar unit, and I did that after having a season of sheep just really testing the fence time and again when I was using solar chargers that were a little bit weaker. So keep that in mind. I use a collaboration of that poly tape and a really good fence charger. That is what works for me. Question number five from Angie is: “Do sheep need a shelter?” And the answer is yes. Now that shelter can be a tree or a really good hedge of trees. For my sheep that’s what their shelter is. Most of the time they’re on pasture, rotating around pasture, you know, eight days out of ten, four days out five, and that is what they use as just a tree to have shelter from rain, from heat, etc. Now when it comes to winter time, we do have a two-sided shed and that blocks them from that really sharp north wind. It gives them cover overhead from rain and the very occasional snow and ice that we do get. But I do highly advise that you have a shelter of some type that you can bring them into. 

I also am going to drop a link here, guys, to my resource, which is a portable shade structure. And a lot of people have raved about this helping a ton with respect to their rotational grazing program when they don’t necessarily have… It’s actually in the book here. And in the book, the entire first chapter is devoted to the nine things that you need to start a sheep farm. And this shade structure is a portable DIY shade structure that I teach you how to build here. Cannot take credit for this. This was my mom’s idea, a fantastic idea of hers. And I have a QR code with a video of assembly, as well as the supplies that you need to create that. If you want to cheat, you can go to YouTube and get a video on how to make that. I won’t gatekeep on that if you want to go to YouTube and just get a free version. Question number six is another really good question. I get it a lot as far as guardian dogs. She said she previously had a livestock guardian dog, but wonders if a donkey would do just as well. This is going to go back to a question I asked a sheep farmer who had been in it for 20 years. He said, “I had donkeys at the onset. They did okay for a while, but they got lazy. And we started to lose lambs left and right.” Listen to what I’m getting ready to say: he said, “I realized at that point in time that you have to fight predators with predators.” A donkey is not a predator; a dog is. So if you’re fighting predators, you need to fight predators with predators. That’s stuck with me, and I would never recommend a livestock guardian donkey over a dog. All of that to say, make your own decisions, but that is what I always tell people. 

Question number seven from Angie. And then, guys, I’m going to make sure to scan the live chat. So keep leaving your questions there if you are already. But I’m going to get through Angie’s. Got about eight questions, nine questions here. I’m going to get through them and then go over to the live Q&A. Number seven, Angie says, “A neighbor currently has sheep on the biggest pasture that we are moving to. He manages his flock conventionally in a set-stock grazing situation. Should we let that pasture rest before putting our new flock on there? And if so, how long?” The answer would be: I would allow it to rest long enough for the parasites to die off on that pasture. I’d give it about 45 to 60 days of rest before putting the sheep back on there. And that’s going to allow a lot of the parasites that built up as a result of a conventional set stock grazing situation to die off, and create just a cleaner, fresher pasture for your new flock to go to. Because guys, if you’re raising sheep for the first time, one of the biggest struggles you’re going to have is with internal parasites. That’s why I harp so hard on having a good grazing system. That’s why I really harp a lot about it on The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture, which is available at Shepherdess.com. I have an entire chapter dedicated to not only grazing management, but how to set up a grazing system, how to plant pasture by hand without heavy machinery or equipment. 

A big part of this book is dedicated to getting you guys into a good rotational grazing system for your sheep, because it’s just that important for their health, for the health of your land, and to make you successful with sheep, I firmly believe you’ve got to have that grazing system in place. So give that pasture 45 to 60 days to rest and sanitize, and then get your sheep on there. Another good question here: she says, “I know a UTV is a bit of a luxury item, but it’s been on our list for almost 10 years.” She is deliberating and wants to know if she should invest in that UTV, or suck it up and try to haul all of her watering system and her grazing supplies by hand. Do you guys have input on this? Leave in the comment section: should she invest in a UTV? What she’s seeing is between $8,000 and $10,000 in her area. And do you guys have creative ideas as far as Angie with respect to getting in on a UTV at a good price? For me personally, we do have a UTV. We’ve had it since the beginning of our farming journey and, guys, it has saved a lot of time and a lot of effort. I didn’t have a tractor when I first started. I didn’t have any heavy machinery or equipment, but that little thing really helped me to zip around, and saved my back on a lot of occasions. We got a really good deal on it. It was something my dad bought and he actually traded some things for it. So Angie, if you could think about scanning Craigslist, putting the word out with friends, kind of going that way in order get the price down for you, but I would say shop for it. And I do know that a lot of people just do the work with a four wheeler. So that’s also an option. I do think the four wheelers are maybe a little less expensive. Am I right, guys? Maybe a little bit less expensive than a UTV. 

Question number nine is: “Were your sheep always pasture-based, or did you transition them to that when they started to graze at your place?” She says, “I ask because we could have an opportunity to buy some of my neighbor’s sheep when he downsizes his flock later this year, but since he utilizes grain so heavily and we’d like to use as little of that as possible, I’m not sure if they would thrive on a grass-based system.” So doubling back to that question: “Were your sheep always pasture-based?” I’d say, yes, our sheep were always pasture-based for the most part. They came to the farm. We did use a little bit more grain supplementation when we first started than we do now. Again, I cover that—going to plug the book a ton tonight, but a lot of questions I get on a regular basis, I actually created this book for. I’m going to open up to the page for you guys that talks about supplementation. But basically, my answer to that question is Rome was not built in a day, and neither are grass-based genetics. So in short, when you guys start with your sheep, you are going to possibly be supplementing a little bit more than you would like. But what you do for that is just year after year, you cull or you remove the sheep that you see losing body condition—which I’m going to get you a picture here of body condition and how to score it on a sheep. But essentially, you watch the body condition on your sheep and you note the ones that are doing really well and staying really fat. And you also note the one that are becoming really, really thin on the supplement you are providing. And you cull—which means you get rid of—those skinny sheep from your flock, and before long you’re going to have a flock that thrives on minimal supplementation. 

When to treat, support, or cull within your flock

I still have a ewe or two every year that I just have to get rid of because she’s too skinny. She’s too skinny on pasture only. She needs supplement and it’s still a culling process as far as I go. But I cover things like loose mineral, what kind of loose mineral to give in that supplement. I cover how to supplement on really poor quality pasture. Again, guys, this book covers it all. And I cover the body condition. I want to specifically show you the body condition thing, guys, so give me some patience as I get to that because that’s what you ultimately want to watch for as you’re building your flock and ultimately building what is grass-based genetics. Here are some body scoring picture examples. Again, buy this book at Shepherdess.com, guys. It supports my work a ton when you do. So when you’re looking at body condition, you want to watch the rear end of a sheep. A lot of times sheep will have really bloated bellies and that has nothing to do with how healthy they are. The belly is a very bad indicator of the health of a sheep. You want to watch the back side. So you can see the one with the X underneath it. She’s scoring about a one. She is way too thin. In fact, that sheep actually ended up dying of disease the next year. She died of parasites because she was just too thin to fight them off on her own. But the outliers here—that’s what you want to look for in a sheep. This one’s scoring about a three and a half, and the one on this very far side is scoring a four. Those are healthy ewes that produce lots of good lambs on pasture only. 

All right. Question: “Can sheep and goats be raised together in a herd?” The answer is yes, they can be, but the goats have, from my experience, been a little bit harder to contain. They will not stay in the single or the double row of poly tape like the sheep will, so if you’re going to run goats, I just highly advise that you run poly netting. Another question is here: “Should I provide a lick tub for my sheep and which one do you recommend?” The answer is I do provide lick tubs to my sheep, and the two cases in which I will do that is when they’re grazing stockpile, which I also, guys, cover that in my book. Going to just give you some pictures from my book here. But again, that’s in the supplemental feed section. I’m going to show you an example of pasture on which I would advise you putting a lick tub out for your sheep. Something like this: which is mostly just burnt ryegrass, it’s got a lot of ragweed in it, it’s got a lot of cockleburs. Basically, there’s little or no grass. And this is an example of a pasture that really warrants supplemental feed, in my opinion. The sheep are going to do a great job of eating these weeds, but a lick tub, which is a molasses-based protein supplement, is going to keep them in good condition and kind of fill in some of the gaps where that pasture is lacking. I’m going to show you guys what a lick-tub looks like. I personally have Hudson Livestock Lick Tubs on my pasture when my sheep need it. And they are kind of a Texas-based company, but I’ll use the Hudson Livestock Multi-Species 16% Protein Lick Tubs when my sheeps do need them. It’s a great way to utilize things like pasture full of weeds, pasture full of maybe lower quality grass, pasture full of maybe over mature and stemmy grass. It’s really a way to use that forage resource, but also provide a safety net nutritionally. With that lick tub so the sheep can simply get and stay healthy. 

Direct marketing and farm revenue

A question not related to sheep: he says, “We have a plague of grasshoppers. Any idea how to get rid of them?” Thanks to my sister, the chicken lady, we don’t have too many grasshopper problems. Now I can’t say it’s ever been a plague. I think we’d probably just buy more chickens: raise chickens, build soil, eat grasshoppers. “How many rams do you keep for breeding?” is another question. And I keep one ram per 30 ewes. So two right now. “Is Gallagher fence better than Premier netting for semi-permanent paddocks?” And Gallagher fence being what you’re going to roll up on the reels. My answer is yes, because it’s way easier to set up than the netting. The netting was exhausting for me. I just never got into it for good. I’m going to segue into some of the questions on marketing. I get a ton, and they are: “What’s been your best income stream this year as far as sheep goes—sale barns, meat direct to consumer, or live animal sales from your own flock?” I sell all of my sheep through Shepherdess.com. The best income stream has been breeding stock. If I’m 100% honest, all of my sheep the past couple of years have gone out as breeding stock. I run a pure breed, and people are crazy about starting their own flocks, so all of my sheep have gone out alive and gone out to start or improve other flocks. That’s been my best income stream as far as the sheep goes, and that is my answer for that. 

Have you seen an increase in your sales since the cattle market mess? One thing I want to be really clear about here—and this is what I highly advocate for anyone who’s going to go into agriculture—is that I do not rely on sale barns or commodity markets as a means of selling my products. So most of the time, unless I’m doing a research product, I am not aware of any sale barn commodity market messes because I’ve created a direct stream through which I sell and access a consistent market, and that direct stream is my email newsletter list. Three tips to building a profitable newsletter—I think I’ve got the right one here—Three Ways to Gain Newsletter Subscribers. This is probably one of my most valuable PDFs from my perspective. This is information I probably should be charging for, but it’s going to be some of the best information you can ever implement if you want to go for profit on your farm or start generating some profit on you farm. My best marketing stream has been my email newsletter list. It’s allowed me to sell products at a premium, sell a diverse variety of products to the same people, expand my income on farm, and create a hedge for myself against the bad stuff that does happen in the livestock world. For example, last year was a horrible year for parasites. I lost a lot of the ewes that I intended to sell this year. It was just a bad year. And I was able to diversify last year, make up some of the gaps that came as a result of losing more sheep and not having the ability to sell those sheep this year, but I was able to do it through the same tool that I would use to sell my sheep—my newsletter list. 

And I just want to encourage you guys: get that handout, begin building your email newsletter list, and begin to build in that stability on your own farm. I’m even going to link a YouTube video here that talks about how I keep in touch and build a relationship with this email community month after month. Because what happens is you’re going to get newsletter subscribers, but then you have to make a relationship with them over time. So this is going to give you my newsletter strategy in that video. If you’re listening in replay, look on YouTube: How I Sell My Sheep for $480 Each. Then there’s another one on YouTube, it’s called My Monthly Marketing, and this talks about everything I do on social media on a consistent, monthly basis. Just go to Shepherdess YouTube and binge watch that if you’re struggling in the marketing arena. It’s one of the biggest questions that I get. And ultimately, guys, I want to acknowledge that really God gives the increase in business and in anything. Just ultimately, he will be the one that will teach you how to profit in your unique situation. I don’t want to get so into sharing my methods or this or that, that I just fail to acknowledge that. That would be the biggest mistake on my part. I’ve had a lot of businesses, some of them have failed, where I put in tons of effort, and at the end of the day, I just have nothing, and it’s always brought me back to a place of humility. I never want to go back to a place of self-sufficiency in that arena. So just always stay at a place of humility of just seeking the Lord for unique ways to profit in your unique situations. And I hope to provide you guys with the tools and just relay as much information I can from my experience, but I always want to point you back to that reality. 

Picture this: you are looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20-plus acres. The sun is setting, and your flock is grazing across a green pasture. Something inside you affirms this is real wealth—at least when it comes to material things. You know how to take care of your sheep, your grazing system is improving your land, and you have a way to direct market each lamb that is born. This is how I feel when I look at my flock, and I want the same for you. So, I put together a free one-hour class that answers some of your most frequently asked questions concerning how I raise, rotational graze, and market my sheep for $480 per head. Go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast to sign up and receive the free on-demand class. What’s more is that I will follow up over the course of three days, providing you with even more free resources—including a free ebook, a free grazing sheep kickstart guide, and a free marketing sheep kickstart guide. This information is worth paying for, but I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast for how I raise, graze, and market my sheep for $480 each.

This is another question I get quite frequently: he said, “I purchased a 20-acre farm. It was row crop, but I’m growing pasture instead. There are no hard fences around the property. Will I be able to keep my sheep contained?” If you have no hard fences around the property, you will not be able to keep your sheep contained. Your sheep are going to wander until there is a hard barrier that they run into. For some people, they talk about how they use all electric for sheep. For me personally, I advocate for a really strong, tight perimeter fencing, especially on small acreage. So invest in the perimeter fencing, and then use the electric fencing within that. And that is 100% my consistent advice. Is that to say that there are people out there who have not had success just getting started with Premier One electric netting? There are a lot of people that have done that. But take those and do that particular system at your own risk. Just know you don’t have that insurance of the hard fencing if your sheep do get out of the netting, and depending on how close you live to neighbors or how close to the highway, that may or may not pose bigger problems for you than the next person. So keep all of that in mind. 

Planning breeding and lambing around pasture

All right. Another question is about breeding, which is something I get questioned about a lot: “Assume your August-to-October ram breeding is based on seasonal temperatures in your zone. What are you thinking, temperature wise, to target for lambing time?” All right, I don’t necessarily breed based on temperature. I breed based on pasture availability. And this year, what worked out really well for me was to breed in order for them to start lambing about three weeks ahead of spring pasture explosion. So for me, some of my best lambs are coming out of my February born set. And I will be lambing in February from now on—from here until it poses a problem—because my best pasture comes in the middle of March. So I’m going to be lambing in the last two weeks of February from now on. So, I hope that that helps you. Kind of think about when your pasture starts to explode, rewind three weeks, and for me personally, that’s been my best success as far as lambing goes. A lot of times people will say, “Lamb with the pasture.” That’s a pretty good idea too, but for me personally, lambing a little bit ahead of the pasture allowed my lambs to grow faster, and get a little bit meatier before the parasite bloom came on. So let me know if that is resonating with anybody out there. If you guys are in the comments section and you have had lambing, give a little bit of insight from your perspective. Have you tried the late, late winter lambing and have you liked it? I did. I loved it. It was so good this year. 

Another good question is: “How much hay do your ewes go through per week in the winter?” And my ewes will eat through one 50-pound square bale per week in the winter. So, if I’m overwintering a flock of… Well, it’s one square bale per ewe per week. Very, very simple. They’ll sometimes eat a little bit less than that, but just kind of gauge it. So if you’re going to feed for seven weeks straight, make sure you have seven square bales for that ewe. Okay, “I have a neighbor who has a Dorper ram and is willing to let me breed my two Dorper ewes to him. How long should I let them be with the ram? I would say 34 days, minimum. Either have him on your property for 34 days, minimum, or send the ladies over there for 34 days, minimum. That will allow them to be in with the ram for two breeding cycles and they’ll have two opportunities to catch. “Have you had success with any natural dewormer methods?” Not as a means of treatment, no. As a means of prevention, yes. Those things are effective and when we’re talking about natural de-wormers, we’re talking about garlic, diatomaceous earth, pumpkin seeds—I’ve even heard people talk about pumpkin seeds. Those are things that are not effective when your sheep is severely infected with the barber’s pole worm. 

I pull this out all the time—I’ve got a picture here in my book that I’m going to get for you guys of a sheep that is severely infected with the barber’s pole worm. All right, I always do this and it’s very much worth repeating because I get this question all of the time, and this is something I have very personal experience with so I always take my time to answer it: this is an example of what’s typically called a FAMACHA scoring process. It’s typically done with a FAMACHA card, but this is real-life examples of real-life sheep, which by the way, guys, buy the book at Shepherdess.com—it supports my work a ton when you do, and allows me to produce a lot of these free resources for you. This is a healthy sheep and she has no need for dewormer. You can see her eyelids are bright pink, she is in good health, she’s not anemic, and she’s not overly infected with parasites. This is the ewe that I would give diatomaceous earth, apple cider vinegar, garlic—all the stuff to keep her healthy. Use that stuff then. But if you’ve got a ewe that has gotten here: very pale eyelids, mostly white—you see a little bit of pink in there—she is severely infected with worms, and you need to use a treatment. You need to administer something that’s going to get rid of those worms very quickly, or you’re going to end up here: you’re going to end up dead. This is the eyelids on an animal that just died of a barber’s pole worm overload. 

So keep that in mind. When we’re talking about natural supplements and if we’re talking about them from our experience and we’re in an area with very high rainfall where worms are a big issue, you do not want to use pumpkin seeds, diatomaceous earth, garlic, apple cider vinegar on a sheep like this, or it’s going to die really soon. Use them to keep your sheep healthy. When your sheep are severely infected like this, my recommendation is to get it a real dewormer. That’s my big passion. We lost half of our flock up front to worms because we were really understandably very holistically minded. We didn’t like chemicals. We still don’t like chemicals. But we use dewormer. I use it without apology, and I make sure to tell people what happened when we tried to use a lot of the natural stuff for treatment. And what happens, guys, it’s the same thing as with that grass-based genetics and the body condition—if you’ve got a sheep that’s just constantly needing a drench, cull that sheep. Get rid of that sheep. I’m having the best year yet—as far as parasites and minimal drenching—because I took some time over winter to just cull out some of my worst sheep. And so just cull them out, but in the meantime, it’s really painful to watch a sheep die, slowly, of worms on the pasture. I’ve seen it enough, and I will tell you: use a dewormer. 

This was not a question, it was a statement, but I thought it was pretty funny: “We are terrible at marketing.” And I’m just going to refer you guys back to getting started with that PDF handout that I just sent. It’s going to teach you how to get booted up with a newsletter, and then search YouTube for Shepherdess Marketing, and you’re going to find all of my marketing videos on there. “How do you sell your sheep usually? Where do you go to sell your sheep?” And again, I’m going to use this to reinstate: I’ve never sold or relied on a commodity market to sell my sheep. I’ve sold them all through Shepherdess.com using my customer base that I built up in my newsletter. So, I sell them all direct. “Why did you select the Dorper sheep as a breed?” This is a question I get a lot. Ultimately, the Dorper was not something I selected, but it was something that was selected before me. My parents bought the flock and they wouldn’t call themselves farmers, but they are big connoisseurs of quality. So they really bought some good quality sheep despite how much we struggled with management up front. So I’m really grateful for that. That said, Dorper is the most marketable sheep in the country right now in terms of hair sheep. And it has got the most promising carcass of all the hair sheep, meaning that you will get a lot of meat off of a Dorper, a lot more than Katahdin and a lot, lot more than St. Croix. I do not recommend St. Croix for commercial meat production. St. Croix is a good homestead animal, maybe a low maintenance homestead animal that you’re probably going to maybe butcher out on property, but you’re going to be disappointed with meat yield on those guys. 

Using small pens and panels for routine sheep care

Michael had some questions on handling systems that worked well. My best handling system for sheep: I do have a big fancy handling system and I’m grateful to have it, but my best handling system for a sheep is a really small tight pen. Again, I’m going to reference the book, The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. If you guys would stop off at Shepherdess.com and buy a copy after the show tonight, it supports my work a ton when you do and it is, in my opinion, going to be worth your investment. But my best handling system, and my most frequently used handling system, is just a really small tightly packed pen. And I do enjoy the chute system that I have, but I find myself using a really small pen more frequently. I use the Lakeland aluminum easy panels to create that really tight space, and I find that when my sheep are packed together really tight, I can flip them, I can do a lot of drenches and just the kind of the standard maintenance on them in that tight pen. So, I hope that helped. All right, Teresa said she actually has had some really good success with pumpkin seeds in their worm load. Last checked by the vet was at zero. So, hey, that is super, super good. She said she does, however, make sure that she does deworm once a year, and then she supplements with the pumpkin seeds. So yeah, she uses that. 

Angie says, “We used to lamb in March and it went pretty well. The neighbors lamb in January, usually, but had a rogue ram and ended up with May and June lambs. The May and June lambs struggled with grass tetany this year. Anyone else had issues with this?” Angie, no, not grass tetany, but my May and June lambs were just dying of parasites last year. So the later born ones are just really, really tough to keep alive. Laura says, “Do you put apple cider vinegar in their water and then free pumpkin seeds and diatomaceous earth?” I put apple cider vinegar in the water when it’s really, really hot and I need them to drink more. That’s the only time I’ve really used apple cider vinegar in the water. All right, we’ve got eight more minutes, guys. I’m not going to get to all 60 questions, but I’m going to make sure to prioritize your questions in the live chat here, and then answer a few more off of my list here. If you guys want, I do have a video that I recently posted on YouTube called Answering 30 Questions About Sheep. Some of them are on that video, so if you are curious as to what those questions that I may have missed tonight were, go to YouTube and click under my latest live stream. 

Mike says, “You mentioned Cydectin. Is that a drench or an injectable?” That is a drench, Mike. I use Cydectin drench. Laura asks, “How do you weigh your lambs or other livestock?” So Laura, for the lambs that are under 25 pounds, I will use a hanging scale. You can buy it on eBay. It’s about 30 bucks. It’s really great. And I’ll use a little hammock to weigh the lambs. Once they’re over 25 pounds, I do have a Lakeland Farm and Ranch Direct weigh scale. I’ve been using a ton this year and it’s come in handy, but you may be able to find a weigh scale maybe through Craigslist locally, but that’s the scale that they step into, my Lakeland one, and it’s been so, so helpful. Adi says, “Are you liking your Lakeland? Is it worth the investment?” Adi, I would say I do like my Lakeland a lot. It’s a bit overkill for a small flock to have the whole chute system, but I worked with Lakeland to create what’s called the Shepherdess Starter Kit, and I would definitely recommend that to anybody just kind of getting in and has maybe some physical limitations, and the Shepherdess Starter Kit with Lakeland is just a bunch of these panels. It’s about 10 of those aluminum panels, which I use almost every day. And then also, what’s in the starter kit is the spin trim chute, and that’s going to allow you to lock the animal in and flip them over. A lot of people who are starting on this, maybe they’re 60 or so, and they just don’t want to kill their back flipping sheep all day, I would definitely recommend that. So check out the Shepherdess Starter Kit if your flock is under 50. Once you get up to the 50s and 100s, then I would consider the full chute system. But don’t approach that from an investment standpoint until you’ve got a bigger flock. 

Teresa says, “Get the book if you don’t have it. There’s a lot of carryover for goats.” Thank you, Teresa, and thank you guys for supporting my work by buying a book. Tons of help there. It allows me to continue to really create a lot of free stuff for you guys. Grace says, “I have a ewe that has had triplets for many years and she always rejects one. I don’t really want a bottle lamb. Do you think I should sell her?” If she’s had triplets for many years and she’s feeding two, and you just have one, I would not sell her. She’s super fertile and her genetics are really good. If you don’t really want a bottle lamb, put it on Facebook. If you have classified ads on Facebook, people would just eat that up. They’d come pick up that bottle lamb if you just advertise free bottle lamb. They’ll come pick it up and take care of it. People are always watching, but I wouldn’t sell her, she’s a good ewe. As long as she raises those other two just fine, and she doesn’t have problems with them. All right. Dan says, “How much apple cider vinegar per gallon of water?” Dan, I would do two or three tablespoons per gallon of water. That’s a little low, I’m sorry. I’d probably do a third of a cup per gallon of water, but two or 3 tablespoons if you’re filling like a whole trough. 

Brandon says, “I’m concerned about the government overreach regarding RFID tags.” Guys, the RFID tagging thing—I’m just going to echo what Congressman Thomas Massie said through his Instagram page. Congressman Thomas Massie said, “I will not comply.” Okay, I’m on his side. He says that is one of the biggest overreaches, and it needs to be met with mass noncompliance with respect to government mandating us to put RFID tags on our cattle, okay? So I’ll just defer to Congressman Massie. He’s a member of the U.S. Congress, and I will say, I’m going to follow your lead on that one, sir. I’ll be with you in the noncompliance. Hope that helps you guys. Look into it yourself, and make your own decisions. Don’t blame the Shepherdess, but if you go to prison for not RFID tagging your animals, I’m going to probably put a story about you on my YouTube and try to get you some support. All right. Three minutes off here, guys. Okay, going to answer two more questions, guys, because we have three more minutes, and then we’re going to close it out for tonight. Appreciate you all so much for being here. 

This is a very good question. I get it a lot, and it is: “What would you charge for your sheep, and what kind of weight threshold does that require?” So this might be a little bit of a confusing question. I’ll start with the weight threshold for slaughter question, so I’m going to work backwards. I want my lamb to be 90 to 100 pounds before I send it to slaughter. Once all of the guts are out and the hide is off, that lamb is going to hang at about 50 or 60 pounds. Once all of the bones are out and that lamb is in cryovac and ready to put in the oven or on the grill, there’s going to be about 40 pounds worth of meat there. So when I’m looking at something that’s going to have 40 pounds of meat worth in the package, if I’m going to sell them by halves and wholes, I want $10 to $12 per pound based on that 40 pounds in the package. And that comes out to selling that lamb for about $150 to $200 per half—$150 if you’re going to have the buyer pay for processing because you’ll cut some of that cost out because you don’t have to pay it, and $200 if you are going to pay for the cost of processing. That’s, personally, where I would be at as far as selling a sheep for meat in whole or half. And Nathan says, “You might mention HB 467, which allows raw milk sales in Louisiana.” Yes, Nathan has been keeping me abreast on that. And it was just signed into law: Louisiana raw milk sales are now legal, bringing it down to just five states in the United States that have outlawed raw milk, which is really, really good. 

All right, guys, one more question. I’m going to try to squeeze it in here: “What is a sheep’s favorite grasses?” Answer is: my sheep eat pretty much anything that’s green. If I were to say they have favorites, they like rye grass, they like crab grass, they love clovers, and yes, clovers are just fine for sheep. I’ve never had one bloat on clover yet. So there you go, but sheep are an amazing advantage in that they will eat all of the weeds and all of the things. Appreciate you guys so much. Do not forget to buy the book in support of my work, as well as all of my other favorite books, which are listed at Shepherdess.com. If you guys are looking for a resource of any type, as far as books go—Sheperdess.com. I really only put books there that have personally benefited me and my farm. So you can know that when you buy those books, it’s not just some random book I found and I thought, oh, that’d be fun to put on my website. Those are books that have directly benefited my operation. Butchering by Adam Danforth—every homestead bookshelf needs this, and you can find that and support my work by buying it at Shepherdess.com. Appreciate you guys so much, and I look forward to seeing you next month, fourth Thursday. 

Hi friends,

One of the most important decisions you will make in sheep farming happens before you ever buy your first animal. The breed you choose will affect everything from parasite resistance and carcass quality to how well your flock performs in your climate long term.

In this episode, I am answering your sheep farming questions and walking through the pros and cons of several popular hair sheep and wool sheep breeds. I also share what to look for when purchasing breeding stock and why quality genetics matter so much if you want to build a profitable pasture-based operation.

We also dive into practical breeding and lambing management, including why I strongly believe in lambing with the grass, preparing your ewes before breeding season, and building a mineral program that supports flock health from the ground up.

-the Shepherdess

TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess Thank you so much for being in the room tonight. Tonight is a small group meetup, and I’m really excited because these small group meetups kind of allow me to have real conversations with you guys. I love the farmer meetup, so I’m excited about these small groups so that I can get your questions answered. If you guys are having any questions about the curriculum, the classes, or the nine-class bundle. Which, by the way, thank you so much for purchasing it and participating in it. It supports my work in a huge way to have these paid classes, because it allows me to really continue to invest at a high level on everything I do. So thank you for being a part of my work through supporting that. 

Tonight, again, guys, I’m just going to answer your questions, but I’m also going to talk about breed selection. Some of you may already have selected your breed. But tonight, if you are still in that planning phase of planning your flock, of deciding what the next step is that you’re going to take, I have six breeds on the list tonight that I’m going to walk you through. These are just going to be from a personal perspective. I’ve got two categories. Number one is the hair sheep, which you all know that I have gone for the hair sheep, and then category number two is wool sheep. And I’m going to walk you through three of each of those breeds for your consideration. I’m going to also be pulling a lot of information from Storey’s Guide to Raising Sheep on these particular breeds. If you guys have a copy of this, I will leave the page references so that you can go read up a little bit more in depth. If you don’t, you can buy your copy at Shepherdess.com. I’m going to be talking about breeds tonight, and I’m also going to be sharing a general overview about breed practices. If you’re new in the room, guys, I’m taking your questions tonight, so leave them if you have any questions about the curriculum. 

If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com; you’ll find a direct link in the description. 

Choosing the right breed of sheep for your climate

I’m going to roll right into it really quickly here on the breed selection. When you are going with respect to breed selection, I am running the Dorper sheep. And a lot of people ask me, “What is the best breed of sheep to run?” And my answer is, number one: whatever you have researched based upon your climate and based upon local availability. And number two: whatever suits your goals the very, very best. Now I’m going to speak a little bit from a personal perspective here and we have the Dorper sheep. My goal is to create a desirable finished product on all grass. Being a meat sheep, the Dorper has got the best carcass of all three of the hair breeds I’m getting ready to talk to you about here. But one thing that is different about the Dorper that I am getting ready to counsel you on is that the Dorper is honestly not the best fit for my climate. We are at a really good place here four generations in. I’ve got an excellent flock. We have culled and the flock has really culled itself into a really beautiful place, and I have a flock of sheep that has really good resistance in a high rainfall area. But initially, should I have gone back maybe five years, it may not have been the best initial choice. 

Hair breed sheep comparisons

I’m going to segue straight into the three hair breeds that are available. Number one is the Dorper sheep that has the best carcass for meat but the very lowest parasite resistance. So depending on your desire to use dewormers or not, I’m going to say with the Dorper, you’re going to have to use the dewormers to some extent on your farm. Breed number two—which is mid-range in the carcass size range—is the Katahdin sheep. And the Katahdin is also an excellent meat sheep. It is a hair sheep and it has a little bit more parasite resistance. I’m going to ask you guys a question tonight, and that is: What phase of the game are you in? Are you in the planning phase? Have you purchased your first sheep yet? Are you still shopping? Are you still planning? Are you in your first year? So the Katahdin sheep probably would have been initially a better fit for my climate. Now, I have to say this, you guys: even though the Dorper was not the best initial choice, it’s become kind of a blessing to have this stock that initially struggled, but we culled through those problems, and now we have a really strong breed and really strong genetics. It was a slower start. I’m going to be very honest with you—it was a slower start for us. It took about two or three years to really gain traction with the good animals that fit in our climate. But I’m very, very glad to be running this breed. And I’m really sticking tight to it. 

But the Katahdin is a really good breed for a high rainfall area. You’ll see a lot of Katahdin sheep in Alabama. You’ll see a lot of Katahdin sheep in Louisiana. You’ll see them in Arkansas and the Midwest, and that is a really great fit for a little bit of a wetter climate. And it still has a really decent carcass. A lot of times what people will do is they will take a Dorper sheep and cross breed it with a Katahdin sheep to get that meat carcass plus the parasite resistance. So keep that in mind. The third hair sheep that is really well reputed in the industry right now is the St. Croix. And one thing I’m going to say about the St. Croix: it is more of a heritage breed. And when I say “heritage breed,” it is a breed that is very low maintenance. It is one of those breeds that if you are dead set on no dewormers ever, you’ll probably have the best chance of lowest losses on that kind of a program with the St. Croix. The only con or one of the cons with the St. Croix is that the carcass yield is not suitable for commercial production. Number two is the carcass yield is very small in all. One of the things you need to consider if you are going into this as a for-profit situation is the cost of processing. 

I’m going to give you just a little scenario here to kind of maybe harp in on why you need to focus a little bit more on the carcass size. When you have a sheep, a good carcass will yield about thirty five to forty pounds of meat in the package. You can hit that pretty easily with a Dorper sheep. When you take that animal to the processor to be processed, it will cost you anywhere from $100 to $160 to have that animal processed. So let’s do the math here: a good carcass size is 40 pounds, and processing cost is $100—let’s average it out and just say $120—which, guys, that’s probably on the low end. That’s $4 a pound, even at a good carcass size. So if you’re looking at something like the St. Croix and you’re maybe only going to get 20 to 25 pounds worth of meat off of that, the cost of processing goes up to $8 per pound. So keep that all in mind if you’re going to this, again, for a for-profit situation. A lot of people that will raise the St. Croix will do an at-home processing to really avoid that cost. 

I’m going to come over here to the comments really quickly: Mariah says, “My story isn’t as exciting as someone with a flock of sheep. I’m getting into American Breese Chickens. I’m so excited. Tomorrow I’m going to another state to pick up two of these chickens for $70 and some eggs for $90. It’s going to cost me about that much in gas money and eight hours of driving, but I am thrilled. These chickens are expensive because they’re one of the best dual-purpose breeds for both meat and eggs, but their bloodlines are excellent.” Mariah, you will never regret money spent on good breeding stock and good starter stock. I always say—you know, obviously I’m being a little bit hyperbolic here because you don’t want to go spend all your money—but to be honest, it’s very hard to overpay for good stock because it pays you back so fast. So, very well done Mariah. I traveled about a 3,000 mile round trip to bring in new stock to my flock the summer before last, and I do not regret it for a minute. It was one of the best decisions I made to actually pinpoint what I wanted in genetics, and be willing to travel the country for it and bring it back to the farm. So, it’s already paying for itself. 

Wendy is in the planning and researching phases working on property perimeter fencing. Eric says that in his area, it’s about $150 to process a sheep. So keep that in mind, you guys: you want to hit that good carcass weight so that you do not have all of your profit margins swallowed up in the processing fees. Mariah says, “Until I get the land, I’m raising chickens for eggs and meat (even in my circumstances) because my neighbors support my endeavors. I’m going to start with meat rabbits and breed and sell them as well this year, Lord willing. Researching sheep—love the black-faced Dorpers.” All right, Fran says, “Second year with Wiltipolls. Thirteen so far; it’s a hair breed. Here, it is reputed because it is a good carcass sheep with a sweeter-tasting meat than Dorper. They respect fences, are easily handled, are good mums, and have good feet for wet, damp conditions. I have two Dorper wethers, and in comparison to the Wiltipolls, I have found them to be the goats of the sheep world: very curious and persistent to test fences.”

Finding quality breeding stock

All right, so we have breezed through. I’m going to give you guys the sources. If you are interested in any of these three breeds and diving a little bit deeper into them, I suggest doing two things. Number one: I’m going to the breed websites. For Dorper, it is DorperSheep.org. For the Katahdin sheep, it is Katahdins.org. And for St. Croix sheep, it is StCroixSheep.org. To further delve in—say you’re shopping—I would also go to Facebook as well. Each of these breeds will have that website that I just mentioned, and they will have a breeder directory on that website. I would find a breeder in your local area. The breeder directories are listed state to state. So go find one, number one, either your area or in a region that mirrors your climate. For me personally, when I was shopping for my Dorper stock to add into the flock that I already had, I ended up traveling to Missouri. Now, it’s not Texas, obviously, but in this particular region of Missouri, the rainfall mirrored my climate in my county in Texas. So I said, I’m going to have a high level of success bringing that sheep back to Texas. And so you want to either look for a regional fit, as in very close to where you are at; or number two, look for a region that mirrors yours as far as rainfall, annual temperatures and so forth. Primarily you want to look at rainfall with sheep. 

One of the things that a 20-year sheep veteran told me—she says, “When you’re buying sheep, that sheep is going to have an easier time going from a high-rainfall climate to a low rainfall climate than the reverse.” So if you’re bringing a sheep—let’s just use myself as an example: if I’m going to West Texas, where the rainfall is only 23 inches of rain per year, and I am bringing that sheep back to East Texas, where the rainfall is 47 inches per year, I can expect that sheep to have a difficult time adjusting. Whereas if it was on the reverse side—if I was bringing a sheep from East to West—it’s going to have a much easier time. A lot of that has to do with internal parasites and I will not be shy in telling you guys that is going to be one of the biggest things that you need to manage for the health of your flock. 

Wool breeds in today’s market

All right, let’s go for wool breeds: hair sheep versus wool sheep. There is a huge chasm between the two. And I’m going to say this about wool breeds right up front: wool in the past 50 or 75 years—let’s just be fair and say 30 years—wool has become more of a liability than an asset, and I’m going to give you some history as to why. In 1995, the US government ended wool subsidies, which means every sheep farmer up to 1995 was getting a check from the government per sheep for raising wool sheep. It was a wool subsidy. You guys can go do a little bit more research on it on your own, but in short, that subsidized the wool sheep market. When that ended in 1995, the bottom essentially fell out of the sheep market until hair sheep breeds were brought into the United States and developed. And that once again brought a level of profitability back to sheep farming because wool breeds and wool sheep—the process of shearing became more of a financial liability than an asset. The cost of shearing those sheep and finding a market outlet for that wool is more than you’re actually going to sell the wool for, and that’s just with the rise of synthetic fibers. 

Now, that said, I want to be very careful because I have a lot of very good friends who have done something absolutely incredible: they have flocks of about 50 or 60—they shear them themselves and they process the fibers and direct market them through their websites. I’m going to just go ahead and give a shout out to three of these people here. But that’s what you need to do. If you’re going to go for a wool breed here and now, you need to find a niche market, you need to create a market for the wool products, or else the labor it takes to maintain and shear those sheep may burn you out and run you out financially. Number one I want to give is Busy Ewe Farm and Fibers. She runs Teeswater Sheep and does an excellent job of hand spinning that yarn, hand dyeing it, and creates an incredible product. Another one is Harmony Heritage Farms. You will find her on Facebook, and also at HarmonyHeritageFarm.com. She makes excellent, beautiful craft products and direct markets the end product. The third one will be my friend Kamden. She is a young shepherdess—she is about 15 years old—and she really impresses me. Her website is PrairieShepherdess.ca, and she runs Navajo Churro and Icelandic sheep. And again, those are wool sheep. But she will shear them and she will process them. She sells dryer balls, felted soap and hides—which I’m most impressed with. She processes all of her own hides and will sell these beautiful Icelandic hides. But that’s the mindset you need to have if you’re going to choose a wool sheep over a hair sheep today. If you’re in a for-profit situation, you need to think of how you can process that wool yourself and get it to market. Because again, in the commodity market—as a commodity—the unfortunate thing is people wear more polyester today than wool. And it’s just a declining market, unfortunately. 

Picture this: you are looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20-plus acres. The sun is setting, and your flock is grazing across a green pasture. Something inside you affirms this is real wealth—at least when it comes to material things. You know how to take care of your sheep, your grazing system is improving your land, and you have a way to direct market each lamb that is born. This is how I feel when I look at my flock, and I want the same for you. So, I put together a free one-hour class that answers some of your most frequently asked questions concerning how I raise, rotational graze, and market my sheep for $480 per head. Go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast to sign up and receive the free on-demand class. What’s more is that I will follow up over the course of three days, providing you with even more free resources—including a free ebook, a free grazing sheep kickstart guide, and a free marketing sheep kickstart guide. This information is worth paying for, but I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast for how I raise, graze, and market my sheep for $480 each.

So with that precursor, that answers a lot of frequently asked questions that I receive in respect to hair sheep versus wool sheep. There are three wool sheep that I’m going to talk about tonight, and these are sheep that have been developed really well for meat production. One would probably fall more under the category of a heritage breed—better for homesteads, a little bit smaller carcass, etc. But the first one is the Cheviot. If you guys have a Storey’s Guide to Raising Sheep, you’ll find it on page 57. I have found a pretty significant number of breeders if you want to go for a wool sheep. The Cheviots—I’ve often role played with myself personally and thought if I was to raise a wool sheep, and if I found an advantage in that, I would buy and bring in Cheviots. And the American source for finding stock on that line is Cheviots.org. The second one is the Rambouillet and that is very well developed here in the United States. You want to go to the Facebook page, American Rambouillet Sheep Breeders Association. And the third wool breed that I would recommend researching is the Navajo Churro. And you can find out more about them—they are a heritage breed—at Navajo-ChurroSheep.com. 

When you go looking for stock to purchase yourself, if you go the route of looking at Facebook—I highly recommend watching Facebook for shopping for sheep. I do—however, what I want to tell you to do is spend 30 days watching those Facebook groups. Do not be trigger-happy when it comes to purchasing anything from a Facebook group. Find a good one for Dorper Sheep: it is Dorper Sheep USA if you want to go look for stock on Facebook. On Dorper Sheep USA, spend 30 days before purchasing anything and watch. Pretty soon you’re going to get an eye for the good breeders versus the junk. A lot of the breeders will share their pages on there. Try to find a breeder page—an actual fan page for a specific breeder—and use Facebook as a background check. Use Facebook to background check these operations, and try to get pictures of their day to day operations. If pasture based is a priority for you guys, make sure that their Facebook page shows animals being run on pasture. It’s very simplistic. 

But if you go to a Facebook page and you see a bunch of sheep on a dry lot and you intend to run them on pasture, you need to ask some questions before bringing those sheep from the dry lot to the pasture. If you go to a Facebook page and those sheep are being run on pasture, message the breeder. Ask him a lot of questions, okay? And this is for two reasons: number one is because you need to know things, and number two, if that breeder at any point becomes irritable with a lot of questions being asked of him, that is a big red flag. There was a breeder that I purchased from. I’m exceptionally happy. He allowed me to ask him question after question after question. And he said, “Please ask me more. Ask me more.” And he spent probably, I would have to say, several hours answering my questions. So just understand that that will be a litmus test. One of the worst things you can do is start your flock with stock that is not good. It’s going to make it a very difficult process at the onset, but it is equally, and even more so, as bad to add bad stock to an already good flock. So just make sure to ask a lot of questions. 

Guys, “What acreage are you working on right now?” is another question for you. How many acres are you working on? The systems that I outline in Grazing Sheep 101, most specifically, are geared towards 50 acres or less. I started working on a 7-acre pasture with them. And the principles scaled all the way up to 45 acres. That’s the maximum that I have worked with. So the principles are geared towards small scale, and they will scale anywhere from 3 to 50 acres and smaller because it primarily shows you step by step the electric fencing installation and the supplies for rotational grazing on any scale. Mariah says, “The yard is 0.75 acres but I’m using the front yard as well.” Mariah, you can get a couple sheep on there pretty easily, but I’m very excited for you as far as how you are starting with the chickens as well as the rabbits. That seems like a really, really good fit. 

Breeding and lambing on pasture

All right, guys, I’m going to move on to breeding practices and answering some frequently asked questions that I receive along those lines. Some of you guys have emailed me these questions, and I’m just going to go in depth a little bit with the answers that I typically provide for you. For breeding—you’re going to find a lot of information in the class Lamb for Life in the Shepherdess Masterclass bundle. It’s going to be the first class that you encounter. And there’s a lot of information that primarily surrounds lambing. A lot of people will ask me questions like, “When do you breed? When do you lamb? When do you wean?” etc. And I’m just going to run briefly here before we end out on best breeding practices. The context that I’m offering you this information in is in the context of success on a pasture-based system with limited shelter. I have found the most economic way to go about lambing is to lamb with the good weather. For me, that starts in about March. Lambing with the weather allows me, number one, to have the grass that the animal needs to thrive and continue to support that lamb and, number two, the good weather to keep that lamb from just essentially freezing to death on pasture. 

The interesting thing is this year I had five lambs born off season. It was an accident. I do keep my ram on property all year round, and he broke out in early July and he bred about five ladies off season. Now, thankfully the weather was really good this year and the lambs did survive for the most part. But what I’m noticing out there is that those five moms are becoming really, really skinny. They do not have the pasture to remain in good condition. The lambs are growing really well, but they’re sucking the life out of their moms. So in order for the mom to maintain a decent condition and the lambs to grow well as well, you got a lamb on the grass. That, again, doubles back to low or no feed supplementation. And that’s going to be the highest nutritional requirement in the ewe’s lifespan—from the time that lamb is born until 30 days. Her lactation peaks at about 30 days which means, by day number 30, she is making the maximum amount of milk that she ever will, and it just tapers off from there. So make sure that you time your lambing with the grass. That is about March if you’re in Missouri, or in a freezing climate—that’s going to be probably May or June. I know somebody in here was in Colorado, but consider May or June. I think probably in Colorado, you still get snow storms in May, if I’m right. 

But unless you’re working in just a chronically snowy area, typically by May, the snow is dried up and the freezing temperatures are gone. In the Midwest—I actually moved down from Kansas City, Missouri about eight years ago, where I spent my childhood, and I moved to Texas at about 18—May is when I would lamb up there. Down here in East Texas, I can lamb in March. That’s when our grass comes in really strong. Number three is to really be deliberate about your mineral systems pre-lambing as well as pre-breeding. I want you guys to kinda let that soak in. When the ram goes in, you want to have done your work in advance, about four weeks in advance. You want to make sure the minerals are all in check, you want to make sure the worms are also all in check, and basically you… Go to lamb for life. The care that you give that ewe pre-lambing—it’s about the same care that you need to apply pre-breeding. So keep that in mind that you want your ewes to go into breeding in excellent condition. All right, John says, “Yes, definitely can get snow in May in Colorado.” Wendy says, “I am going to eventually have a stationary coop, but also a chicken tractor to move around the property.”. 

All right, guys, we are going to close out here if you have no questions—I want to make sure to answer them tonight. Fran says, “May have done this in the past, but could you go over the types of minerals needed? We can only get mixed blocks here rather than separate.” Yes, great question. All right, so the minerals—just in a general lineup, what sheep need, you can get this in a mineral mix, but make sure the mineral mix has Vitamin E, selenium, iodine, cobalt, iron, and molybdenum, zinc, and copper. You’re going to get a replay of this so you guys can review those, but typically if you go to your local farm store—I personally have a local farm store that does a sheep mineral mix—they’re going to mix it up with those essentials in mind. So look for a sheep-specific mineral mix and go from there. Just make sure it is dry. Make sure it’s out free choice year round, and make sure it is a loose mineral. A lot of people will caution you away from the mineral blocks for sheep because of their teeth, and so be considerate of that. All right, let’s see here—Wendy: “I heard if you’re spending money on one sheep, do it for a good ram, and then sheep or ewes. Your thoughts? Wendy, that’s actually really good advice. Make sure that ewes are not cheap because they’re sick, but yes, that’s one of the best ways you can breed up your flock on a budget—to buy a really good ram and breed up a set of moderate quality ewes. 

The ram is 50% of your genetics, and so if you’ve got a ram—on a scale of 1 to 10, he’s a 9—and you’ve got a set of ewes that score a 5, well, their first set of babies is going to be a 7. You’ve just immediately brought your flock up from a 5 to a 7, just by adding an excellent ram. So yes, that is very good advice. Just make sure the ewes are not cheap because they’re sick. That’s my only advice to you. All right guys, thank you so much for joining me this evening. I’m going to close it out here if you do not have any other questions. And you can email me at [email protected] for any questions, comments, etc. I am just an email away, and I appreciate your support so incredibly much. Have a great evening, guys. 

Hi Friends, It’s time for the monthly Farm update. ​ First up, an ANNOUNCEMENT: I launched a Podcast Channel!! This new Channel features long videos that go in depth on very specific topics… I am calling it my SHEEP COLLEGE 😄: New Channel In other news, lambs have been weaned! I will be taking reservations for ewe lambs soon (groups of 5-10 available this year!) Click this button to be added to the waitlist: WAITLIST FOR BREEDING EWES The first lambs of the season were weaned while the last lambs of the season were born! A beautiful set of twins!! It has been such a great, uneventful lambing season. I wrote a 252 page book on the Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture! Buy it today with FREE SHIPPING: BUY THE BOOK w/free shipping An Ebook version is also available – a great option to avoid international shipping charges! ​ -the Shepherdess “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” Psalm 126:5-6 ​

Hi friends,

One of the hardest parts of sheep farming is that eventually something will go wrong, especially during breeding and lambing season. Over the years, I have dealt with everything from parasites and prolapses to mastitis, selenium deficiency, difficult births, and newborn lambs that needed emergency intervention.

In this episode, I am talking through 20 actual health problems I have personally encountered on my farm, including the symptoms I look for, what typically causes these issues, and the treatments and management practices that have helped me prevent them long-term.

If you could use a few more tools in your shepherding tool belt, my hope is that this episode helps you feel more prepared and less overwhelmed when health problems arise on your farm.

-the Shepherdess

TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess All right, guys, I am so excited to be with you tonight. Just a little bit of a preface tonight, guys: nothing upcoming is chronic disease or ongoing problems. These are just things that probably either you have already faced on your own sheep farm or you will face in breeding and lambing. And there’s also a few zingers in here that I never, ever expected. So potentially tonight we’ll have the capacity to save you a few lives on your farm. At least that’s my hope. Let’s go ahead and get started tonight for the 20 bad things. 

All right, so quick thing about my farm—if you guys are new here, we’ve got a lot of people in the room, some of you might be new—but I raise purebred Dorper sheep. That’s a meat sheep and it’s a hair sheep. They don’t grow wool. I am raising them on 30 acres of leased land here in northeast Texas. And I get about 45 inches of annual rainfall, which is quite a lot. It’s kind of perfect for a pasture-based system in that we’ve got a lot of rain to keep the grass going. I am raising my sheep regeneratively, pasture based, and in a rotational grazing system. So as much as possible, I keep them out on pasture. In fact, I could probably count on my 10 fingers, the amount of time that I actually house them. I try to keep them on pasture even when it’s cold. I’ll house them for things like freezing rain and snow, but that’s about it. Little or no feed input is my overall goal with the pasture-based system. I don’t do a lot of things like grain or sheep feed. My sheep are grass-fed. Now, that’s all to say that I don’t starve my sheep. If something is suffering or if something is raising twins or triplets, I’ll gladly give it a little boost, but for the most part, we are pasture and pasture only. 

I started farming in 2020 with no background in agriculture. So I kind of came face forward to a lot of the gross things that we’re getting ready to talk about in tonight’s presentation as somebody who was so not conditioned to this kind of a thing. I say that hopefully to give you some hope. If you’re jumping into farming as a first timer, you’re going to be just fine. You can do it. And I also have to say thank you to my family. You’re probably going to see my dad in a lot of these pictures with respect to the gross things because they always have my back and they’re willing to get knee deep in it with me as well. And my goal with all of the resources that I provide online and through these free meetups is just to relay simple information to beginner shepherds from firsthand experience—the good, the bad, and the ugly. So that’s really my premise and purpose on the internet. 

If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com; you’ll find a direct link in the description. 

Just another fair warning, guys, there will be actual pictures—blood and guts upcoming. Just tune in next month if you’re not ready for blood and guts. I try to be careful how close or how big I made the pictures, but I’m just going to explain problems to you and solutions and it’s going to get interesting. I’m also not a veterinarian and the upcoming is in no ways intended to supplement or replace professional or veterinary counsel. Always consult your veterinarian as the final authority. Disclaimer number two is that chemical solutions are referenced in the upcoming presentation. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I do use conventional solutions. Thankfully, I don’t need to use them very often, but I keep a toolkit full of everything my vet recommends. And my vet’s not a holistic vet, so if you guys are offended by conventional solutions, I’m sorry, they’re going to be coming up here. The context is problems and solutions. And hopefully you don’t have to use these things very often, but it’s really important to keep them in your toolkit for when you do have to use them. With that, I’m going to go ahead and drop a button to a sheep first aid kit that I have actually assembled and sell through Shepherdess.com, and those kinds of purchases really help me to make these free meetups and offer this free information for you. 

But I’m going to be explaining the problems from really three angles so that we ultimately end up with solutions. So I’m going to talk about symptoms, sources, and quick fixes. Symptoms being what these problems look like and how I picked up on the fact that things just weren’t normal, which is kind of easy, but sometimes it helps to have a specific outlay of symptoms. And then I’m going to pinpoint the sources. Every problem and every symptom has a source, and we want to really trace the symptom back to its root source for long term prevention so that we can put management in place that will mitigate these things long term. But these quick fixes are in the context of you’ve got to just help this animal right now in the moment to keep it from dying or to keep you from suffering. So those quick fixes or the supplies, like the kit that I just dropped for you. And that kit has 32 products that I really wish we would have had on hand as beginner shepherds. I’ve had people say that this is probably one of the most important investments that they’ve ever made. This is one of the easiest things that I have to sell. In fact, I feel like I’m doing people a service by letting them know that I had it. Because I had somebody ask me and they said, “Do I need everything in this kit?” And I’m like, “I really hope you do not need everything in this kit,” but having everything in this kit on hand will potentially save you a lot. 

Let’s go ahead and get to it: 20 bad things—problems and solutions straight from my farm. Now, I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I want to do it again: when we have problems, we always need to be thinking and looking for solutions. For every problem you encounter, research the source and implement long-term solutions. Yes, it’s important to have supplies on hand for emergency treatment, but if you adopt a preventative mindset that really focuses on sourcing and implementing solutions, you will soon have a farm and a flock with very few problems. And to be honest, guys, a lot of the stuff I’m getting ready to mention to you, this happened in the first two years of farming. I’m in my fifth year of farming now, and I really don’t have a lot of these problems anymore.

Common sheep health problems every shepherd should recognize

So, first on the list is pink eye. Now, the symptom is, for this particular lamb, her eyeball was growing increasingly foggy and white, and it became swollen. And ultimately, she walked around and she was just squinting that one eye and it began to weep—her eye was kind of oozing stuff. Anyways, it may also progress to where the sheep actually loses its eye. That’s a very extreme case of pink eye, but that’s kind of where it goes if it’s left untended. 

Now the source of this is hay particles lodging in the eye, or maybe they’re grazing and they’re constantly being poked in the eyes by the forages. This little lamb was somewhat of an immunosuppressed lamb. She was a bottle lamb and she was in the bottle lamb pen where they were being fed hay, so I think that her low immune function combined with the conditions produced the pink eye. Now this is a fix for pink eye that is extra-label. I don’t know that your vet would recommend this, and to be honest, I don’t recommend this, I’m just going to put up a disclaimer, but it worked great for me. So not a recommended solution, but what I did was I used ToDAY for mastitis. And this was on the basis of a recommendation from another shepherd. ToDAY is an antibiotic that you typically apply into the udder of a sheep with mastitis, but what I did was I just squirted, for about two or three days straight, a bit of this ToDAY directly onto the eyeball. And I had a gloved hand and would kind of just gently massage it around and make sure it was fully on the eyeball. After about two or three days, she really turned the corner and her eye was safe. She is on pasture and she is doing great. Ashley says, yes, she’s had pink eye, but with cattle. And the interesting thing about pink eye is that you can apply antibiotics internally, but there’s really not a high success rate. So the topical antibiotic here, which is what this mastitis treatment is, was what did it for me. I just squirted it straight into the eye and she was good. 

All right. So I have also had abscesses on my farm and basically the symptom is the growth grows larger and larger. Sometimes it ruptures on its own, but sometimes you actually do need to rupture it yourself. Sources would most typically be CL, which is Caseous Lymphadenitis, but there are also a variety of other reasons that a sheep can develop an abscess. A quick fix for this is simply just lance, drain, and sterilize. Now, one thing to say here, guys: Caseous Lymphadenitis is a pretty serious issue for farms. So, what I did was I tested this animal—I tested her by swab testing and blood testing as well to make sure she was not a carrier for this particular disease. Thankfully, she came back negative and this abscess, the source, was not infectious. But be aware that if you have a lot of abscesses on your farm, you may want to look into getting it tested for Caseous Lymphadenitis. 

Okay, this one’s very, very gross: nasal bots. Essentially the symptom is that the nose becomes increasingly swollen—it will just grow bigger and bigger. They kind of start to look like Rudolph without the red nose, and if you’re like me, you’ll wonder what it was. Essentially, the source is a fly laying eggs in the nasal cavity of your sheep. It’s incredibly gross. Just a couple of lambs get it every year. I don’t know that there’s a way to prevent this, but it’s really not a big deal. They usually just heal up on it on their own. But basically, if you notice that the sheep is becoming exceptionally uncomfortable, you can pull it aside and once again, lance, drain, and sterilize. The middle photo is kind of a representation of what it’s going to look like once you give that a good lance, and then you want to go ahead and follow up with some iodine treatment to, you know, follow up and disinfect after that whole process. Yes, you’re very welcome. And just as a little bit of a warning: if you do go through this whole process, and then all of a sudden the lamb sneezes and sneezes out the actual larvae, apparently that’s pretty normal, and a sign of them being completely relieved of the issue because it happened. It happened to my lamb. All right, guys, warned you this was not for the faint of heart. 

Emergency treatments and first aid for sick sheep

All right. So this is one that is not really gross, but it is something that probably has happened to more than one of you. But essentially the symptoms are that a heavily pregnant ewe just lies down and is reluctant or refuses to stand, she has really distinctly bad breath, and the source of this problem is she is more than likely expecting multiple lambs. It’s also called twin lamb disease, and it’s just where her body cannot keep up with the needs of her growing lamb, as well as herself. And she starts to go downhill really fast. It’s a metabolic issue, but it’s typically a result of just not having adequate feed. This is a lot of times why, in larger operations, they will scan their ewes and figure out whether they’re having multiples so that they can separate off the twins and the triplet moms, and make sure that they get a lot more of a nutrient-dense diet. So that is the source, and if you find yourself just repeatedly having pregnancy toxemia at your farm, you probably need to improve your feed program—make sure you’ve got some more nutrient-dense feed going into those twin moms so that they can support their growing lambs, as well as themselves. 

But a quick fix for this, for me, has been a propylene glycol drench at a rate of 60 cc twice per day for two to three days. Simultaneously, you might want to sideline her and improve her feed quality and quantity. You want to do this as quickly as possible, so when you see them go down, you want to start in on that treatment right away. And just as a reminder guys, the propylene glycol and this drenching tool will both be in that supplies kit that I dropped a link for tonight. Basically all of the supplies that I reference tonight except for the antibiotics and stuff that you have to only get from your vet will be in the kit. So essentially this ewe, once I administered this particular treatment, she’ll be up on her feet, but you’ve got to catch up pretty quick. Now, here’s the thing, and a lot of you guys are actually mentioning it in the comments section: the symptoms for pregnancy toxemia and hypocalcemia are the same. You sometimes don’t know whether the ewe has gone down with hypocalcemia, which is milk fever, or whether she’s gone down with pregnancy toxemia. 

So in these cases, I treat for both. This is based on advice from a sheep-farming veteran. He says, “The treatments are not harmful and they do not conflict with one another.” So basically give them both. If you see a ewe going down, give them both. So the symptoms of milk fever is, once again, a heavily pregnant ewe or a ewe that has just given birth to a lot of lambs. Once again, she’ll lay down and she’ll be reluctant or refuse to stand at all. The source of this is a calcium deficiency. She’s making a ton of milk either leading up to giving birth to those multiples, or she is feeding those multiples and doesn’t have enough calcium in her diet to supplement. So a quick fix is 60 cc of calcium gluconate injected under the skin. So you see me giving this injection here at the rib cage. I will give half on one side and half on the other. And once again, I will do both of those treatments. When a ewe goes down, I’ll do both of those treatments, but the way that you will know that it is milk fever and not that pregnancy toxemia is that within about a day of having this calcium treatment, they’ll get up. Toxemia usually takes a little bit longer to see results, but if it’s milk fever, they’ll get up pretty quick. 

All right, this is something that was really interesting and this happened to me last year: an umbilical cord bleed. And simply, the symptom was the umbilical cord was not dry within 12 hours. In fact, what you see here on the first picture of this swollen, bloody umbilical cord—this was after 24 hours. And after 24 hours, guys, an umbilical cord should be pretty well shriveled up and dry, but apparently here it was not. So what happened was the cord was either stepped on or it was extremely long at birth, and it just dragged the ground and caused a little bit of a pull away from that body cavity and it bled. Let me know if you guys have ever had an umbilical cord bleed on your farm. So a preventative for this would have been me just spotting that extra long cord and clamping it at birth. But I don’t clamp my cords on my lambs at birth because they’re pretty much all born on pasture. And we’ve had hundreds of lambs born on pasture. This is the first time it had ever happened. So it’s not a super, super prevalent problem, but hey, it does happen. 

But essentially what I did was—I did not have an umbilical cord clamp on hand, that would have been the best solution—but I tied it off with some dental floss and sprayed it down with the Vetericyn antimicrobial wound and skin care, which is in that sheep supplies kit that I constructed for you guys. You can also do iodine as well, but the point is you want to make sure and get a disinfectant on it as you tie it off. And within about two weeks it was dried and popped off. I was concerned about tetanus as well because I don’t vaccinate. I haven’t vaccinated for about two or three years, so I was watching this little guy for tetanus because of that umbilical cord having struggles after birth. Thankfully, he did not have any issues with tetanus. He’s still not vaccinated, so just a little bit of a gratitude there. 

All right, so this is another great product I just wanted to make you guys aware of: it is the Nutri-Drench Goat & Sheep. Basically, if I have an animal or any situation where a ewe or a lamb is lethargic, and I just don’t know the source yet—it’s potentially a lamb that was just born and it’s a little bit sloppy and floppy and lethargic and I don’t have a specific diagnosis—I’ll just get some Nutri-Drench in it really quick. I’ll immediately give it some Nutri-Drench and then try to do a little more research and get to the bottom of the issue because this Nutri-Drench is a vitamin: it’s a vitamin, molasses, and—like I mentioned previously—propylene glycol. It’s just like an energy-vitamin supplement. It really can’t hurt to get some of this inside of your sheep when you’re just not sure what’s going on. And then do your research and get them more specific treatment, but this is like your go-to. Like, your vitamin—can’t hardly go wrong with it. So keep a bottle of this on hand. 

Parasites, bottle jaw, and coccidiosis in sheep

All right. This is a little bit more of a common problem, guys: it is bottle jaw. Yes, it is an issue and the symptoms are the jaw line becomes extremely swollen and very sloshy to the touch. As you can see here, it just looks like swollen welts, and the source is severe anemia, typically brought on by advanced stages of the barber’s pole worm infection. So obviously, if your sheep are overloaded with barber’s pole worm, you know, you could have a plethora of things causing that. So to avoid that into the future, you want to make sure you’re in a good grazing rotation. That sheep just may be extremely susceptible to barber’s pole worm, so consider culling it. But here’s what this particular sheep was struggling with: she was struggling in early lactation, and that early lactation is when their bodies are the most stressed out. And I just did a poor job of timing my breeding that year. So I had a lot of ewes giving birth when parasite season was at its peak. Therefore, they were a lot more susceptible to parasites. So since then, I have moved my lambing season back to where I’m not lambing when the worms are the worst. I’m lambing when the worms are at the lowest risk. And so that has been my long-term fix and the bottle jaw is not a chronic issue. So, the quick fix in the moment is get your sheep a dewormer. And what I follow up with is what I call a rescue treatment. Again, this is an extra-label product. This anemia injection is just for pigs, but it works well for my sheep. And if they are severely anemic, then I will follow up with a little bit of Anemic 100. 

In addition to this, I will also give them Nutri-Drench because Nutri-Drench is full of molasses and that is also an iron-boosting thing. And then I’ll also do a vitamin B supplement to get their bodies naturally replenishing those red blood cells and pull them out of that anemia. So I’ll deworm, and then I give this three-part rescue treatment. All of the supplies are available in the kit. And this has pretty well pulled all of my sheep out of this bottle jaw phase. Now, once you see these symptoms of severe barber’s pole worm infection, you really do need to pull out the big guns or you probably will lose this sheep. And a lot of times people have the theory of just letting it die. Okay, sometimes that will work for certain systems, but it’s also an economic liability if you have a ewe that’s raising a lamb and it dies, because lambs cost about $150 if you’re going to feed them milk all the way to weaning. So, my theory is that if a ewe is supporting a lamb and you’re able to bring her back out of this bottle jaw, she’s able to finish her job of raising that lamb. So I would try to bring the ewe back just long enough to finish producing milk for that lamb, and then you can decide to cull her if you would like. That’s kind of my two cents worth. It’s an economic decision, and then you couldn’t cull her if you don’t like how low her resistance is. 

All right, so coccidiosis is another one. Really gross, but also really common. Persistent diarrhea is the symptom, and it’s going to be diarrhea that is this really specific shade of black, which is very black. You’re also going to see potbellies and you’ll see the spine kind of curving a little bit. And that’s just from its gut being clenched up so tight with pain from the cocci infection. But my favorite treatment is Total Toltrazuril. And this is, once again, an extra-label product—so not intended for human or animal consumption—but this is a product that is approved in Canada and New Zealand. And then here in the States, they just sell it as a regular product and you can choose whatever you want to use it on. So that’s what I use it for, and it works, for me, really, really well. But yeah, you’ve just got to use it at your own risk and whatever happens, happens. But again, like I said, it’s been approved in Canada and New Zealand, they’re using it over there. The only other FDA-approved option for us here in the United States to treat coccidiosis is Corid. You have to give a massive amount of that particular medicine to the animal. It’s like a three or four day dosage period. And then that Corid is really bad about depleting the animals vitamin B reserves, so it sometimes results in seizures. To me it’s just not a really good product at all. 

But the Toltrazuril, which I use at my own risk, has never given me any problems whatsoever. This is a 5% and it is a drench, and it’s something that I will give if a lamb… Right now I actually give it as a preventative treatment at about six to eight weeks. So I’ll just give them a preventive dose and that’s usually all they need for their life. Another problem I had with the Corid in the water was, number one: it kind of turned the water sour and maybe it’s my sheep are snobs, but they just stopped drinking the water when I put the Corid in it, and they were not getting enough of it to run the treatment that they needed. Again, it’s not for human or animal consumption. You just have to purchase it and decide what you want to do with it as an independent person, but I do sell it on my website. The Toltrazuril has a very long withdrawal period for meat—about two and a half months. So I give my Toltrazuril at six to eight weeks. They don’t get it again, so that’s not a problem for me because I’m slaughtering at about 9 to 12 months. So it’s plenty of withdrawal time. You just need to understand that with the Toltrazuril, it is a two-and-a-half-month withdrawal if you do choose to use it on your animals. And so plan that accordingly and probably give it earlier in their life if you choose to administer it to your sheep that you’re going to eat. 

So, worms in manure. I’ve had a couple of people email me and be like, “Whoa, this just happened. I just saw this on pasture,” and it is kind of disturbing. It is kind of gross, but essentially it’s visible worms in the manure of your animal. What you see on the top is a roundworm and what you see on the bottom is a tapeworm. And again, the source is: they’re accumulating these in their system from grazing on pasture. My quick fix is Valbazen. That is a drench that specifically covers the roundworm and the tapeworm. And that is my quick fix. My long-term fix… Typically this only happens to me when it’s really, really, really wet. So leave your comments in the comment section as to whether you routinely treat for these, but I don’t. It’s sort of if it’s a bad year, then I will, but Valbazen is typically the one you want to use for these things. 

Picture this: you are looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20-plus acres. The sun is setting, and your flock is grazing across a green pasture. Something inside you affirms this is real wealth—at least when it comes to material things. You know how to take care of your sheep, your grazing system is improving your land, and you have a way to direct market each lamb that is born. This is how I feel when I look at my flock, and I want the same for you. So, I put together a free one-hour class that answers some of your most frequently asked questions concerning how I raise, rotational graze, and market my sheep for $480 per head. Go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast to sign up and receive the free on-demand class. What’s more is that I will follow up over the course of three days, providing you with even more free resources—including a free ebook, a free grazing sheep kickstart guide, and a free marketing sheep kickstart guide. This information is worth paying for, but I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast for how I raise, graze, and market my sheep for $480 each.

All right, foot scald. So here, we’re going to segue out of the worms and go into some foot issues. So what you see at the top is not necessarily foot scald, but typically sheep with overgrown hooves—or dirty, caked-up hooves—will develop foot scald. The hoof on the top is not what you want. The hoof on the bottom is what you want. So those are just some examples of a healthy, well-kept hoof, versus a hoof that’s a little bit in need of some maintenance. So the symptoms will be moderate limping, and it will be swollen and pink between the hooves. You’re going to see the difference between foot scald and foot rot here coming up—I’ve got foot rot coming in the next slide. But scald is sort of a predecessor to rot, so you do kind of want to get it taken care of when it’s in that very, very early phase. And for me, this Hoof & Heel product—which again is going to be in that Shepherdess Sheep Supplies Kit for you—has been an absolute wonder. I will treat foot scald and within just one application, it is almost completely… I mean, the limp is gone, basically. It’s just taken one or two applications, squirts between the hoof with this Hoof & Heel, and it is fantastic. Overall, when you’ve got that foot scald, and you have something like you see on the top here, get yourself a pair of hoof shears, but if you’ve got that foot scald, go ahead and just give her a pedicure. Make sure she gets cleaned up and that her hoof is in the best shape to perform at its best. 

Here is foot rot, and thankfully, I didn’t have a picture of foot rot from my farm. I have had a few cases, so I have had it on my farm, but it’s not a terrible issue at all. Thankfully, my sheep have really good feet. But basically, foot rot is right up between… I know it’s the hoof. I like to call them the two toes. I know that’s not technical, but right between her toes, essentially, it starts to get really raw and infected. It can get very extreme at some points in time—even start to ooze and create really bad situations to where the sheep will not even stand on it. That’s rot at its most extreme. And when your sheep has foot rot and an active infection, it is not advisable to cut into that hoof until you have that infection under control. So get with your vet, but my vet typically will prescribe an antibiotic that will help the foot rot infection to subside, and then once that foot rot infection has subsided with antibiotics—and again, with that Hoof & Heel product that I really love, I’ll give them both at the same time—once that foot is cleared infection-wise, then I’ll go in and I’ll get her a pedicure. 

So the source of foot rot is, a lot of times, you’ll just have a sheep with bad genetics and you want to kind of mark the ones that will get foot rot. If it’s a bad year in terms of standing water on the ground all the time, that is one reason that they might get foot rot. But if you have a sheep with chronically bad hooves, just mark her and cull her from your flock because foot rot will pass from sheep to sheep. If you have one that’s more susceptible and a carrier year after year, just it’s not worth it—just get rid of her. But again, this Hoof & Heel application is great. And once again, just a reminder of what good hooves look like here. Make sure that your sheep are taken care of in the hoof department. And ironically, this is a hoof here that has never been trimmed. It’s on a yearling that has not been fed any grain—she maybe had a handful or two—but this is grass-fed sheep, and hooves just don’t grow as severely. 

Lambing complications and selenium deficiency in sheep

But this is a situation called retained placenta. Now, obviously what you’re seeing on the screen here is a placenta that is not retained, but basically when you see a sheep that has just given birth, and you see that new lamb or two just freshly popping around, you want to see this placenta dropped on the ground within, I’d say, about an hour. A healthy birth, it’s coming out 30 minutes after the lamb, but within a maximum of an hour. But if it takes any more than an hour or two for that placenta to be delivered, then you’ve got a retained placenta. This is typically a symptom of selenium deficiency. Thankfully, I have never had a ewe retain her placenta any longer than four hours. I think I had one that waited four hours, but it is indicative of a selenium deficiency, and you probably want to increase the selenium content of your mineral. So in that Shepherdess Supplies Kit I have the Redmond sheep mineral and that has a great level of selenium. I love Redmond minerals. That’s what I give to my sheep and that is what I recommend in terms of avoiding selenium deficiency. 

All right. So this is, again, a selenium deficiency. This is something that I had in my first lambing and it is just, basically, a lamb is born crippled and it won’t stand and it won’t suckle after birth. If a lamb is born, you should see it up on its feet within 45 minutes. I mean, 45 minutes would be a long time. A healthy, vigorous lamb should be up within 15 or 20 minutes. But, that max—you want to give it 30 or 45 minutes to get on its feet. If it has not, and if it appears to not be able to stand, I will administer a selenium oral gel into the lamb’s mouth. And that is a great solution in terms of this particular problem. Nutri-Drench, once again, is also a great option for this lamb. Now for this lamb, particularly, I did not have the selenium on hand, so I just kept giving it Nutri-Drench until, basically, it stood. You don’t want to give it too much. You want to follow the back of the bottle dosage rate, but I gave it maximum dosage rates of Nutri-Drench, and it finally got up on its feet and went. But I do keep the selenium gel on hand now for this particular problem. And then once again, just making sure that you have that mineral. That’s going to be your long-term preventative—have that mineral that has a good selenium amount. 

When I was experiencing selenium deficiency in my flock, I went to the minerals bag and turned it around, and there was only 10 ppm selenium in that mineral. Now a good sheep mix needs to have a minimum of 30 ppm. Something more like 45 ppm is what I use. And then that sheep mineral mix, I think from Redmond, it has a great selenium level in it. I do avoid the injection of selenium for very, very tiny lambs. I know that a lot of people have given it successfully and do give it successfully, but I overdosed one year with selenium on a newborn lamb, and I think I killed it, which was not a very good feeling. So I don’t do the selenium injections on newborn lambs, I just give the oral paste. This is once again, another issue that’s going to come up with selenium deficiency: this is a white muscle disease. The symptoms are that the lamb develops tremors. They appear to be shivering. So if you watch them, their heads are going to be tremoring. And eventually this lamb got to such a point that she was unable to even stand at all. And I didn’t know what it was until about a day later. And finally selenium, again, popped up. I did not know what white muscle disease was. I did my research overnight. Again, got her some Nutri-Drench to keep her and tide her over overnight. And then I gave her selenium paste the next day. She was cured within hours. She had stopped tremors. 

The issue with white muscle disease is that it actually eventually attacks the heart. So the animal will have a heart attack if you don’t get it the selenium supplement that it needs. So keep that in mind. And again, that selenium oral gel is in the Shepherdess Supplies Kit that is available to you guys. And once again, the long-term fix, the long-term preventative is just making sure you’ve got a good loose mineral with selenium. I love Redmond. They’re not paying me to say this. It’s just what I use for my sheep. I love eating Redmond mineral myself. I don’t know if I have my little miniature Redmond bottle, but I really like this salt. My sheep have done really, really well on it. And it is what I used for my sheep. I always make sure that my minerals are dry. So I live in a really rainy area, which is why my soil and my forages are selenium deficient. But I always make sure that I have my minerals available in a covered mineral feeder so that they are not washed out by the rain. 

All right. So another issue is just a ewe that has tiny udders. Basically, I just keep a good colostrum replacer on hand for this particular issue, but symptoms are underdeveloped or small udders. A healthy ewe really needs to be looking as though she could be housing a golf ball in either side of her udder. From my farm, in my experience, that’s what I’ve experienced. And if she’s looking as though she’s any smaller, I will make sure that that lamb gets at least a colostrum supplement. And I’ll do that by tube feeding, which both the colostrum and the tube feeding kit are in that Shepherdess Sheep Supplies Kit. Both of those tools are. But the reason that I will get the colostrum in by tube is that if it appears as though the mom is friendly and ready to feed her lamb, I’ve had situations where the mom’s milk production will pick up in the few days after birth, and so that she’s able to support her lamb long-term. But in that immediate, I make sure that the lamb does get the colostrum it needs up front in the supplement. 

All right, so assisted lambing is something that you also need to be prepared for. In that kit, I have the arm sleeve gloves, I have the black gloves as well, and then I have a lambing rope for you guys. But essentially, the symptoms are a ewe has labored with no progress for two hours or more. The sources are malpresentation, potentially a first time ewe, and then again, selenium deficiency can cause stalled labor. I had a lot of stalled labors in that first year of lambing when a selenium deficiency had really run rampant. And one thing that’s not on screen here—I probably should have put it on screen, but it is in the kit—and it is mineral oil. You want to make sure to lube up your hands as you go into the birth canal. And it just allows for an easy sliding in and out and makes it easier on the ewe when you do assist. 

Mastitis, prolapses, and difficult sheep births

All right, mastitis is another one. Okay, so symptoms here: the ewe has basically stopped grazing, she’s limping when she walks—she’s limping on her back feet, but she does not have any hoof problems—she will sometimes sit down, lay down, and refuse to stand. And like I mentioned earlier, half or both sides of the udder (if both sides are infected) is extremely enlarged, inflamed, hard, and red. Sometimes in extreme cases it turns purple, which is not good at all. But the source is typically dirty housing conditions or other causes. This particular ewe contracted mastitis on my winter paddock, so I had them parked for a while, and they were indeed returning to the same general area for bedding down at night. So my thought is that I just didn’t provide them with enough clean space and she got bacteria in her udder. So, I do a whole thing for mastitis. Yes, I do keep this antibiotic syringe application on hand, which is the ToDAY. And this is an intramammary injection. It goes straight into the teat, and you kind of put it in there deep and then you squeeze it out into the udder. While I do this, I will also give her 30 cc of Garlic Barrier as an oral drench; 30 cc might actually be a lot. I don’t know if that would even agree with garlic, but it’s worked for me. Anyhow, 30 cc of Garlic Barrier. Guys, give your opinions on whether that’s too much or not, but I always give 30 cc when my animal has mastitis and so far it’s been fine. 

And then I will give a peppermint oil rub to the entire udder after I’ve administered that. So she gets a whole treatment, a whole thing. And then, guys, mastitis is one of the things that I cull really hard for. Thankfully, I don’t have a lot of it on my farm, but a really long time sheep farmer said to me, he said, “If I can give you any advice with respect to mastitis, just get rid of it. Even if she’s your best ewe. What happens with mastitis is that the lambs will suckle on that infected udder. The bacteria stays inside of that lamb’s mouth, and then because the ewe’s milk production is compromised, that lamb is going to go and try to steal milk from other ewes and pass the bacteria that’s in their mouth onto that other ewe’s udder.” So if you are not hard on mastitis, then you’ll notice year after year, your cases increase. But if you are really hard on it, you’re going to notice that you really don’t have it very often. So this treatment is in the context of, again, getting that ewe back into good enough shape to where she can finish out raising that lamb, and then I will ultimately just cull her. 

All right, so this is toxoplasmosis. I talked a little bit about it earlier in the presentation; this is why ladies who are pregnant or may become pregnant. Do not need to be part of the lambing process. Do not touch it. Do not be in it. But basically, toxoplasmosis—this ewe has just given birth to a mummified lamb. The lamb has been mummified in its own placenta. That’s what this particular condition does. And it causes miscarriages in ladies. So, basically the source of this is a ewe had been grazing or eating where cats had littered. And that particular cat had eaten a rat that was infected with this bacteria. It’s so strange because it goes from rat to cat to sheep, and the feed stuff—whether it’s the hay or the pasture—was infected with that particular bacteria. I thought it was just the placenta, something weird with it, and I got a little closer and I actually put gloves on and dissected it. And it was, in fact, what I just said: a mummified lamb. Pretty gross. But also keep in mind that this is why ladies should not be part of the birthing process. And also be careful of your cats, guys. If you’re pregnant or may become pregnant and you have cats, just know that this is a cat issue. This is not a sheep issue. 

All right. Pneumonia—the symptoms here are coughing, wheezing, and foaming at the mouth. The source—specifically for this guy—was bad weather and aspiration. He’s also immunosuppressed because the aspiration was a result of him being a bottle lamb. The quick fix is really strong vet-prescribed antibiotics, and moving that animal to a warm, dry condition. Prevention is the best cure when it comes to pneumonia. It’s one of those really, really difficult things, and if you do want to bring an animal through it, you really have to pull out the big guns. This guy did not make it. I did not give him an antibiotic. He just was too far gone and he died, but pneumonia is another bad thing. Oh, should have given you a heads up on this one. This was gross. My dad actually helped me with this one, so thank you dad. But this is rectal prolapse. This has only happened one time. Thankfully, I’ve never had a uterine prolapse on my farm, which is a birthing issue. But this was a rectal prolapse, and this is essentially where a portion of the intestine emerges from the rectum when the animal is lying down. There will also be a little bit of bleeding because that intestine is kind of pulling away from the inside. This was pretty gross. So what I tried to do is I tried to cleanse it and push it back in and see if it would just stay. I even put a stitch in her backside, which I am so sorry for that ewe, but I was trying to do my best. 

Anyhow, I put a stitch on her backside and it didn’t work. Nothing worked. And I just took her to the vet and the vet, for about $170, put a rectal ring in. Basically it cut off that excess portion of the guts that was coming out of her, and she’s perfectly fine. She’s still giving birth to beautiful lambs. The reason I went to the vet and paid to have her fixed was that this particular issue has a very low level of heritability. In fact, this is an issue that is typically caused by intestinal damage at a young age. This particular ewe had a really bad infection of coccidiosis as a lamb, and my suspicion is that her intestines were damaged because of that. So, I think this was a result of just a difficult childhood. But I had her fixed and she is still giving birth to lambs at my farm. The quick fix is veterinary care. I’ve heard of people having success with the stitch like I tried to do, but it was not a success at my farm. It was worth paying the vet to do it right. All right, Candace asks, “If you see an older lamb that is constipated, what are likely the causes?” I’ve had it one time, and it just was not getting enough milk. So my lamb was constipated, but it was simply just not getting enough milk because the mom had mastitis. I cleared the constipation and got it supplemented with more liquids. So dehydration, I’d say, in my case. All right, Ramona asks, “Is there a higher instance of rectal prolapse with cutting the tail too close?” I do not cut tails, I raise meat sheep. So no, I did not find any of that in my research. I did find some suggestions that could contribute to the vaginal prolapse, but I don’t think that was the case for my particular ewe here. 

All right, ringwomb is one of the issues that I’ve had twice, actually, on my farm. The ewe goes into labor, but she is not dilated. And this is typically accompanied also by little or no udders at all, and it’s a hormonal disruption within the ewe. So it has happened. I’ll just tell you what kind of issues have preceded this condition in my ewes. So one ewe—she was, again, severely infected with coccidia as a lamb. She bred really young and she developed ringwomb as a first-time lamber. The other one—she was, again, infected really badly with coccidia as a youngster. Did not grow to size. She bred before she was really an adequate size. There is no amount of pulling you can do that will get a lamb through the birth canal on this one. Again, you see my dad in this video. It took my dad, my brother, and myself. We did not know what ringwomb was for our first experience with it. So I worked for two hours trying to massage the opening of this ewe’s cervix trying to get it bigger—whatever I could do. The most I could get out of her was two hooves and it was just not budging. My dad came out to help and just tried to pull. My brother came out and tried to pull. We had to put that ewe down because we did not know, number one, what we were dealing with, and we could not get that lamb out. It was the middle of the night and there was no way that we were going to be able to get to the vet, so we just had to put that ewe down. It was a pretty bad situation. The second time, I knew what it was, so I just took the sheep to the vet, and had a c-section. That was the most expensive lamb I ever had, but it was born alive. That was an ethical choice, not an economic choice, but she did just fine. 

Brenda says, “Feed kelp for iodine deficiency.” That’s actually a really good tip there, Brenda. Bob says, “This has to be the most informative webinar I’ve ever attended. Thank you for taking the time.” Thank you, Bob; that feedback helps. Brian says, “What’s the best way to put a sheep down quickly?” And you guys are obviously the hardcore audience here. I would not probably broadcast in front of children, but we just shot it. I’m very sorry. We just had to shoot it. We live outside of city limits and way out in the country, so you can use your guns out here. Brenda says, “Did your C-section ewe live?” Yeah, she lived just fine. Actually, she’s still on my pasture. She bred back really fast and she produced a lamb; now she’s bred again and she produced another lamb. I was going to cull her, but she bred back. I’m kinda glad she did because she bred back, she delivered absolutely no problems, and she’s been fine. Now, I’m not going to say that’s best practice. If you’ve got a ewe that’s got ringwomb or something that really is making it a complication, you do need to make some serious decisions as to whether you ought to cull it or not. But it was just a lucky thing for me that she did not have any complications, and she’s still producing really good lambs. 

Denise says, “My first ringwomb, I called the vet and he gave me a syringe to administer, and she lambed within 24 hours.” Wow. I would be very interested to know what was in that syringe and what they gave her to dilate. Okay, I think I’m almost done. Yep, this is the last one. Thank you for being here tonight. Orders at Shepherdess.com support these free broadcasts, and I have a complete supplies kit with almost all of the quick-fix treatments I cited. This is from you, Judah. This is some of your feedback. I hope you don’t mind that I pulled it, but he says, “Thank you for putting together the sheep starter kit. I just had to treat one of my ewes for worms, and it was so amazing just being able to walk out there and know that I had everything that I needed. Having the kit has saved me stress and time, and I’ve actually even had retired vets say that they are shocked at how prepared I am with all of these supplies.” Thank you guys for sticking around in overtime. I appreciate you guys all so much. Appreciate you all. Thank You.

Hi friends,

Worms are one of the biggest threats to a sheep operation, and if you don’t have a plan to manage them, they can take your flock down. After losing half of my flock early on, I had to figure out what actually works on my farm when it comes to parasite control.

In this episode, I start with the basics of internal parasites, how to recognize early signs of infection, and the management practices that have made the biggest difference on my farm. I cover rotational grazing, parasite resistance vs. tolerance, when to use chemical dewormers, and natural strategies I’ve tested myself.

If you’re raising sheep or hoping to, this episode will help you create a simple, effective system to stay ahead of worms and protect the long-term health of your flock.

-the Shepherdess

TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess All right, guys, tonight has a specific theme: Worms 101. We’re going to be talking about internal parasites, and really how to mitigate them on your farm. If you are a small farmer, shepherd specifically, you are going to know that worms will be one of your biggest challenges on pasture. I was telling my sister, Chicken Lady, this morning, “I’m cramming on these slides.” Really, I could probably talk for seven hours straight about worms. Limiting it to just one hour is going to be a little challenging, but I think I’ve got some of the biggest and best information for you. So buckle up, grab a notebook, grab a pen, get ready to take some notes for Worms 101. 

But first up, I’m going to give you guys a little introduction on my farm. A lot of you guys are familiar with me. Some of you guys aren’t. But I am operating in Northeast Texas on about 30 acres. I do not own the land. I’m renting it from my family. It would be a dream to be a landowner one day, but for now, I’m just trying to steward what I do have in front of me. And I’m very grateful for my parents being willing to lease the land to me. Now, I focus primarily on purebred Dorper sheep. And these are a meat sheep. Little heads up: the information tonight is going to apply no matter what kind of sheep you’re raising. And it’s also going to apply no matter whether you’re raising sheep or goats, because a lot of the worms that infect sheep also infect goats, and vice versa. They’re pretty much the same. So you’re going to be getting a lot of information if you’re a goat raiser out there. Now, like I said, I raise Dorper sheep, and rainfall at my place is about 45 inches annually. And this is a perfect environment in which to practice regenerative pasture-based farming. But it’s the perfect environment for parasites to thrive and eat sheep alive if you do not take care with your management. 

But I personally practice regenerative pasture-based farming. My system has minimal—meaning little or no—grain or feed input, and little or no fancy seeds or fancy pasture plantings. Basically my sheep go out there and I manage them on what is growing naturally. Occasionally I will sprinkle maybe some ryegrass, maybe some crimson clover, but I don’t plant with a tractor. I don’t do anything complicated like that. What you see is what you get on what grows naturally. And I use rotational grazing to rotate my sheep across my pasture. I’m going to be talking a lot about rotational grazing in the upcoming slides. And I really do consider this regenerative rotational grazing system to be the crown jewel of my overall operation and work because it was really this system, these practices, that turned everything around for the health and productivity of my flock and of my land. And as we kind of get into some of the worm stuff, you’re going to find out exactly why rotational grazing is so important. 

If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com; you’ll find a direct link in the description. 

Guys, health was a struggle before I started rotational grazing. In fact, we lost half of our flock in the first two years of sheep farming. We lost sheep to parasites, primarily to worms. And in addition to this, our pasture just really wasn’t very healthy overall. There would be spots overgrazed, and then there would be spots that the sheep didn’t even go to—they were under grazed. And what happened was, once I started rotational grazing, number one, the health of our flock turned a complete 180. Number two, the help of our pasture really improved. Overgrazed spots, guys, they disappeared. Undergrazed spots—we were able to eat them up and utilize them, minimizing further our feed inputs and our costs overall. And by working and moving the flock regularly, I became really aware, at a really close level, of which of my sheep were the strongest and which of my sheep were more prone to becoming sick or diseased, or suffering more than the others with these parasites. It’s going to be another key point to key in on as we go forward. But basically, this system—allowing me to get closer to my animals, allowing me to get closer to my land—was an absolute game changer. 

Now for some background on me personally. Maybe there are some people out there in the audience—raise your hand if you are a complete beginner and you have no farming background and you’re maybe even feeling a little bit like you’re in over your head and you think you’re not going to be able to do this because you have no background to do this. Okay, good. Because that’s where I was at. Just some background on me personally: I started farming in 2020 with no background in agriculture whatsoever, no industry connections whatsoever. I had a neighbor who was an absolute lifeline, but that was about the beginning and the end of my connection to agriculture. At that point in time, just as a matter of testimony, I really just felt led by the Lord to invest in some form of low-input food security for my family. And what that meant, in the moment, was just taking 30 acres of grass that was being mostly unused and turning it into meat. And before diving into farming, I was actually in digital marketing and product development in the retail apparel industry. So to say that going from, I guess, fashion to farming was a learning curve would have been an absolute understatement. 

But what I think it does, if I’m honest, is it helps me to encourage other people into the industry from absolute zero background, because they can see somebody who was an unlikely farmer and having some success, and they get a little bit emboldened themselves. And that’s exactly what I want to do. That’s exactly why I share my story in depth is to encourage you guys. You don’t have to have a background in agriculture. You just have to be a good learner and you have to be persistent and willing to fail sometimes. But just get back up and keep going because failures are not the end unless you let them be the end for you. So keep going. So for me personally, when it came to farming, I kind of felt like I was jumping in, kind of being that beginner, and it felt like climbing a ladder that was missing the first five rungs. Really every resource that I found assumed that I knew a little bit of something about farming, which when I started, I really did not. And oftentimes I really just couldn’t find anything very sheep specific. I had to amend a lot of the information I found for cows to see if it would work for sheep and keep what did, get rid of what didn’t. So that being my experience, I build out resources for those coming in behind me like I talk about. And it’s my goal just to simply be the first five rungs of that ladder for you by relaying simple firsthand information to beginners in pasture-based sheep farming. 

Understanding the life cycle of worms

All right, let’s run right into it. Number one, section number one, is life cycle and symptoms. And to give you a 1,000 foot view tonight, we’re going to be breaking things up into four different sections. Number one, I’m going to cover the life cycle and symptoms of these various worms that can infect your sheep. Number two, we’re going to be talking about conventional treatments—the stuff you go to the tractor supply, probably chemicals, and then buy and treat your sheep with. Number three, I am going to be talking about natural solutions—things that I have implemented through management and otherwise to mitigate the worm loads in my flock. And then number four, guys, I am going to be giving you the results from the viral using lye as a dewormer for livestock. I got so many emails from people saying, “Have you tried this new lye as a de-wormer for livestock thing yet?” I went to the video, it has about 210,000 views so far, and I said, “Okay, I’ve got to take this to the vet.” So that’s exactly what I did, and I was a little bit surprised by the results. So stick around to the end because I’m going to be sharing that with you. 

There’s a saying: “If you know your enemy and yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.” And I did update it to reflect a little bit more of a Christian worldview, but the principle applies the same. You really need to get an understanding of these parasites, how they work, their life cycle, and how to catch them early in order to win your battles. So the most common parasites you’re going to find in sheep are the barber’s pole worm, tapeworms, and roundworms. You’re probably going to find a couple of other worms like lungworms, etc., but these are the big three. And then the fourth is actually not a worm, but it kind of affects sheep in the same way as a worm, so I’m going to be including it tonight—and it is cocci. It’s actually a protozoan, but for all intents and purposes, we’re going to call it a worm and we’re going to address it as such, because its mitigation and management essentially fall in line with the worm side of things. 

So I’m going to really, really narrow in hard on the barber’s pole worm tonight for one reason, and that is that if you are managing for the barber’s pole worm, a lot of those other worms—like the tapeworms, the roundworms, etc.—they’re going to fall in line behind the barber’s pole worm. Meaning, if you’re successfully managing and mitigating the barber’s pole worm, you’re probably successfully managing and mitigating the other worms as well. So I’m going to go ahead and give you a look at the five part life cycle of the barber’s pole worm. Number one, the eggs of the barber’s pole worm exit the sheep’s body through its manure. Those lovely little pebbles that they put out in mass every single day contain hundreds, if not thousands of eggs. And within three to 14 days, those eggs hatch on pasture and the larvae crawl up the grass blades where they can be eaten by the sheep. Once inside of the sheep, the larvae attach to the lining of the stomach, feed on the blood of the host, and begin laying eggs. 

I should have put a disclaimer up here, guys, but I’m just going to say it like it is: you might get some blood and guts tonight, but I’ll try to be discreet. But that’s essentially what the barber’s pole worm does, and that’s essentially why it becomes such a big threat to your sheep—because it sucks all of its blood out. It’s like a vampire. It’s thousands of tiny vampires on the inside of your sheep if you don’t manage it right. And then what happens is those matured larvae begin laying eggs, these eggs exit the body of the sheep through its manure, and the process starts all over again. So that is the life cycle of the barber’s pole worm. Now something to understand is that there are going to be high-risk periods of the time of year, and high-risk points in the sheep’s life cycle that you want to watch for. Understand that those are the times in the sheep’s life when you need to be really watching for parasites, because they’re going to be more vulnerable to them. 

So high-risk times of year are spring and summer. The reason is that spring is cool, balmy, and wet, and those are perfect conditions for these worms to hatch and crawl up the grass blades and infect your sheep. And summer also falls in line there. Now the beautiful thing about summer and what I love about summer is that once it hits about 90 to 95 degrees and it stops raining, your pasture will be sanitized within about two weeks of that kind of weather. So I always have like a celebration when the weather gets so hot here in Texas and it gets so dry because I know that in about 10 to 14 days, my annual—I don’t want to say struggle because thankfully it’s not a struggle against parasites anymore—but my annual watchdog against parasites is mostly over. Once we hit that heat of summer, we can then enjoy fall and winter, where the parasites mostly go dormant and stop causing sleepless nights and potential anxiety. Another thing I want to note here guys is the high-risk time periods in the sheep’s life. If you’re making note, I want you to make note that lambs under 50 pounds are a little bit more vulnerable to parasites than other sheep. And then I want you to make note that lactating ewes are going to be more vulnerable to parasites than most other classes of sheep. So just think: small lambs and moms that are making milk for those lambs—those are going to be the vulnerable categories that you want to watch out for. 

Signs of worm infection in sheep

I’m going to segue into symptoms because when it comes to worms, catching the infection early is going to allow you to have a variety of methods. You won’t have to go drench them with the strongest chemical because you waited until the very end to catch the disease. If you catch them early, you can do some of those more natural holistic treatments. And one of the best ways that I personally watch for the barber’s pole worm in my flock is by doing a FAMACHA score on the eyelids. You guys can see here on screen and you’ll notice here that this is basically three shades that I watch for. The top is healthy, beautiful. No need for dewormer here. The middle is something very pale. If she’s nursing especially, she does need some treatment. And then the bottom one is the eyelids on an animal that has just died of barber’s pole worm. So in case you want to know what it looks like to die of barber’s pole worm, that eyelid would be indicative of what it looks like. Other symptoms of the barber’s pole worm include bottle jaw, and this is really where, basically, fluid builds up in the jaw line. It’s very, very sloshy. And this is advanced stages of the barber’s pole worm. You want to really jump in with some treatment, some really aggressive treatment, if I’m honest, if you want to save this sheep, because these are the final stages, and she will probably die if you don’t get her treated. And just as a reminder, guys, I’m going to give both natural and conventional treatments, but in this section, we’re just focusing on getting an idea of the lifecycle and getting an idea of what to look for in terms of symptoms so that you can catch it early. 

Other symptoms that you want to watch for in your sheep who may be infected severely with parasites would be sluggish movement. So if you are moving your sheep regularly and you’re moving them to a new paddock and you notice that there’s one sheep that’s always lagging behind, you might want to go in and just check her eyelids. If she’s pale and she’s lagging behind, you know you’ve got an infection going on there. Ears also tell a story. I will often look out over my flock, and if everybody’s grazing and their ears are upright and really looking good, I know that everybody’s healthy, but if I’m scanning the horizon and I’ve got one that’s grazing its ears are like really hanging low, I’m going to go look at that sheep and make sure she’s okay. Another symptom is sitting a lot but not chewing the cud. So if you’ve got a sheep that’s laying around and she looks very droopy in the ears, and she is not chewing her cud while she’s laying there, that’s another one. You want to get in there to check her FAMACHA score, and see if she has got parasite problems. The fourth would be poor body condition despite good feed. So, if she’s chronically skinny despite the fact that you’ve got great pasture or that you’re giving a good feed supplement, again, you might want to check her for worm problems. 

Tapeworms and roundworms—these often make themselves very present and very like, “Hi, I’m right here,” because you’re going to be walking on pasture and you’re probably going to see them. I’ve had a couple of emails where people have been like, “Oh my goodness, what do I do? I just found this!” And they’ll send me a picture that looks like this, and I will be like, “It’s okay, just give them X, Y or Z,” which I’m going to cover the options that you have to treat tapeworms and roundworms in the upcoming section. So don’t flip out. It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this together. Your sheep is not dying and if you get it treated, she’s going to be fine. Alright, so this is the cocci. These are lambs infected with cocci, or coccidiosis is the more formal term. And what you’re going to see in terms of symptoms is just persistent diarrhea that is black. You know, often when you have sheep you want to see those nice healthy pebbles. And if they do have some soft stools, it’ll have a little bit of a greenish tint, but when we’re dealing with a really intense coccidiosis infection, it’s going to be a dark black, and it’s going to be persistent runny stools. That’s going to be a very, very bad sign. 

This one here on the left, this is a lamb that was infected with coccidiosis. You can see her neck is balding, she’s got a very pot belly, she has stunted growth, and that is another symptom—her stools were fine, but her growth rate was stunted, and her belly just became exceptionally large, and it was no indication of health. That’s what you also want to watch for. Basically, disproportionate belly to hips and rest of the anatomy would be a good indication of coccidiosis, and you want to take a look at it. Another symptom, and this is just more of a formal way to check for worms in your flock, and that is to do a fecal egg count. Now, I’ve trained myself in how to do these at home. I just bought a simple student microscope and some of the supplies necessary to perform these fecal eggs counts at home, but the vet will also do them for you. And you can do it either way, but just checking the egg count within that manure is a formal way of checking for worm loads. And as a reference point, eggs per gram (EPG) needs to hover around 800 or less. That’s kind of a healthy threshold—800 or less is okay. At 800 or more, you need to consider some form of treatment. Now, eggs per gram: you’re going to see those little pebbles coming out of the back of your sheep in their manure. That’s about one gram. So when we’re talking 800 eggs per gram, that means 800 eggs per pebble, which is very daunting. 

And I’m going to show you the lye test I did at the end. I had a goat that was carrying 5,400 eggs per gram. I’ll tell you the full story once we get to the end, but that’s exactly how high it can get—5,400 is not permissible. I’ve had some as high as 8,000—not permissible. Again, we’ll talk about culling the carriers, et cetera, but know that the eggs per gram count is a more formal way than a FAMACHA score to check for worm infections. James says, “It seems like a big number.” If you’re talking about 800, no, 800 is not a big number. My vet said it’s completely acceptable. They were saying up to 1,200 is completely acceptable, as long as the animal’s not showing symptoms, but 800 is fine. 5,400 is absolutely intolerable. The animal that was in question there, she actually had that bottle jaw. She was displaying some pretty significant symptoms of infection. So, yeah, 5,400 is intolerable, but she came back. I’m going to talk to you about what I did to get her back into shape. She was a goat, and we’ll talk about that a little bit down the road. 

The important difference between parasite resistance and parasite tolerance

Something I really want to wake you guys up to—because I woke up to it—is the difference between resistance and tolerance. You’re going to see a lot of people talk about parasite-resistant sheep, and that may not be entirely true. You are probably just dealing with a parasite-tolerant sheep. I’m going to tell you a quick little story here: I bought a couple rams that were sired—meaning fathered—by a Greg Judy Ram. They had never been dewormed and they looked great. They looked really good and they were very, very tolerant because I took their fecal samples to the vet, and they were carrying at a rate of 6,000 to 8,000 eggs per gram. These guys were loaded with worms, but they were really tolerant. It’s going to really be up to you in terms of what you want on your farm, but I would just suggest if you’re buying something that’s advertised as parasite-resistant, make sure to get a fecal sample up to the vet when you do bring it back to your farm for the first time, and check and see if they’re resistant or just very tolerant. 

The problem with something that is so tolerant—to be able to look healthy at 6,000 to 8,000 eggs per gram—is that if you do have vulnerable classes of sheep, lambs, or those lactating moms, and you set those new sheep out on pasture with them, they’re going to put a significant burden on those vulnerable classes. So make your own decisions for your own farm, but what I did personally with those rams that were supposed to be parasite-resistant but actually were just very, very tolerant, I got rid of them. I decided that I just didn’t want that many worms on my farm. I could have dewormed them, but I bought them under the premise that they were resistant, not just tolerant. And I wanted something resistant, and not just tolerant. So if that makes sense to you, maybe that’ll help you as you kind of shop for sheep or kind of go forward and hear those terms “these are parasite-resistant sheep.” I would just advise: take samples to the vet and see if they’re just really, really tolerant, and then decide what you want to do with them from there. But the best situation to be in, guys, is to implement management that makes your sheep not carry a lot of worms—that keeps your system low in terms of worm load. 

Flock management strategies for parasite prevention

This is what section number two is going to cover. So once you know, once you have the symptoms down, once you have an understanding of worms and their life cycle, etc., what do you do once you know? Well, number one, rotational grazing—I just talked about it. This was an absolute game changer for us, and the reason this was an absolute game changer was that this really broke the life cycle of that barber’s pole worms. Simply put, guys: our sheep were not eating by their manure day after day. I would move them every, let’s just say, three days, and they would be off of their manure onto fresh grass. That old paddock—it would rest, those worms would die off, and then the sheep would not return until those worms were dead. That just really minimized the amount of worms load that the sheep were carrying. It broke that cycle. So—rotational grazing, rotational grazing, rotational grazing. 

Next is regular inspection. So, I used to inspect once per month, and now I inspect quarterly because worms just aren’t as big of a problem as they were at the onset. But once a month, I would just inspect, check the FAMACHA scores, and I would deworm selectively. And now, thanks to the fact that I’ve implemented a lot of what I’m getting ready to teach you, I only need to inspect quarterly for worms, meaning once every three—sometimes it stretches to four—months. Another management practice that you need to implement is just making sure that your sheep have enough protein in their diet. Protein’s going to be absolutely fantastic on spring pasture—on that really, really good April, May, sometimes June pasture. But sometimes when you hit the summer, it can get a little bit deficient. And what I like to do, if I’ve got a pasture that’s just a little bit over mature, is I’ll put a protein lick tub out there to make sure that those protein levels are where they should be, and make sure I’m not having sheep that are sick because their diets just aren’t what they need to be. This year, I actually mowed my pasture to keep it from going over mature, and I was super pleased with that decision this year. So you have a variety of options to keep your pasture in good protein content, so you don’t have to add these supplements. But if you do need to add a supplement, no harm, no foul. It’s better than having to deal with sick sheep. 

Another management principle I want to encourage you guys to do is timing your lambing to where you kind of lamb a little bit ahead of the parasite curve. This is something that I started to implement about two or three years ago. So the suggestion was lamb with the pasture and I did that, did okay, but I would hit maybe lambs that were two and three months old at the peak of parasite season, which is about June, and they would get really, really sick. What I did was I moved my lambing back from March to February, so I was lambing about one month ahead of the pasture. And this allowed my lambs to get a lot of good weight on them, to hit that 50 or 60 pounds before that intense parasite season of June and July came on, and much fewer drenches, much less maintenance. It was the best decision I have ever made. So consider timing your lambing just a little bit ahead of pasture to get out of that parasite curve. And another thing that it did for me was it put my ewes in a better shape because those ewes were not hitting peak lactation at peak parasite season. I talk a little bit more about this in my class, Breeding Sheep 101, but this was one of the best choices that I made—just adjusting my lambing back just a bit. 

Another really important thing to do is that if you do use conventional dewormers—the chemical methods—make sure that after using those chemical methods, you leave your sheep on a dry lot for 48 hours. The reason you want to do this is because those sheep are passing any parasites through their body and into their manure that did not die as a result of that chemical dewormer. And they’re also passing chemical residuals. So leaving them on a dry lot means that those resistant worms will not go back onto pasture and reinfect the sheep. And it also means that you’re not going to have the chemical residuals if you’re worried about that kind of a thing in your more holistic grazing system. So this is my protocol: about two days after deworming or applying chemical dewormers, I will leave my sheep on a dry lot, and then they get to go back out to pasture happily. 

Another method here, guys, and just make sure to write all of these notes down, because the management stuff is really going to be what gets you success as a sheep farmer. So make sure to write your notes. But the winter deworming is something that’s also been really, really helpful for me. And the reason that I deworm in the winter is because of this: I heard—I think it was a seminar or maybe an article that my mom read or relayed to me—but in the winter, all of the parasites are dormant inside of the animal. They’re super smart. It’s scary how smart these single-celled organisms are, but they essentially know that it’s too cold to exit the body of the animals, and so they’re going to stay inside of the animal until it starts to warm up and spring comes. So what I’ll do is I will deworm ahead of the curve. And even if the FAMACHA scores are good, I’ll give my sheep a dewormer midwinter and it kills the massive load that may be inside of them, and it makes spring so much better. So rather than those parasites reviving and reawakening the dawn of spring, they’re dead because I dewormed them in the middle of winter. 

Another essential thing, guys, is record keeping. I absolutely love my At-A-Glance planner. I wish that I was making commissions on this thing because this is the second time I’ve plugged it this month. My At-A-Glance monthly planner—I have one for each year that I’ve been farming. I think I missed one year and I regret it forever, but that is a great planner. A lot of people will ask me, “What do you do for record keeping?” And I wish that I had some fancy system to share with you guys, but instead, I keep this planner, and every single day I will write down the tag number, what I did to that sheep, and just management stuff. Guys, you see these empty white boxes here? I just jot down sheep management with a pencil or a pen. Pen is better. But it’s that simple, but keep records. Because what you want to know is you want to know who is needing more dewormer than the other sheep, you want to when you dewormed last, and you want to make some decisions to cull based on that information. So you want to spend some time collecting that information. I’d say my personal standard for myself was that I was not going to cull an animal until I’d been a farmer for 18 months. And that was the best decision that I ever made. Even though I had to put up with a lot of, you know, different things that people told me to cull. They were like, “Why are you putting up with that? Just cull it.” I, number one, learned so much. But number two, within that 18 month period of time, I became a much better manager. I became much better at being a shepherd. And at the end of 18 months, there was a lot that was fixed as a result of me becoming a better manager, and then I was able to make culling decisions based on the fact that these animals were bad, and not just the fact that I was a beginner in sheep farming and my management was bad. So that would be my encouragement to you is just keep really, really tight records and cull after 18 months because you’re going to have the data on all those sheep to make appropriate culling decisions. But that is a big part of management—is deciding when to let something go. You don’t have to do it immediately. Like I said, give yourself some time—18 months. But you do need to at some point decide when to let something go rather than treat it. 

Picture this: you are looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20-plus acres. The sun is setting, and your flock is grazing across a green pasture. Something inside you affirms this is real wealth—at least when it comes to material things. You know how to take care of your sheep, your grazing system is improving your land, and you have a way to direct market each lamb that is born. This is how I feel when I look at my flock, and I want the same for you. So, I put together a free one-hour class that answers some of your most frequently asked questions concerning how I raise, rotational graze, and market my sheep for $480 per head. Go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast to sign up and receive the free on-demand class. What’s more is that I will follow up over the course of three days, providing you with even more free resources—including a free ebook, a free grazing sheep kickstart guide, and a free marketing sheep kickstart guide. This information is worth paying for, but I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast for how I raise, graze, and market my sheep for $480 each. 

Chemical dewormers vs. natural approaches

So this brings us to section number three: these are the conventional methods that you can use to manage worms in your flock. Now guys, these are going to be chemicals. These are going to the things that are given to you by your veterinary office, the things you can find at the tractor supply. And guess what, guys? I advise that everyone, beginner shepherd or not, has these on their shelf. Not because I want to encourage you to build a system around them, but because I want you to think of conventional dewormers as training wheels. They eventually come off, guys. But as you are learning to manage your flock, they may or may not keep you from crashing altogether. So keep proven dewormers on hand, know how to use them, and taper yourself off of these means as you learn to mitigate through management and natural methods that I’ve got upcoming for you. You’re going to use less and less every year, but do not kick yourself for using these conventional dewormers up front. Remember, training wheels, they’re going to come off. Just let them keep you from crashing. So that is that. 

When you see tapeworms and roundworms on pasture, that is going to be when an application of Valbazen will come in handy. Valbazene is effective against tapeworms and roundworms, but not the barber’s pole worm. It used to be, but the barber’s pole worm has garnered resistance against this particular drug, and it is no longer effective for barber’s pole worm, but it’s very effective for tapeworms and roundworms. For the barber’s pole worm, I want you to consider keeping Prohibit and or Cydectin on your shelf. They’re both whitewormers, but they’re pretty effective across the country for sheep, and they have not garnered a massive amount of resistance. If you are in Australia, look at something like Zolvix. I think they have Zolvix over there, and that’s a very effective dewormer as far as I have heard. It’s a new one. So that’s great for barber’s pole worm. When we’re talking about coccidiosis, I personally use Total Toltrazuril, and you’re going to find that at Shepherdess.com. This is not intended for human or animal consumption. It’s not FDA approved. So if you do buy it and use it to treat coccidosis, you must take your own risks, but this is a product that is approved in Canada and in other countries. It’s just that the FDA says it’s not suitable for animals in the United States. So, I have to make my own decisions and decide if I’m okay with it, and so will you. But it’s worked very, very well for me in terms of treating coccidiosis at my farm. 

And just as a general warning here, guys, the more you use chemical dewormers, the less effective they become. Parasites are so smart, and essentially they become immune to every drug that you throw at them. That’s why that first drug Valbazen and things like Ivermectin—those are no longer effective in the United States broad spectrum for barber’s pole worm. And once you overuse a product, it produces resistance, period. That happens with all chemical dewormers, and that’s why management is so important. Upcoming are two ways to maintain the efficiency of these dewormers on your farm, but just remember, guys, you want to start juggling. You want to start doing some of the natural stuff. You want to start making sure you got your good grazing systems in place because total reliance on chemicals only is just going to be a dead end. I fully say have them on your shelf, use them as your training wheels, but just think about the future. Make sure that you’re adding some management principles in there to where you’re using less and less of them year over year. That’s the ultimate goal. 

Number one: in order to keep these dewormers working on your farm is to use correct dosage rates. So I’m going to go ahead and drop a link to Clemson University’s dosage rates for these particular products. But when you flip the product over, the backside of the envelope is going to have a dosage rate, but just be fully aware that’s a maintenance rate. So if you’ve got an animal that is needing a treatment, you want to use the Clemson dewormer chart. You want to use the dosage rates. So use the correct dosage rate or you’re going to build up resistance a lot faster than otherwise, and then really respect that 48 hour quarantine time after deworming. That’s going to be very, very good for keeping those dewormers effective on your farm and avoiding the resistance that does ultimately come with the chemicals. 

Okay, natural methods. These are natural methods that have worked for me. I’m probably going to start getting some comments about garlic, diatomaceous earth, pumpkin seeds—various things that maybe people, on the other side of the screen, have had work. Feel free to leave those and in what conditions that you are using them. Make sure to cite your rainfall as well. But upcoming are some natural methods that have really mitigated parasite pressure for me, and very, very parasite prone areas. Oh, I might venture to say, though it’s always risky to kind of say this: I might venture to say that if it works for me in my very parasite-prone environment, it’s probably going to work for you to add some of these natural anti-parasitics into your management. 

All right, natural methods. Number one: quality minerals. Make sure your sheep have quality minerals. I love the Redmond sheep mineral. These are available at Shepherdess.com. Again, buying from Shepherdess.com helps to support these free meetups, and keeps them going. So if you can, buy your sheep supplies at Shepherdess.com so that I can keep making you guys these free resources. But I love Redmond sheep mineral, and it is a fantastic, highly recommended product as it concerns me. Protein—making sure your sheep’s diet has an adequate amount of protein is going to make them very naturally parasite resistant. So if you have a good looking pasture, like on picture number one—that’s got a lot of clovers in it, and has some good rye grasses in it. This is a spring pasture, so this is the peak that you’ve got going on. You don’t need to add any protein supplement to this kind of a pasture. But when your pasture maybe gets a little burnt in the summer or a little sparse in the winter, consider adding some alfalfa pellets or alfalfa hay. Add a 16 to 21% protein percentage. That it’s going to do wonders to keep your animals very resistant naturally to parasites. Lick tubs at 16% protein are another option to stretch your pasture and improve your animal performance. 

This is going to be a controversial one, guys, but this has been so effective for me and this is one of those things I have to put up a disclaimer: use at your own risk because copper toxicity is a thing for sheep. But I give my sheep a copper oxide wire particle bolus—which is just like a little pill full of copper particles—and I give them that in April every year. I’ve been doing it for about two or three years. I’ve not had one single sheep die, and my parasite problems have been much, much, much, much, less since adding copper into my regimen. The reason being is that copper deficiency produces anemia and parasites also produce anemia. So if you’ve got a sheep that’s struggling with both copper deficiency and parasite problems, they’re going to be a lot more sensitive to those parasites. So play around with adding a little bit of copper to your regimen. What I did was I went ahead and just did a test group one year—a very small test group. I gave them copper boluses and I was like, if they die, okay. I can take it. I can take the loss of 10 sheep, which would have been hard, but I thought it was worth it. It really was. None of them died. In fact, they went through the summer resisting parasites way better than the rest of my flock. And the next year, I gave every single adult sheep in my flock a copper oxide wire particle bolus, and never had a sheep die of copper toxicity. When it comes to goats, you do actually need to give them a copper bolus probably twice a year. I’ve given my goats copper bolus twice a year, at least, and that’s a minimum for goats because they need a lot more copper. 

All right, this may or may not be the moment that you guys have all been waiting for: I’m going to give you my vet-tested results from the deworming with lye. For some context here, I saw a video and was emailed several times about this particular concept of using lye to deworm your livestock. This guy has about 2,000 views on YouTube, and he’s deworming pigs. He says you can deworm anything. He’s deworming cows, he’s deworming goats. I saw this video, his animals were slick and shiny, and he said he’s been doing it for 17 years. But I said, I need to take this to the vet and see if it’s actually the lye that is producing the deworming of these animals, and it’s not just something random on his farm that he’s got an advantage of. So, I’ve got to put up this disclaimer: this is not a recommendation for you to use lye as a dewormer for your livestock. This is no recommendation. I’m simply sharing results from a vet-tested experiment. Lye is toxic and may kill your livestock or dissolve the lining of their gut. That’s all of my disclaimer, but I have to put it up there. So basically the lye test went this way: it was half a teaspoon of lye dissolved in water, but took about two to three cups to dissolve that half teaspoon—that’s what I did—in two gallons of feed. So, basically, dissolve the lye in just enough water to wet that feed completely. And then you mix the water with the feed, making sure all the feed is coated. 

Here are the results: I did not apply this to my sheep. I have a goat herd of about five or six, and they get to be my test subjects for all things scary. So I did this for my goats, and I had a group of five goats—two kids, four adults—so it was a really good spread. And those kids were in there, so I was able to see how the young goats reacted to it. I did four gallons of feed, which is just a little bit less than a five gallon bucket, and I did one teaspoon of lye dissolved in water. And that was what I considered a dose. And I just gave them this to eat just like their daily feed ration. So here are some original numbers: so Daisy was having a really, really rough summer, and she had an egg count of 5,400 eggs per gram. She also had bottle jaw. I did not do a very good job of taking care of her because she was in bad shape, but she was a good test subject at 5,400 eggs per gram. And Maria, my second dairy goat, was also pretty loaded down at 1,250 eggs per gram of the barber’s pole worm. So I did a first dose, and these are all numbers from the veterinarian, so I paid up to have a quantitative test done by a veterinarian. I did not do it myself. I made sure that a professional was doing it. The first dose, Daisy went from 5,400 eggs per gram to 1,200 eggs per gram with one treatment of lye in her feed. Maria went down from 1,250 to 750, so a really significant decrease. 

But after that first dose, these numbers were still really high. These were still numbers that I would probably follow up and treat again because they’re still very high. So what I did was I took a risk, and about five days after giving them lye for the first time, I gave them a second administration of lye-coated feed. And I was amazed. I took that fecal sample to the vet to get them checked after the second dose. Daisy had gone from 5,400 eggs per gram down to 150 eggs per gram after the second treatment, and Maria was down to 300 eggs per gram. In fact, the vet called me. He said, “There are no worms in here.” And I said, “There’s always some worms in there. How many are there?” “Well, it’s just 150 and 300. There’s really no worms in here, so you don’t really need to treat.” So, yes. Lye as a dewormer for livestock is vet-tested and highly effective. This was administered in a controlled environment. That means that they were in a pen and being just given dry hay and feed. So I knew that they were not eating any other anti-parasitic plants that may have brought their loads down. There was nothing else given to them besides this lye-soaked feed. 

And also as a little bit of a side note: Daisy was also given a copper bolus, you’re going to notice that her numbers dipped even below Maria’s, but I think it was because that copper bolus kind of helped bring them down even more. And then I gave these two dosages about five days apart, which is very risky. The man in the video has been doing this for 17 years; he says he gives it to him once a month. So two times, five days apart was probably a little bit risky for me, but I just wanted to give it as much as I could. All of that said, I observed no negative symptoms on behalf of the animals whatsoever. If the lye was burning their gut lining or causing troubles internally, I would be watching for things like blood in the stools, things like variation or diarrhea or whatever—nothing. There were no negative symptoms. Daisy’s bottle jaw went away. She’s now living her best life. Maria is giving me a lot of milk. She’s a dairy goat, and thankfully, the lye does not have a withdrawal period. So I’m not telling you to feed your animals lye. I’m not telling you to use this as a dewormer. I’m just saying these are vet-tested results. So, you’re welcome. Buy me a coffee to help pay for all of the egg count bills that I went through to get this information for you or buy a copy of my book, The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture to support this research for you guys. That is the end of the presentation. 

All right, I’m going to go ahead and get to the question and answers here, guys, and then we’re going to close out for the night. This was so much fun. Thank you for joining me to talk about worms for one full hour. Tanner says, “I am new to farming. We have only one dam and rain for water. Do you have any tips for excessively dry farming in Queensland, Australia?” I want you to go and look at my series on YouTube. Type in Shepherdess in Australia. That was exactly why I went to Australia—to get tips for people farming in an excessively dry environment. You’re going to find, I went to Queensland and filmed two operations there, and then I went to California here in the United States—very drought-stricken—and filmed one operation there. So if you search Shepherdess in Australia on YouTube, you’re going to find the full series. I highly recommend that you opt in for the full-length episodes because they’re going to give you a lot more information than the short ones, but that’s where you’ll find the answer to your question there. Teresa says, “Is it only green grass or can sheep live off of dry brown grass?” I’ve seen sheep and goats do very, very well on dry brown grass. Typically, you always will see a lick tub in the paddock with that grass, but they really are thrifty and will do well on that pasture with just that small supplement to bring the protein up overall. 

Elise says, “How do you catch your sheep to check eyelids?” Elise, I have a small pen that I will run them into, pack them so tight like a can of sardines that they can’t run from you, and that’s the best way to handle sheep—just not giving them a whole lot of room to run around. Because once you have your sheep in a large pen and you start that chasing game, it’s going to be a really long, hard day. So I will really just pack my sheep in a pen that is very, very tight and work them that way. Nick kind of answered you, Elise, on that: “We use cattle panels to set up a bud box.” And I like to use the Lakeland Farm and Ranch direct aluminum easy panels for my sheep. Those are amazing, worth their weight in gold, and I use those to set up little pens wherever I need them. Katie says, “Does anyone know if potbelly in a goat is a symptom of cocci as well?” Katie, I don’t want to say that it always is because goats can get a potbelly just as a result of having a huge day of grazing. But if you’re seeing those other symptoms like diarrhea or stunted growth rate, that’s a good chance that might be a little clue that they have coccidiosis going on in them. 

Cindy says, “Grace, my vet said we had 50 eggs per gram. Is that possible?” Yeah, if you’ve got only 50 eggs per gram in your manure samples, that’s a very good number. That’s a low number, so congratulations there. Jedidiah says, “How many sheep or goats can you run on five acres of pasture? The pasture is very poor.” So Jedidiah, with that, you might just want to start with one to two per acre. Just build up and add to your flock, or just keep the lambs as you go and grow. But it’s better if you’re considering that your pasture is very poor to start small and save all of the lambs as you can expand than to buy too many, because what happens is that sheep and goats reproduce really, really fast, and in your first lambing or first kidding, you’re going to have a lot. If you start big, you’re going to get really big, really fast and potentially overwhelmed. So with five acres, start with one to two per acre, and save all the extra lambs that you can. 

All right. Cindy says, “Have you used Corid?” Yes, Cindy, I have used Corid. I really don’t like the product at all. Number one is because they tell you to put it in the water, and when sheep detect anything fishy in the water, they will not drink it. That’s what happened with Corid. Corid has a very bitter flavor, and I couldn’t get my sheep to drink enough to be an effective treatment. Just maybe my sheep’s attitude, but that’s what it was. In terms of drenching with Corid, I did have some small success, but Corid severely depletes your sheep of vitamin B12. So you’ve got to follow up really quickly with a vitamin B supplement if you’re going to use that product. I switched to the Total Toltrazuril, which again is not FDA approved and not for human or animal consumption. I use it at my own risk. You will have to as well. But I use that product, Total Toltrazuril, and it is amazing for coccidia. It’s a one and done dosage rate. With Corid, you have to go for four days straight dosing this animal again and again, and I don’t like it. If you guys want to give your input on Corid, go ahead and do so, but my experience with it is no good. 

It wasn’t terrible. It cost about $200 to get all of those fecal samples done, but it was worth it to me to know. I would probably use the lye treatment again. I don’t think I would use it twice in a week. It could really cause some stomach burning. One of the biggest risks when you’re using lye is that it will burn the internal organs of the sheep or goat, but at such a small dosage rate of half a teaspoon to two gallons, the guy on the video was mixing it into the water with his bare hands. And if it’s going to burn the gut lining of your animal, it’s probably going to burn his hands as well. If it doesn’t burn his hands, it probably won’t burn the lining. That said, I did use gloves to mix all of my lye and I didn’t touch it with my bare hands, but it’s such a small amount that I did not see problems in my goats. I’m not going to say you’re not going to have problems, but I didn’t see any. Dawn says, “Have you cycled different commercial wormers? Pesticide companies rotate active ingredients yearly.” Dawn, I will use one until it doesn’t work for me anymore. And that’s kind of the recommendation. Just use one dewormer until it does work for you and then move on to a different class. Some people will rotate dewormers. I’ve heard it’s an effective solution for them, it’s just not my management. 

Selinda says, “Are you going to keep using the lye?” Selinda, I’m going to use it on my goat herd for about one year probably before I consider giving it to my sheep, maybe. I’m a little nervous about giving it to my sheep because my income kind of rides on the sheep. And if I was to go out and find my sheep did die or have internal bleeding from the lye, I’d be at much greater loss than losing five or six goats. So it’s kind of the risk I’m assessing, and I’m probably going to just leave it to my goats for a period of a year, and watch for symptoms. Nick says, “Could you please address liver flukes and giant liver fluke for Worms 201?” Nick, I will probably have to look into that. I use a broad spectrum dewormer, and what that does is it kills a lot of different kinds of worms in addition to the barber’s pole worm. So I’m probably treating for liver fluke without even knowing it, but I don’t think I’ve ever had much problems with them. I know they have really big problems with those in the UK, the liver flukes. Brandon says, “Chicory or other forages containing tannins as a natural dewormer.” What are my opinions? Not done any of the formal testing and not had any success personally, so no input there, Brandon. Not because I don’t want to, just because I don’t have it. 

Kelsey says, “How much copper bolus per adult sheep?” I bolus once a year in April, and I think the boluses you’re going to find at Shepherdess.com are… Well, whatever the copper bolus is at Shepherdess.com is exactly what I use for my sheep, and it works fantastic. Carl says, “Do you still have your Bullnose Ford flatbed pickup?” Carl, I’m glad you remembered it, but no, because I’m going to confess that I am really bad at driving a stick shift, and was causing my dad and brothers a massive amount of anxiety as they tried to train me to drive a stick shift, and I decided that I was going to sell it to somebody who knew how to drive a stick shift and give it a better life. So no, I don’t. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to drive a stick. Michael says, “What do professional egg counts cost?” It was $48 per animal per pop. So I think it was $48, something between $30 and $40. Bailey says, “How did you decide the amount of lye to use?” Bailey, I just used that viral video and followed his instructions exactly. Christina says, “If you do not practice rotational grazing for your rams for 10 months, how do you manage parasites for them?” My ram stays in a clean pen and he eats hay, so there are no parasites on the hay. 

Sebastian says, “How do you manage predators?” Sebastian, I have really tight fencing and a large pet dog that roams the perimeter. I don’t have a formal livestock guardian, but predator pressure is fairly low at my place. I don’t think my system would work well everywhere. And that said, last year I did have an attack, and they came in and they took about six lambs overnight, which was super, super painful. So I’m not immune to predators. It’s just the pressure is so light that I haven’t gone to the trouble of keeping a dog so far. Carl says, “I have two wethers to sell this far. How do you recommend marketing them for sale? What methods are the best?” Carl, unless you have built up an email list for yourself—which is what I do, and I sell all of my sheep through my email list—I would take it to Facebook and advertise them locally on Facebook. Okay, 44 new messages. Y’all have some really good questions. I’m going to try to stick around and get them all done tonight, but I’m going to go for Don’s question: “Have you cycled different commercial wormers?” Oh no, somebody’s testifying that they tried the lye as well, and it worked super, super great. Don says, “Commercial dewormers one year, homemade dewormers another year. Keep rotating them to prevent immunity. Do you have free-choice charcoal available?” Because he found that animals eat charcoal when parasites start increasing. So that was some suggestions from Don, guys. Take those and make notes of them and consider them for your farm. 

Michael says, “Can you show the lye that you were using?” It’s just the soap making stuff: Red Crown, high-test lye. That’s what I was using. I think this thing should last me like the rest of my life at just one teaspoon per dosage. I mean, it’s cost effective if nothing else. Okay, if you guys missed the lye chat, I’m going to go ahead and put the lye results up here. But in short, yeah, the lye worked famously. You’re going to have to watch in terms of using it longterm for things like internal bleeding or anything that says that your animal’s guts are in distress because lye is caustic and it can do that. But the reality is, is that it’s such a small amount. We’re talking one teaspoon in four gallons of feed. It didn’t prove harmful for my animals. Do your own research, take your own risks, but my animals are fine. Dawn says, “Have you fed your sheep or goats cedar branches?” Sometimes they will eat them of their own accord, but I’ve not tracked as to whether that’s a good antiparasitic or not. I heard it is, but I have not done the formal research. 

Carl says, “Sad to hear about the Bricknose. I said wrong, but understandable. Thanks for the marketing advice of Marketplace.” Yes, Carl, it was hard to admit that, but I really felt like it was important to give it a better life, and also alleviate my father and my brothers of the stress of trying to teach me how to drive stick. It’s still on my bucket list before I die because driving a stick, learning to use a firearm, and there was one more thing I was going to do. I was able to learn how to use a firearm, but the stick was really hard. My dad was so stressed. Well, I don’t think I’d say my dad was stressed. My dad and brothers were a little bit irritated by the fact that the gears just kept grinding and then the thing kept shutting off—that’s how bad it was. But just trying to be honest here. Michael asks, “What were the panels that you said were worth their weight in gold?” That would be the Lakeland Farm and Ranch aluminum easy panels. 

KT says, “Do you have a goal to eventually cut that winter dewormer once you have a healthy biome to maintain? If so, what is your runaway game plan for that?” So she’s referring to the winter deworming that I’ll do to basically clear the load before spring. KT, I would say it’s not in my immediate plan to get rid of that. I may come to a place where the lye works really well, and I’ll just give them a dose of lye to kill those dormant parasites over winter. I’m at least a year off from that. So I say if any plan, I would probably find a natural anthelmintic—which is a natural antiparasitic—and administer that in the wintertime. But I really think that winter deworming is really, really important. It gets rid of the load that is dormant inside of the animal before spring awakes and those parasites awake. And I’ve really noticed that the parasite problems have been way less with that particular practice. Bailey says, “Does lye work with coccidia?” Yes, it does. It kills every worm in there, according to the man in the video and according to that fecal results. The guy on the phone said, “There are no worms. Your animals have no worms, you’re fine.” They did have some worms, but the second dose was 150 eggs per gram and 300 eggs per gram. So basically none. Caleb says, “Rest in peace, Grace’s pick up.” It didn’t die, Caleb. It’s just with a better owner. It’s leaving its better life. So it’s still alive. 

All right, Rebecca says, “How would you do a lye treatment if your sheep don’t get anything but grass and hay?” Rebecca, I would just buy some alfalfa pellets. Just make it a short-term thing. Just buy a bag of alfalfa pellets and soak that alfalfa pellet in the lye. But your sheep are not going to eat wet hay and your goats aren’t either, so just get some pellets. Ethan gives a testimonial here: he says, “In the case of the dead sheep standing that I treated last week, I gave three different classes of dewormer to kick the infestation, and they were ivermectin and a couple of others that I don’t recognize—non FDA-approved stuff—and the animal is still standing by the grace of God.” Okay, amen. Ethan, congratulations. I know how that feels. James says, “Half of a teaspoon dissolved in a gallon of water is what the man on YouTube used. I used one tablespoon per gallon and wet the feed just enough for it to be damp.” So one tablespoon per gallon is a lot more than a half of a teaspoon, so that’s quite an increase. You may actually hit some internal burning with that kind of an increase, but I’m glad if it worked for you, James. But if you guys use the one tablespoon instead, be very, very careful because that’s a lot more than half of a teaspoon. 

Ethan says, “If I added electrolyte solution to my water, does anyone have any insights on whether or not my sheep will refuse to drink it?” If it’s a sweet electrolyte, I think they’ll be fine if it’s palatable. If it’s unpalatable, my sheep are super stubborn and unless it’s sweltering hot, they really refuse water that’s been tainted with anything. Theresa asks, “Once a month or once a year on the lye treatment?” Theresa, the man in the video says once a month. I don’t recommend that, but that’s what the man on the video said and everything else he said kind of worked. Bailey asks, “What is the video that talks about lye dosing?” Bailey, go to YouTube and search lye as livestock dewormer, and you’re going to see it. You’re going to want to look for the one that has 200,000 views. Okay. Yes, Teresa affirms that the grinding of the gears is as bad as nails on a chalkboard. Nathan says, “What do you work with in the winter?” Nathan, I would advise Prohibit or Cydectin, and Cydectin is more broadly effective. I might go for Cydectin over Prohibit in the winter. Nehemiah says, “Would you consider testing the lye on a few sheep?” Absolutely, I would. Yes. Okay, guys, appreciate it, excellent. Okay, looking forward to seeing you all next time. 

Hi friends,

I have learned that a successful lambing season starts long before breeding. If you find yourself experiencing problems on your farm at lambing, there is a good chance you need to zoom out and examine your flock management practices.

In this episode, I am talking through the factors that set your flock up for a successful breeding and lambing season, including what to look for in a ram, how to ensure your ewes are in proper condition, and the importance of minerals and rotational grazing. I am also sharing some mistakes I made early on and how those decisions led to preventable issues at lambing.

For the beginner shepherd venturing into breeding sheep, may this overview give you a firm foundation upon which to build your breeding program.

-the Shepherdess

TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess I am so incredibly excited. This next hour is going to be packed. I am excited to be running through the basics of breeding sheep. I am going to be running through, like I said, basic questions that I receive all of the time surrounding breeding basics. A lot of things you don’t consider, or something you don’t consider often, is that a lot of the problems that you have at lambing were problems that existed at breeding. So one of the things that I want to focus on tonight is making sure that our small flocks are in the best condition possible to go into breeding, be ready to breed twins, and then have a flawless lambing season. And I say all of that because during my first lambing season, basically everything that could go wrong did go wrong. And it was a result of a lot of deficiencies that I left unaddressed at breeding. So I’m really going to be unpacking it for you, and I’m going to have a Q&A afterwards. 

Healthy breeding starts with your overall pasture system 

Okay, I’m going to open up with just a little bit of an intro on my farm. So I operate here on 30 acres in Northeast Texas. I do not own it, but I am renting it from my family. It’s a dream to someday be a land owner, but today I’m just working with what I have, and so grateful for a family that is allowing me to steward resources, and that is exactly what I’m doing. Super grateful for it. But I focus on purebred Dorper sheep, which are a meat sheep. They are probably the most highly marketable breed of sheep in the United States right now, and for good reason: they have a real high-yielding carcass, they are excellent on forage only, so in terms of meat sheep, the Dorpher really is one of the tops. I focus on a pure breed because I can get a good price in terms of breeding stock, and because it really does put a good carcass on. So for reference, I just took a bunch of lambs to the processor, and I came back with a super good carcass yield. It was something like 55%, meaning I sent 100 pounds in, and I got around 55 pounds hanging weight, which is an excellent carcass yield. Keep all of that in mind and choose your breed accordingly. 

If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com; you’ll find a direct link in the description. 

So rainfall at my place is 45 inches annually, which is really the perfect environment in which to practice regenerative pasture management. And that’s exactly what I practice. My system has little or no feed or grain inputs, and little or no fancy seed and pasture planting—beyond the fact that I will sprinkle a little bit of a handful of rye grass or crimson clover on the pasture as, you know, maybe there’s a bald spot. That’s about the beginning and the end of it. My sheep are raised on pasture as close to 365 days as possible. I have a small shed that I’ll take them to for things like freezing rain, extreme snowy temperatures, but it’s 24/7, 365 on pasture as much as possible. And I use electric fencing to rotational graze my sheep across the pasture. And I really do consider this regenerative pasture-based farming system to be sort of the crown jewel of my overall operation and work because if I’m honest, it was these practices that turned everything around for the health and productivity of my flock. 

And health struggles before I really implemented this grazing program were pretty steep. We lost a lot of sheep to parasites. Our pasture would be overgrazed in some areas, undergrazed and others, but once I started rotational grazing, the health of the flock just turned a complete 180, and the health of the pasture just turned a complete 180. Overgrazed spots disappeared, undergrazed spots were utilized, and by moving the flock regularly, I became aware really on a close level of which sheep were my strongest, which sheep are more prone to becoming sick, and I was able to make culling decisions better as a result of just being closer to the flock on a daily basis. And that led to the overall improvement as well. And I’m mentioning all of this information up front about grazing and about systems because, if I’m honest with you, I’m getting ready to share some tips with you about breeding, getting the minerals up, and getting your sheep healthy for a good productive system overall. But it really does start with the pasture management, and I always harp on that. And I always want to make it clear: if you are not fundamentally, foundationally taking care of your flock and your pasture, it’s going to be really hard to patch some of the problems. So make sure you’ve got a good system in place or else, if I’m honest, some of this stuff I’m getting ready to mention, it’s going to be like band-aids on a cancer. So make your system is good, and use what I’m getting ready to tell you as value add. 

If you guys want some background on me personally, some of you do know my story, but some of you may not. I actually started farming in 2020 with no background in agriculture whatsoever. And it was a situation where I just really felt led by the Lord to invest in some form of low-input food security for my family. And at that point in time, it meant taking 30 acres of grass that was mostly unused and turning it into a grass-fed meat source. Now, before diving into farming, I was in digital marketing and product development in the retail apparel industry. So to say that it was a learning curve to go from fashion basically to farming, and to still be in it six years later, is a massive understatement. And I say that to encourage you as much as anything, because essentially if I can do it, you can do it. If you’re coming from a background where you have no experience, maybe you feel a little lost, you’re in the right place. That’s exactly where I was at. 

And I was that place as a beginner where I often felt like going into farming, and sheep farming specifically, and getting information I needed to be successful. I felt like it was kind of climbing a ladder, and the first five rungs were missing. Nearly every resource I found assumed that I knew a little bit of something about farming, which I did not. Oftentimes, I couldn’t even find anything sheep specific. I had to amend a lot of the information that I found for cows. But that’s what I did three years into my journey. But back to the beginning, I was at that place of being without the first 5 rungs, which is exactly what I created my book to be for beginner shepherds. And so with that being my experience, I built out resources for those coming in behind me. And it’s my goal to simply be the first five rungs of the ladder for you as a beginner shepherd by relaying simple firsthand information to beginners in a pasture-based system. 

I’m going to go ahead and break this into three sections. I’m going to discuss your ram in section number one: what to look for, little things like that. Number two: I’m to talk about your ewes, how to prep them, and make sure they are sufficiently mineralized, I guess you should say, and make sure you’ve got your nutrition up and going. And then section number three actually really zeroes in on nutrition and timing itself. So we’re going to tackle it in three different sections tonight.

What to look for in a meat ram

Now we’re going to start out with the ram tonight, and more specifically, what to look for in a meat ram. Now a good body type for a meat ram consists of a few important traits: you want to look for a low line animal. What that just means is the line their body is low to the ground. You want to avoid those animals with too much leg. And the reason being is that leggy animals do not convert as well on pasture only. So, you want to kind of think short and stout in terms of a ram with thick hind quarters. And what that means is just a good looking leg of lamb back there. And additionally, a long, deep body. If you see on screen here, one of my best rams is at the bottom and he’s got an excellent, nice, long body. And this is where all of the premium cuts of meat come from in terms of your meat animal. And that is going to be your loin and some of those higher quality cuts, so you really do want to prioritize a long lean body in your ram. 

Now, for me, because I raise on pasture, I’m also looking for a ram with strong parasite resistance and good hooves. Those are priorities for me in a breeding ram. And if you prioritize those in your ram, which is going to, again, he’s going to be the father of all of your lambs, it’s going be the best way to upgrade the overall quality of your flock. So when you’re shopping for a ram, don’t just look for the body type. Don’t just for the phenotype. Also evaluate really closely the system from which he came, and make sure he’s not basically been bloated with grain his whole life and then will waste away, essentially, once he goes back to your pasture. So invest in quality, invest in an animal that comes from a system that matches yours. I paid around $3,000 to acquire one of my best rams for my flock, and I traveled about—I think it was 800 miles, 800 to 1,000 miles round trip—to bring him back to my farm. It was entirely worth it. Take your time, find a good one, and buy the best that you can afford. You may not be at a place where you can buy a $3,000 ram right now, just buy the one that you can afford. As an example, just a little bit of the marketing side of it, that $3,000 ram essentially made my investment back in its first lamb crop. He went home, and he bred about 30 ewes. Those lambs immediately had a value that was about 30% more valuable than the previous ram, based on his phenotype and what he contributed genetics-wise—it paid for himself in the first lamb crop. 

All right, so this is just some more visual examples. Again, the low line, which is your short legs, your thick hind quarters, which is your back end of your ram. You want it to be nice and meaty because these are your leg of lamb, and then you want a long, deep, body once again. Now, another question that I get is: How many rams do I keep for breeding? Something to know here is that a good ram can actually breed up to 40 ewes per cycle. But to play it safe at my place, and just ensure that no ewe is missed, I do prefer keeping one ram per 30 ewes. And this practice does help me to maintain a tighter breeding window because all of the ewes are basically guaranteed covered. Nobody’s missed because I’m maxing out my ram. So one ram per 30 is my standard. But if you can only afford one really good high quality ram, one ram per 40 is perfectly sufficient, and just stick with that. This is another question I get, and it’s a little bit controversial, but I’m just going to give my input and my opinion on it: do you need to replace your ram every single year, or can you breed a ram to his female offspring? Yes. The answer is yes. You can breed a ram to his female offspring, and this practice is known as line breeding. If your ram is of excellent quality, that quality will be magnified as you breed him to his daughters and granddaughters. However, the exact opposite is true for a poor quality ram: if you’ve got something skinny, you got something less than quality, the more you breed him down, the more those bad qualities are going to be exacerbated. 

And this is something to be careful with, but essentially, you want to just watch and make sure that there is enough genetic diversity. If you were running a purebred, make sure there’s enough genetic diversity to where you’re not going to run into problems. But I used to be sheepish to share that I did this line breeding practice, but I was at an agricultural festival and I was positioned directly next to a veteran show sheep breeder. And we were having discussions about this breeding practice in terms of breeding father to daughter, and he said, “Oh yeah. We’ve been in the show sheep business for 20 years, and my dad was in it as well. And we would breed a ram to his female offspring for up to eight generations.” He said, “We had to, at that point, do special blood tests to make sure the genetics were not becoming dangerous, but that’s what we did in the show sheep arena.” Now, eight generations, I’m not entirely comfortable about that, but it made me a little bit more confident in my two generation rule at my farm. 

Now a question I often receive is: How often should you replace your ram? Now, a ram will hit its peak fertility at around five years of age, and the average lifespan of a ram is around seven to ten years. So, technically, five years at its prime. Between five to ten years, he may just start slipping a little bit, and you probably want to bring a young guy in there to pick up after him. For example, that ram that I invested in pretty heavily upfront, I’m keeping him. He’s about four this year, and I intend to keep him until he’s five or six. It’ll be too expensive for me to replace him, and I would rather just keep him in my program. Another factor here is that I started with a large group of completely unrelated ewes. So, if you’re starting out with a smaller flock—say you have a ram, and you’re bringing him to breed to ewes, and you do the line breeding practice—you’re going to have a little bit less flexibility than I did, bringing that brand-new genetically separate ram into a flock of 40 ewes. So you may want to change him out a little bit sooner, but for me personally, I don’t really have much of an issue in terms of keeping my ram up into five and six years. 

Another common question that I get is: Where do you keep your ram when he’s not breeding the ewes? And when my ram is not breeding the ewes, he will stay in a clean pen with fresh hay, minerals, and clean water. Now, I recommend a minimum of eight feet by eight feet. That’s about 64 square feet per ram. Now if you have two rams, they will keep each other good company, but make sure the space is tight so that they don’t actually fight. I will have rams together, but if the space is tight enough, they will not be able to gain the momentum they need to headbutt and create brain trauma for one another, which is an issue if you have two rams in a large space. What I prefer doing is having a ram and a wether together—which is a castrated male sheep—and that way the hormones aren’t really raging and creating conflict within the pen. So, that is my preference, but if you have two rams (I have two rams together right now), usually one will assert dominance, the other will back down after a bit, and it’s absolutely fine. But if you want to avoid that initial conflict while they establish dominance, make sure the pen is nice and tight, and they don’t have the opportunity to come and try to kill each other, essentially. I think that’s what their intent is. Goats also do make good companionship, but it’s a little sketchy. Goats are a bit different in terms of their personality. Mine are somewhat abusive and will use their horns to make sure my rams to know their boss, and that can be a little bit of a problem sometimes. 

Preparing your ewes for healthy breeding

Section number two: we’re going to go ahead and shift our focus from the boys to the girls. Okay, so ewes. Dam is the technical name for a ewe, which is the mother of your lambs. In the sheep world, and when you’re shopping, more specifically, you’re going to often see that phrase used. So if you’re going out and you’re shopping for a ram, you’re going to often see people use the term “flock sire.” If you shop for a ewe, you’re going to often see people use the term “dams.” And that’s just a little bit of a 101 in terms of shopping. I’m going to go ahead and break down the information I’m going to share for you on your ewes into a couple of different categories here: I’m to address body condition; I’m go to address age at breeding; I’m going to address mineral mindfulness—things that you need to make sure you’re providing to your flock on pasture; I’m going to also address light supplementation options; I’m going to address flushing or not; and then I’m to talk about my pre-breeding cull criteria. And keep in mind here, this advice is based on my pasture-based system, which is really simple, and really low-input; it focuses primarily on one lambing per year. A lot of high-intensity systems have a more complex approach, but my method is really simple and really straightforward. If you want some more education on how you can potentially run five lambings per year, google “accelerated lambing” and you will find a lot of information—but tonight is not an accelerated lambling course. This is a simple, low-input, pasture-based lambing course. 

So the first thing we’re going to talk about is body condition. This is probably one of the most important factors to consider as you go into breeding. And this is one of the most important factors that will contribute to a successful breeding and lambing. The bottom line is that ewes in good body condition have higher chances of twinning, reduced lamb loss at delivery, better milk production post-birth, and on the flip side, you’re going to have struggled. If you send a ewe in poor body condition into breeding, you’re going to have a ewe that has lower milk production and increased susceptibility to parasites and disease after lambing. Now, if your ewe is thin, you need to consider a couple of options to get her back up into shape. Number one: consider deworming her. Check her FAMACHA score. Make sure it’s not parasites that are dragging her body condition down. If you do identify that it is parasites, you need to probably deworm her to get her back in a good condition prior to breeding. Also consider providing a short-term supplement before breeding. And this proactive approach is going to prevent, again, significant issues at lambing time. Remember the saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”. 

Now, as a side note here, you see some examples of body scoring. This is an example on the far left hand side of the screen. That is a ewe that is in very poor body condition. You can see her bones essentially sticking out of her rear end. The picture in the middle is that exact same ewe in much better condition. She’s an overall small-frame ewe, so she’s not going to be as thick or chunky as the one on the far right, which is one of my best ewes. But when you are body scoring your sheep, you want to look at the back end of that sheep—not the belly, okay? When you’re looking at sheep or small ruminants in general, most often their belly is always going to be big and round and fat by appearance. But when you’re trying to body score and determine if she’s too thin or too fat or just right, you want to look at her rear end. That’s going to be where you examine for that good condition. You can see here on the far right, she’s one of my best ewes. She’s got really nice, chunky hindquarters. She’s in excellent condition. The one in the middle—overall, she’s a smaller-framed ewe. She’s just generally smaller, but she’s in good condition here. And then the one on the far left, she needs some help before I send her back into breeding. 

Okay, another controversial topic: I’m just going to go ahead and give you my opinion on… Actually, probably, it’s not really my opinion. It’s two of the most popular options. So what age should your ewe or ewe lambs be a breeding? So a ewe lamb will actually start cycling as early as four months old. If she’s been on a good plane of growth from the moment she was born, she will cycle and can potentially breed as young as four months old. But the best practice is to wait until that sheep is either 12 months old, which means she’s exited her lamb phase, or until that sheep is half of her adult weight before breeding. Half of her adult weight is usually achievable by about six months. And those are your two options. At my farm, what I do is I run both my ewes and my lambs together in one group. And so what I do is I breed my six month olds. I’ll breed my half-grown ewes. And at that point in time, again, they’re half of their adult weight. And this is typically not a problem for me in my system. 

However, I do make a point of monitoring these young first time ewes really closely during their first lambing, as they tend to be the ones that do give me the most trouble. They’ll need the most assistance. They maybe need the most help in terms of bonding with their new lamb, because when they do have that and they’re technically still lambs themselves. So just watch them a little bit closer if you choose to do like I do and breed them a little younger. But if you want to avoid or mitigate chances of trouble, you can definitely separate your ewe lambs out of your breeding group. I just have to be honest, running two groups for me personally, it’s a little bit too much trouble. I kind of find it’s more trouble than actually monitoring those first time moms at lambing. So I just round everybody up, I let them breed at six months, and I just give them extra care at that lambing time. 

All right, mineral mindfulness. Now, loose minerals should be available to your sheep all year round. And if you live in a rainy climate, guys, please opt for a covered mineral feeder to protect your minerals from rain. I had a bad season one year—rained like cats and dogs—my minerals were washed out for half of the year, and my flock went into a deficiency. So make sure you invest in one of these covered mineral feeders. I bought this one from my local co-op. It was a bit expensive—it was about $200 to $300—but guys, it’s a bull mineral feeder. It’ll last pretty much for as long as I’m farming. It’s a one-time purchase, and it does an excellent job in terms of durability and coverage. It is worth the investment. Now, what I want you guys to really zero in on in terms of your mineral is selenium, okay? Selenium. At my farm I use a Redmond Selenium 90 mineral salt for my sheep and I will dilute this by about 50 percent. So it’ll be “90” representing the parts per million of selenium in that mineral and once I dilute it it will be about 45 parts per million. 

That said, whether you choose a Redmond mineral or you go to your local farm store for a mineral, I want you guys to look at the back of the package, and I want you to make sure that there’s a bare minimum of 30 parts per million of selenium in that mineral for your sheep. Again, you can go up to 45. I think the Purina sheep mineral has up to 60 parts per millions of selenium in it, but I really cannot stress the importance of selenium. And on that handout that I gave to you guys earlier, that PDF handout, I actually have a Redmond sheep mineral linked on there available for sale at Shepherdess.com, and purchasing from that will help to support tonight’s presentation. But I have a Redmond sheep available at Sheperdess.com. It has 60 parts per million of selenium in it. It is excellent. Redmond is basically all that I feed to my sheep. 

But let me narrow in here and get a little closer to the selenium issue. Selenium is so important for sheep and their reproduction. And for me personally, in my area of the country, my soil is selenium deficient due to high rainfall. And so the forage that my sheep are consuming tends to be selenium deficient. And as a result, I ensure that my sheet mineral, again, I’m going to be redundant here: my sheep mineral has a minimum of 45 parts per million in it at all times. And again, that Redmond sheep mineral that’s going to be on that sheep supplies PDF has 60 parts per million in it. It’s an excellent mineral. But selenium deficiency, it’ll lead to serious issues such as infertility, meaning that your ewes are going to be cycling but not breeding. So you’ll just notice they’ll keep coming back into heat and not catching that first time. So infertility is a selenium deficiency. Stalled labor is a result of selenium deficiency. My first year, I had a ton of lambs that were just… The head will come out, little bits of the hoof, and then the mom was just… I thought she gave up, but it was stalled labor as a result of a selenium deficiency. Retained placenta is also a selenium deficiency issue. Your placenta should be delivered within about an hour of the lamb. For me, I had some ewes that were retaining it for up to like four hours. I’ve heard of ewes retaining it for days, which is super bad, but that’s a selenium deficiency. 

Selenium deficiency also produces weak lambs that struggle to stand at birth, as well as white muscle disease in weaned lambs. I had all of these symptoms in my first lambing season. I had no clue what the problem was until I started to do my research and realized my flock probably went into breeding with an extreme selenium efficiency. White muscle disease, guys, keep in mind, it’s going to produce a really slow growth rate in those lambs, and then you’re going to notice… Well, what I noticed with my lambs is that I was looking out at these little lambs and their heads were just shaking—their heads were just shaking like little leaves. I was like, what is going on? Took me about two days to figure out what in the world it was. I called around, finally got a local rancher to key me in. I think it was a local ranger. That is advanced stages of white muscle disease. If you do not catch it in time, ultimately, that shaking is a nervous system disorder, and they’ll have a heart attack and die. 

Calcium—this is also one that I really want you guys to pay attention to going into breeding. And potentially, I might say calcium should be a consideration late gestation as much as anything. And I threw this extra bit of slide in here because I had a couple ewes in the past couple of years that have had hypocalcemia or milk fever approaching lambing, and even shortly after lambing. So calcium is super important as you prep for breeding. If you are supplementing with alfalfa hay or pellets, that’s a very high calcium feed supplement. And if you’re using it regularly, your ewes will likely be getting plenty of calcium. But what I like to do is I like to add a calcium supplement to my mineral as we approach that final trimester. And again, this is not necessarily at breeding. It’s in that final trimester, but I think it’s important to mention to you guys. I add a few scoops of finely powdered limestone to my mineral salt, or I will use the Premier 1 sheep and goat micro-mineral mix, which is 18 percent calcium. And again, calcium deficiencies are commonly present at breeding, but they don’t manifest until lambing. But once calcium-deficient ewes have lambed, typically they’ll start making a lot of that calcium-rich milk for their lambs, and then you’ll notice them just going downhill rapidly. She’ll be droopy, and if you don’t catch it, she’ll pretty much die. But hypocalcemia is something that can be prevented by adding a bit of limestone to your mineral at that breeding time. 

Light supplementation—now, I want to address this one. When it comes to supplementing before breeding, my approach will really depend on pasture quality and the overall body condition of my flock. So if my pasture is in good shape and my ewes are in overall good condition, I don’t provide any supplement prior to breeding beyond those loose minerals that we just discussed. But if I’m facing a year where my pasture is over mature, stemmy, burnt, I will introduce a molasses lick tub with a 16% protein into the paddock starting about two weeks before breeding. And I will continue this through the breeding season, and this usually brings everyone up to speed, and it supplements for that really low pasture quality. Now, what happens and how I get this particular pasture quality is that summer drought will often compromise that pasture quality, or the pasture will get ahead of me—I’m not able to graze through it fast enough to basically keep it in check. 

So remember that “an ounce of prevention is really worth a pound of cure” in this situation. If you have an over-mature pasture, a burnt pasture, a drought stricken pasture, add a lick tub in there. Make sure the sheep have what they need, and often that lick tub will supplement and bring that forage quality up to speed. This year I actually mowed my pastures, and it brought everything back into a much better quality. I’d never done it before, and I probably won’t do it every year, but this year it worked out really well, and my sheep have just been in amazing condition because that pasture quality was basically brought back to optimum. It didn’t get overgrown. So that’s exactly what I did. That’s another option. That was a bonus, but I had to mention it because it worked so well for me this year in terms of mowing my pasture. 

Common mistakes before breeding

All right, let’s talk about consequences. Consequences of breeding a ewe in poor body condition. I’ve got to talk consequences because I have done it before. These are some examples of mistakes I made at my farm. I have bred ewes that are way too thin, and they are not able to add enough weight during gestation to compensate for the absence of condition prior to breeding. And they’re not able to add enough weight and grow that lamb and fill their bag full of milk for it, and what happens is they will end up with hypocalcemia in late gestation. If they’re carrying twins, you’ll often encounter twin lamb disease, which is super difficult to overcome. But more commonly, these thin ewes will just give birth and not produce enough quality milk for their lambs. So their lambs will hit a “failure to thrive” because they just don’t have the quality feed. And what I have to do—if I have made the mistake of sending a ewe into breeding too thin and it carries all the way into lambing—I will just pull the ewe aside after lambing, and make sure she has the supplement that she needs to keep her milk production up and to keep that lamb fed, as well as herself. So you’re going to have to either supplement before or after, but keep in mind: ounce of prevention. Get them in good shape beforehand, because it’s a lot easier to do that than to sideline your ewe after lambing. 

Picture this: you are looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20-plus acres. The sun is setting, and your flock is grazing across a green pasture. Something inside you affirms this is real wealth—at least when it comes to material things. You know how to take care of your sheep, your grazing system is improving your land, and you have a way to direct market each lamb that is born. This is how I feel when I look at my flock, and I want the same for you. So, I put together a free one-hour class that answers some of your most frequently asked questions concerning how I raise, rotational graze, and market my sheep for $480 per head. Go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast to sign up and receive the free on-demand class. What’s more is that I will follow up over the course of three days, providing you with even more free resources—including a free ebook, a free grazing sheep kickstart guide, and a free marketing sheep kickstart guide. This information is worth paying for, but I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast for how I raise, graze, and market my sheep for $480 each. Now, let’s get straight to today’s episode.  

Now, what I do at my farm is I will go ahead and just cull the thin ewes before sending them into breeding. And that’s something I do because my flock is big enough now; it’s not necessarily worth it to me to sideline and bring them up to speed, so when your flock gets a little bit bigger, if you want to follow my example, go ahead and just cull those two or three ultra-thin ewes. Sell them to somebody who can bring them up to speed—maybe they’re more willing to do feed inputs. But if you have a very, very small flock, you can bring that ewe up to speed with half-to-one pound of feed per day until her body condition score is at a 3 or better. Do that prior to breeding. So again, half-to-one pound ration. You can just go to the farm store and get a sheep feed or a general feed mix. Now, I know some people may want to go all organic or this or that, but when it comes to the short-term feed supplement, guys, I’m not too much of a snob. I’m just trying to bring a ewe back up to speed and get her back on pasture. I’ll just buy whatever I can find at the farm store. She likes it, it works just fine, and when it comes to short-term, just use whatever is available locally. But the bottom line is: just make sure she gets in good condition before you put her into breeding. 

All right. So, flushing. Flushing ewes is a practice that sheep farmers will do to increase twinning rate. And flushing ewes involves adding a high-energy supplement, typically grain, to your flocks diet before breeding to increase, again, twinning rates. And flushing does really effectively boost twinning, but I do not grain flush my ewes. So, instead of the traditional flushing, I will focus on ensuring that my ewes are in that good body condition before breeding. And I do this by providing them with the best quality pasture available during that breeding window. So my goal at my farm is to manage pasture resources to improve lambing percentage rather than to rely on grain inputs. And this is just a long-term strategy that I have chosen to employ at my farm, but if you don’t have any problem with adding a little bit of grain to your program prior to breeding, you just want to do that within two weeks of adding the ram. So two weeks leading up to the ram going in, do a little bit of a ration of about a half-to-one-pound of grain, and it will increase your twinning rate. 

And there’s no judgment for that. Here’s something that I find—just a little bit of input: I find that whatever supplement I add prior to breeding, I also need to plan on following up after lambing with exactly the same supplement. It’s interesting, and I don’t know if anybody else can relate, but if I choose to grain-flush my ewes at a rate of half-to-one pound going into breeding, I need to follow up after the lambs are born, and add half-to-one pound of feed after those lambs are born. And I find that that ends up being what happens for me. So going into breeding, I just do pasture because I’m just like, okay, if they breed on this pasture, I know that they can feed their lambs on this pasture. And it’s been very, very consistent for me, and that’s kind of the rule that I go by for my low-input system. 

I touched on this a little bit beforehand, but going into breeding is when you also need to consider culling. Culling involves just removing undesirable animals from your flock to improve productivity overall. I will add that doing so prior to breeding is going to make your whole year a whole lot easier. Again, some of you guys are just working with small flocks of four and six, but once you start getting up to the 20s and the 30s, consider culling two or three of your worst or least productive ewes prior to breeding. And that will just make your year, again, a whole lot easier. Now, when it comes time to cull, I prioritize culling ewes with poor maternal traits, problematic utters, persistent parasite issues, and persistently poor body condition on pasture only. Those are my top four. Number one is get rid of all your bad moms because your bad moms are going to cause you a lot of trouble come lambing, so prioritize getting rid of those. The utters are also equally problematic because no matter how good of a mom they are, if they literally physically can’t feed that lamb, she’s just as good as a bad mom. And then the parasite issue is number three. Removing the problematic ewes will allow you to focus your resources basically on the ewes that are actually pulling their weight, and increase your lambing percentage in those productive ewes overall. And that’s exactly what you want in terms of building a flock with good genetics. 

Now, something I want to say here because we have a lot of beginners in the room: when I bought my flock, it was of course much smaller, and I didn’t go through the rigorous culling process in my first year. Instead I decided to commit to every single last sheep on the pasture for 18 months before I made my first round of culling. And what I did was I would just keep very, very close notes on all of those ewes, and three strikes, you know, you’re out essentially, but I wouldn’t make that decision until 18 months later. Here’s why I’m glad that I did that because number one, I was a beginner, and number two, I was encountering problems that were a result of my management. I talked a lot about selenium deficiency upfront. I was able to just make a management adjustment that improved the performance of those poorly performing ewes. It was my fault, and by waiting 18 months and improving my shepherding skills, I was able to essentially fix the problems that were my fault, and identify the true troublemakers. So, if you’re in that first year of shepherding yourself, I would encourage you to do exactly what I did. I was glad that I chose to go that 18-month route before culling a single animal. I kept very close notes. I knew which ones I would cull once the time came, but I didn’t until I committed. I committed. It was a lot of work; I learned a lot. But if you are just starting out and you have about four or five ewes, that’s exactly what I would recommend for you. 

Timing your breeding season

Section number three is: timing your breeding. When do you join your ram to the ewe flock to breed them? When do you basically launch your breeding season? So, the best month, rule of thumb, is to join your ram with your ewes for breeding in a pasture-based system—it aligns with the concept of lambing with the pasture. So this means that you need to identify when your pasture begins to come alive, and then count backwards five months. So, if you live in the area of the country—somebody was here from Wisconsin—and you don’t start to get green pastures until… fill in the blanks. Whoever’s from Wisconsin, when does the green pasture come? But let’s just pretend it’s not until May or June. You want to take June and you want to count backwards five months, and that’s when you want to join your ram for a pasture-based breeding season. Now here in Texas, we get spring pasture a lot sooner. So here in Texas, we will join our rams to our ewes in October, early October, and that will put those lambs coming in March when the spring pasture typically is coming alive. Now, I did make a slight adjustment to the concept of lambing with pasture. I’m going to talk about it at the end of this section, but overall this concept of identifying when your pasture comes alive, counting backwards five months and then adding the ram in that month, that’s exceptionally safe in a pasture-based system. 

How long do you leave your rams with the ewes? So something to know is that sheep breed in 17 day cycles. So I would recommend keeping the ram with the ewe for at least 34 days. It gives every ewe two chances to breed. At my farm, I typically extend this to 51 days or three cycles to ensure that everybody has been thoroughly bred. But I put a hard stop at 51 days and no longer. And I did this because I encountered problems when I left my ram in there too long. I do lamb twice a year, but in my early days, I only lambed once a year. And I could technically keep the ram in there until the ewes had given birth—I’d keep everybody in one group. But when I did leave my ram there all year long, what would happen is that he would breed some of those younger ewes in December and January. I would end up with lambs during June and July, and these are just really bad months for parasites here in Northeast Texas. So the lambs born in June and July struggled to thrive on pasture, as did those young moms. So, I limit very, very hard to 51 days. And then the ram is out of there and back to confinement. Another thing to mention is that being on lamb watch is really, really mentally taxing. You do not want to be on lamb watch for months and months. Seven weeks is enough, and you can trust me on that. You want to be able to go to town without having to worry about coming back to a surprise. 

So, this brings me to another question that I get a lot, and that is: “Why do you not leave your ram with your ewes year-round?” I hinted at it, but I did try it for a couple of seasons, and it just presented too many problems. They would breed ewe lambs that were much too young. I would end up with lambs born much too late. And once again, just being on constant lamb watch is a mental strain. And what was kind of the worst in terms of management for me was that leaving my ram in all year-round, and having lambs born at various periods, was a maintenance struggle, because I was constantly doubling back to treat lambs that were either too young for treatments the first time. Whether I was giving them their first dewormer or whatever treatment I was giving, it was just really hard to keep doubling back to those differently aged lambs. So keep your lambing season really, really tight, and you’re going to thank yourself in July when you’re done working lambs for the year, and you are not out there sweating it out to get the last few treated. 

So, keeping a tight breeding window overall—that 51-day hard stop—has improved the health of my operation, and has reduced my time inputs by leaps and bounds. So keep that in mind in terms of a breeding window for yourself. Whether you’re hardcore and you say, “34 days, the end,” or you’re like me and you give them three chances to breed at 51 days, I do encourage you to keep and put a really hard stop. If you have ewes that do not breed in that 51-day window, you probably need to check her for some serious problems because if she doesn’t breed with three chances, she either has some serious mineral deficiencies, or you just need to cull her for her physical deficiencies. So keep that in mind. 

All right, so I’m going to go ahead and talk about the unique adjustment that I made to my specific lambing season in my specific context. About two years ago, I decided to deviate from the norm, and instead of lambing with the pasture, I lambed about two weeks ahead of the pasture. I joined my ram to my ewes in September, and this resulted in February lambs instead of March lambs. And in order to address the fact that pasture was still two weeks away from coming into bloom, I did have to supplement with alfalfa pellets and a protein lick tub, in addition to quality hay, in those first two weeks. But this adjustment worked so well for me that it’s one that I have carried forward for the past two years, and I intend to carry forward with a primarily February lambing for my flock. And what are the advantages of this? Well, number one: lambing two weeks ahead of pasture brought several advantages. One being that my lambs gained a lot of weight and their immune systems were fully developed before June and July, which is when the parasite bloom hits hard here in Texas. So they had a really good natural resistance to parasites. And I was giving a lot less dewormer to those young lambs in that summertime period because they were chunky. They were up at 40 and 60 pounds, and they were fighting off disease naturally rather than being these little tiny lambs that were still nursing and still trying to gain their immune system. In that really rough June and July period, they were essentially toddlers of the pasture, and they had a lot of natural immunity. 

Another advantage was just a management advantage that came to me, and that was that lambs were born before my spring-grazing program kicked off. So they were safely delivered in my safe and easy to access winter paddock with easy access to the shelter. And this reduced a lot of stress for me during lambing season because instead of trucking to the back of the property to check and see if there were new lambs in the paddock I could just glance out my kitchen window to the winter paddock and do a quick check to make sure everything was okay. They were safely tucked away when I needed them to be and when they were very tiny, and really allowed me to sleep better at night. Also, here’s the big one: peak lactation is 30 days post-lambing, and this aligned with the best pasture quality. So, a little bit of pasture math here: I just said I lambed two weeks ahead of pasture. Thirty days post-lambing is when that pasture is really succulent with those new shoots, high-end sugars, and this is excellent feed for a ewe that is in peak lactation. And this allowed the lambs to grow quickly because their moms were producing a lot of really, really good quality milk. I did not have to supplement those ewes to support their lambs. They were making a lot of milk on pasture only. 

And then what is more, is that by June, these ewes were on the downside of their milk production, meaning their milk production was naturally tapering off at a time when it’s most difficult to naturally fight disease on pasture. And this improved the ewes’ natural immunity to parasites and disease during the summer. And making this slight adjustment to lambing just two weeks ahead of the pasture meant way less handling, way less drenching, and way less dewormer with just this one simple adjustment. And a huge bonus is that I finished working all of my lambs by May, right as the scorching Texas heat kind of comes on. I’m able to tuck everybody away, get them all weaned, and get them set in their summer grazing program, so I no longer have to work lambs in the brutal Texas heat. 

This is one of those things that ties to probably a bigger lesson that I want to really, really drive home. And that last part may have seemed like a rabbit trail. I think it’s actually going to help a lot of you because I get emails about this all the time, like, “I did what you did, and this was an amazing change for my system.” But I ultimately shared that story to underscore a really crucial point that you need to learn as a farmer, and come to grips with yourself, and that is the point that you just need to learn how to farm for yourself. You need to be in tune with your animals and your land to where you can make those small adjustments for yourself confidently, like I just mentioned. And while I really think it’s essential to seek wise counsel and to apply best practices, it’s equally as important to identify the unique challenges and the unique pain points within your own operation, and brainstorm on the adjustments necessary to mitigate those pain points. Develop a system that works well for you, your animals, and your climate. 

I’ve gained a ton of insight from experts like Joel Salatin, Alan Nation, and Jim Garish—that big stack full of books I was holding at the beginning. Those were my bedrock. Those were my baseline. Those things got me off the ground as a beginner, as will The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture for you, available at Shepherdess.com. But ultimately, as a farmer learning how to farm in my own specific context, I had to go out on a limb sometimes with some of my decisions and adapt the advice that I was getting from everybody to fit my specific circumstances, and create a unique system that truly worked for me. So I want to give you that advice, and maybe that freedom, in understanding that success in farming will require that you exercise the exact same critical thinking skills within your own operation. You’re not breaking rules, guys. You’ve got to make some for your own well-being. You’ve got to make some of your own rules. 

All right, I’m going to go ahead and go to the question and answers, so I’m going to start with JT’s. He says, “Can you inline breed fullbloods?”—meaning breeding father to daughter. JT, yes, you can, and I do. Be watchful of if you have sheep with pedigrees. Sometimes they’re going to come with breeding papers. If you look up the pedigree and you see the same parents on both sides, you’re probably getting into genetics that are really, really close. The fullbloods are a little bit harder to do. I do commercial sheep, so there’s a lot more genetic diversity in the commercial arena. You do need to be more careful with the fullbloods, but a lot of people do it just fine. Chris says, “Why do you dock the tails?” Chris, this is a good question. I would dock the tails in my early days as a way just to keep their back ends a little bit cleaner. Sometimes they would get… It’s called the “spring runs,” and they will get diarrhea when the spring pasture blooms. And oftentimes, flies will burrow in the tails, lay their eggs, and if you dock them a little bit shorter, there’s a less chance of that. All that to say is that I’m a little bit less religious about docking now than I was, and there’s a lot of undocked tails on my pasture right now because the flies that lay maggots in the back end of sheep are not a significant problem for me. 

Cindy kind of echoes that. She says, “Not everyone docks. I stopped doing it.” It’s one of those things you kind of have to go with what’s going to work for you. I docked religiously in my first couple of years because that’s what everyone did, and then I realized, maybe I don’t need to do so much. And I just made the choice to kind of lay off it a little bit. I do have to say, it does look a little cleaner. So maybe it’s just an appearance thing, but it’s your choice and you’ve got to make sure that you’ve evaluated it. Levi asks, “When you say you breed twice a year, is that spring and fall crop, or are you breeding the entire flock every eight months?” This is a great question, Levi. So yes, I have a spring lambing and a fall lambing now. No, the entire flock does not breed every eight months. Basically, what happens is that I will have very young ewes that will not catch during the spring lambing, but I’ll put my ram back in and they’ll catch during that second lambing. So basically, my spring lambing is kind of my biggest lambing, and then my fall lambing is kind of a clean up crew. They’ll get everything that was left over or too small to breed for spring, and it’s just kind of a nice bonus there. Occasionally, I’ll get a ewe that breeds back right away. She’s super healthy, super good shape, but it’s more the exception than the rule on my pasture-based system. Usually they’ll just breed one time a year. 

Ivor says, “Do you have to worry about parasites on winter pasture? Ivor, yes, but not as bad as spring. So typically the parasites will go dormant over winter, especially when you get those deep winter freezes, essentially. And those will put the parasites in a dormancy phase. You just want to make sure to watch it once those temperatures go up. Because dormancy doesn’t mean non-existent; you kind of have to manage it, understanding they’re just hibernating, waiting for the most opportune moment to attack your sheep. Deborah says, “Can sheep eat fruits and vegetables?” By nature, sheep will graze the… so a lot of people will sow turnips, and sheep will graze the tops off of those turnips that have grown underground. So yeah, I’ve seen them eat turnips. I don’t know that I’ve seen my sheep eat fruits, but vegetables, by nature, yes. If they’re leafy green, they will definitely. AJ says, “When you breed the whole herd twice a year, are you doing anything to prevent the mothers of the six-month-old ewes from breeding again?” No, AJ, I kind of let nature take its course. Typically, if the ewes are still nursing, they will not often breed back. Now, I’m not going to say that’s a rule, but if my ewes are still in peak lactation, they will not often be ready to breed back. So it all works out just fine for me in terms of a spring lambing and a fall lambing. I just have two separate joinings. I have not had any problems. 

Garrett says, “If I plan to flush with grain prior to breeding, how long do I do this before I breed, and do I continue during the breeding cycles where I have the ram with them?” Garrett, yes, you want to carry it from two weeks prior to breeding, all the way up into breeding itself—all throughout breeding. Now, this is not something I’m highly skilled at—the grain flushing. So if you guys are in the comments, if you could tag Garrett as to how long after you add the ram to maintain that flushing, do you maintain it during the entire breeding window? That is one thing I would be curious to know if there’s a specific strategy on that. But I know it at least starts two weeks prior to adding the ram. Jody says, “What do you do with your cull sheep?” Depends on the nature of the cull. So sometimes they’re great sheep, but they’re just not great for my system, so I’ll sell them to people and say, “Hey, I’m selling this because it needs about half-to-one pound of grain supplement every day to be a great sheep.” A lot of people are just fine with that, and it gives them the opportunity to start with a great sheep, and they’re okay with grain feeding. Sometimes they actually have problems that I wouldn’t want to pass on to someone else, and I will just butcher them out and enjoy them in the crockpot. 

Timothy James says, “Does your pasture have trees for shade, and if not, do you need to have a loafing shed?” Timothy, my pasture has a lot of trees for shade, but what I also did was I have a portable shade structure that I created. And if you go to YouTube and search “portable shade sheep,” you’re going to see my video on that portable pop-up shade structure. Ivor says, “Can sheep graze in an orchard?” Yes, Ivor, they most certainly can. A lot of orchards will hire sheep flocks to keep the sucker roots down. Hope says, “Where did you get the blue covered mineral feeder?” Hope, I got that at my local farmer’s co-op. It’s called a bull mineral feeder. It’s actually for cows and bulls, but I use it for my sheep. Ethan Johnson says, “I am new to sheep and I just got eight Jacob sheep, but they are all about four months old and I was wondering if I should worry about overheating. I’m in Southern Illinois and we are sitting right at about 90 to 95 degrees.” I think the Jacob sheep are wool sheep. So yeah, you probably want to get them shorn prior to that summer heat, I would say. Elisha says, “Why is breeding season so exhausting?” Breeding season is not exhausting. It’s just the lambing season that is typically the exhausting part. And breeding season is non-exhausting if you have your minerals and all your nutrition kind of shorn up. But breeding is not exhausting. It’s actually one of the easier times of the year because everybody’s all together and happy. 

Dale says, “What is your cycle time for rotational grazing?” Good question, Dale. Once again, it is going to be available in The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. I’ve got an entire little illustration on the life cycle on page number 50. It is an entire visual illustration and timeline of the life-cycle of a barber’s pole worm, and that’s the worm that you want to outpace in terms of your pasture rotation. Some months you need to rotate faster to outpace the barber’s pole worm. Some months you have some latitude in terms of, you know, you can move them twice a month and still outpace a barber’s pole worm. I’m going to give you an example: in the springtime, I want to be moving my sheep twice a week to out pace the barber pole worm and to keep my pastures clean, because that is when that parasite is the most active and the most quickly hatching. When we are in times of summer, like I am right now, it’s 95 to 100 degrees; the barber’s poleworm really can’t survive those high temperatures for extended periods of time. I could get away with just moving my sheep twice a month and I would outpace the barber’s pole worm just fine. 

Timothy James asks, “Was the $3,000 ram registered, and are there registered sheep? And if so, what are the pros and cons?” Yes, the $3000 ram was registered. My flock is primarily commercial though. The cons of registered sheep is that a lot of them are grain dependent. So, you have to be very careful about the system that you choose from if you pursue the registered sheep option. So that’s the con. The pros are they’re just generally more valuable. Papers—people pay for papers. Papers don’t always pay, but people seem to always pay for papers. That’s the pro. So all of that said, though, I found it more profitable for myself to just raise a high-quality commercial flock. Full stop. Kristy says, “Do you separate any lambs before introducing the ram for fall breeding?” Kristy, not in my system, because by fall, a majority of my ewe lambs are ready to go. They’re up to at least 50% of adult weight, they’re chunky, they’re ready to breed for the first time. So, I will not separate anything. 

Ethan says, “Would you put down a bedding medium in your winter paddocks? I’m in an area where winter is very wet and altogether unpleasant.” So Ethan, it’s hard to say because my winter paddocks are generally large, and it’s generally a well-drained pasture. So just by virtue of my circumstances, I have not consistently had to put down a bedding medium. All of that to say is that in my lambing shed, I will use junk hay as a medium. So yes, in those places where there’s a lot of traction and a lot of manure and a lot of urine, I will put down on junk hay, and that’s my bedding medium. But in terms of all over the winter paddock, not necessarily, no. But it would be a consideration if it’s unpleasant because it’s really not fun to go out and find a lamb born in a frozen puddle. And so if you’ve got a lot of that around your place, just try to get some backfill in there for the sake of your animals. Leroy says, “I have seven pregnant full-blood ewes due this fall, and they have great pasture. Is it a good idea to feed them grain or is there not a need?” Leroy, if they’ve got good pasture and they’re in good condition, do not feed them grain prior to lambing. I made a mistake one time: fed my ewes up, fed them, fed, them, fed them—they did not need to be fed and they produced lambs that were too hard for them to push out on their own; so I had a lot of overweight lambs and a lot of ewes that needed assistance as a result of overfeeding, so keep that in mind. If they’re fine, they don’t need grain. 

Pamelia says, “I was on the understanding that you move your flock every day.” Nope. No, I will prioritize every other day during those really, really bad seasons of parasite struggle. And then I’ll give myself a break when the season is not as conducive to parasites, and I’ll move about once a week. Right now, as a matter of confession—for the audience to maintain full transparency—my electric fence is completely broken. So, my sheep are out there with no paddock right now. So my conscience feels better, but my sheep have no paddock right now, and it’s because my fence is broken. But typically, I’m moving them once a week in these seasons. Judge. You guys can judge me in the comment section, but at least I was honest. All right, Cindy says, “Do you market your sheep individually or do you take them to auction?” Cindy, I market them through my email newsletter list. Andrew says, “What is the best strategy for predators, coyotes, and bobcats?” It’s really going to depend on what area of the country you’re in, and what your context is. I cannot speak for everyone on predators. Some people have to have a whole team of dogs in their flock to keep the predators at bay. For me, I did just have a pretty significant predation issue. Just a couple of weeks ago, they came in and they took all of my 10 pound lambs. So it was just six born off season. But I typically just rely on a strong fence, and careful logistics, and a large pet dog. I don’t have anything that formally stays with a flock. So that’s all that I need where I’m at, but not to say there aren’t those moments when something bad happens. A lot of people will invest heavily in those livestock guardian dogs. 

All right. Elisha says, “Why is lambing season a lot of work? Is it the constant watch for lambs?” Yes, it is, Elisha. And oftentimes in lambing season, I have a lot of first time moms like I just mentioned to you. Every year I’ll have, you know, upwards of 10 first-time ewe lambs lambing, and they just need me to watch them, they need me to help them if they are struggling to be a mom for the first time. And I’m happy to do that for them in that first time, so that’s why. It’s mostly those first-time moms. Levi says, “Can you flush with alfalfa instead of corn?” I have heard of some people using alfalfa, but I think there’s a little bit of an issue in terms of alfalfa’s high protein, low energy. And corn is high energy, low protein. So, I think there’s something to having a high-energy supplement versus a low-energy supplement. That’s all I’m going to say on that, but I think when flushing, you want to go a little bit higher energy, like a grain. 

“Silent judgment noises from the audience on my broken electric fence.” I know, now that I confessed it, though, it’s going to be at the top of my list to get it back and going. But I had to stand up here and confess—as I was preaching that move once a week—I had to confess that my fence has been broken for… and the reason is broken… Maybe there’s some people out there that could resonate or relate: I’ve done a total circumference check on my fence. Usually it’s wadded up in barbed wire somewhere, and that’s where the short is. But it’s completely out of power. I thought it was a fuse, so I checked the fuse—totally fine. I checked for faults; my fault finder can’t find anything. I think I’m just going to have to go back to the main point of install and work backwards in terms of if there’s a broken wire somewhere. But if anybody has ever had an unexplainably broken electric fence—no charge—and you found something totally random, drop in the comments what you found that was so random, and I’m going to go look for it on my fence. You’d help me get back on my feet a little bit faster. Okay, Lisa says, “Do you use a dog to move your sheep?” Lisa, no, I don’t. “Grace, my sheep are not purebred,” says Cindy. “Do I need to change to a pure breed to do that?” No, not line breeding. If you’re talking about line breeding, you don’t need purebred sheep to do line breeding; in fact, line breeding is probably a little bit safer with crossbreds, because you have more genetic diversity to work with. 

Okay, final question of the night and then I’m going to say goodbye to you guys. Question from Alec: “What is the best age to start breeding your sheep?” Again, this is a matter of debate: minimum of 50% of adult weight, and a lot of people will wait to breed until 12 to 14 months. All of that said, most of my ewe lambs will breed at about six months old; they just need a little bit of extra time and check at lambing. Okay, guys, thank you for joining me tonight. I’m going to close it out here. Appreciate you all. 

Hi friends,

I want to help you avoid the mistakes I’ve made in sheep farming, so I’m opening up about the things I wish I would have known when I first started. Despite many lessons learned the hard way, I also got a few things right early on, and I’m sharing those with you as well.

We’ll dive into the lessons that would have saved me time, money, and a lot of frustration in those early years.  From prioritizing quality stock and building an audience from day one, to understanding parasites, minerals, and grazing systems, this episode is packed with practical insights you can apply right away in your own farming operation.

Whether you are in the learning phase or many years into managing a flock, my hope is that something I share in this episode will be a lightbulb moment for you.

-the Shepherdess

TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess All right, guys, tonight is a very special theme: it is things I wish I knew—things I wish I knew five years ago when I started. Also going to cover things I’m glad I knew when I first started sheep farming. And tonight, if you are just starting, you’re going to get a massive head start, Lord willing, to your farming journey by learning things that I didn’t when I first started. All right. Let’s go ahead and get started. First up is an introduction on myself, guys. Most of you know it, but some of you are brand new here. I raise purebred Dorper sheep, which is a meat sheep, here on 30 acres in Northeast Texas. I’m not a landowner. I lease the land from my family. I’m so grateful for them making it available to me and kind of letting me string my hot wire all over their creation, but that is what I do. I’d love to be a land owner someday, but for now, I am just maximizing what is available to me. I’m here in Northeast Texas, 45 inches of annual rainfall. I run my system in a regenerative, pasture-based rotational grazing system. But basically, this grazing system means little or no feed input for me. I’m able to manage my grass resource in such a way as to promote the health of the land and promote an increased forage production. And I’m able to budget my pasture essentially year round. 

Starting sheep farming with no experience

I started farming in 2020, guys, with no background in agriculture at all. I actually came to farming from a background in digital marketing. I had one pet in my whole life; it was a hamster, and that even ended pretty, pretty badly. It fell off of my dresser, as an eight-year-old, and froze to death in the middle of the night. So my track record with animals was not really even that strong, and I say all of those things not to be silly or frivolous, but to encourage people in basically the fact that if I can do it, so can you. Ultimately, I give God the glory for giving me the wisdom to steward what he’s given me, but I really want to encourage a lot of first-time farmers to get in there, to push past a lot of fears, and just to give it a shot. And that’s kind of why I share my lack of experience going into this, because if you see or are impressed by my work, just know that you have the same capacity to get it in there and do it yourself. My goal is really to relay simple information to beginner shepherds from firsthand experience. I like to share the good, the bad, the ugly, the imperfect, and the progress in hopes of encouraging you all. 

Picture this, you are looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20 plus acres. The sun is setting and your flock is grazing across a green pasture. Something inside you affirms, this is real wealth. At least when it comes to material things. You know how to take care of your sheep, your grazing system is improving your land, and you have a way to direct market each lamb that is born. This is how I feel when I look at my flock, and I want the same for you, so I put together a free 1 hour class that answers some of your most frequently asked questions concerning how I raise rotational graze and market my sheep for $480 per head. Go to shepardist.com forward slash 480 or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast. To sign up and receive the free on-demand class. What’s more is that I will follow up over the course of 3 days, providing you with even more free resources, including a free ebook, a free grazing sheep kickstart guide, and a free marketing sheep kick start guide. This information is worth paying for, but I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to shepardist.com forward slash 480. Shepardist.com forward slash four eight zero or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast for how I raise, graze and market my sheep for $480 each. Now let’s get straight to today’s episode. 

If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you. The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture, available at shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures. Easy to follow instructions. And personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at shepardist.com. You’ll find a direct link in the description. 

All right, like I cited, my sheep are Dorper sheep. This is probably one of the most marketable breeds in the country right now. They are hair sheep and not wool sheep. So I don’t have a lot of the shearing maintenance. Basically, their coat falls off come spring and it’s more of a coat like a goat. An additional benefit of raising Dorper Sheep for me is that a lot of the sheepy flavor that people will complain about, and complain about not liking sheep for, is as a result of the oils in a sheep’s wool. So basically my sheep have a better flavor. This breed of sheep—a hair sheep—has a better flavor, more characteristically beef-like flavor, than a lot of your more standard sheep. It makes the meat a little bit more marketable, a little more palatable for the American consumer. I mentioned my rotational grazing program—and again, this isn’t really what the webinar is about, but essentially, if you’re going to get into sheep farming, shepherding, to any extent, I highly encourage rotational grazing. And this just involves using electric fencing to break up your larger pastures into smaller paddocks. So basically what I will do is I will use electric fencing to subdivide my pastures into small paddocks, and I’ll move my sheep at minimum, twice per week. This breaks up the parasite cycle, results in healthier land, healthier sheep, and really mitigates a lot of the health problems that most shepherds will complain about within their flocks. I do not have those, thankfully, within my own flock. 

Rotational grazing is the crown jewel of my operation overall. You can kind of see here on the left side is the flock when we bought it, and the pasture when we bought it. There would be spots that were overgrazed, spots that were undergrazed, the flock was suffering with a lot of parasite problems due to the set-stock situation. And there on the right is sort of a revised version in 2024. The health of the flock being improved primarily by the rotational grazing, and really the inputs that shepherding on whole does provide for them. As I mentioned, my background is in digital marketing. And so when I jumped into farming, I did so with sort of a well-rounded business plan. It wasn’t perfectly finished, but I knew that I wanted to go into it to make it a profitable situation. And I came from a background in retail apparel. And the marketing that you do there—it is a very competitive world, and a very competitive market. And so, I shoved all that I knew from marketing in that world into farming—into promoting my sheep, and even into creating a lot of the resources that you guys see on the front end for beginner farmers. And I was able to use a lot of my previous experience in marketing to do that, and really paved the way for a lot of people coming in. And I did this, and sort of my business model evolved as a result of me going into sheep farming and not having a lot of resources at hand for sheep. A lot of the regenerative resources out there available are for raising beef cattle. And I realized just intuitively in reading a lot of those resources, I was like, “This would work for sheep as well.” But I had to adapt, I had to amend, and I really had to experiment a lot in adapting a lot of the regenerative information that was out there for the beef cattle to be compatible with sheep. 

Making sheep farming profitable

All right. I’m going to go ahead and start out tonight with what I’m glad I did know, okay? The list is fairly short in terms of things I’m glad I knew going into sheep farming because like I said, I went in knowing not very much at all. But one of the best pieces of advice that I was given… This advice came to me not only from my dad who is not a farmer, but he understands building businesses and giving good advice. He wasn’t really a huge fan of me being a farmer, if I’m honest. He didn’t really see it as a good fit for me in life, but he said, “Okay, if you’re going to do this, make sure you start with the best quality you can afford when it comes to animals.” This was reiterated to me by my friend and rancher, Karl Ebel. He said, “Grace, I started in, and what I wanted to do—I just wanted to get into cows. And I bought lesser quality than I would have liked to ultimately build my entire herd out of.” He said, “If I could have gone back, I’d buy fewer animals at higher quality rather than more animals at lower quality, because it would have put me ahead several, several years.” So this is a piece of advice that I’m so, so grateful that I latched onto early. And that advice is: start with the best quality animals that you can afford, even if you can only afford two of them. Especially when you’re talking about sheep that reproduce so fast. Buy the best quality that you can afford. 

Things that I am glad that I knew starting off were that I went into farming for it to be a profitable situation for myself. And I am so glad that I started building an audience early. So basically the moment I started farming, I started also building an audience to buy my farm products. Basically the minute that those animals landed on my pasture, I had started building my audience as well. And by the time that my first lambs were ready for sale, I had about 1,500 people on that email list. And I’ve had a really long waitlist for my lambs ever since I first started. Now, in that first year, it was a little bit harder to get going, a little bit harder to give that momentum, but the momentum started rolling. I have probably had a waitlist that’s outpaced my supply by at least two or three times every time I go to sell my lambs. So keep that in mind: start building your audience early, use that resource that I provided for you, and go for it. 

All right, I think this is thing number three that I’m so glad that I latched onto and knew early on in the game. But this is a concept called product sacking and diversification. And it involves knowing your customer group very well, and developing multiple products that will appeal to that one customer group. And what this does is this increases the value of each customer, rather than you having to go out and increase the size of your customer base. But essentially, what you’re doing—if you’re trying to go into farming or homesteading and make a little bit of a side hustle, make a bit of money off of it—is you want to think about the concept: if you want to make $100,000, let’s say, per year farming, then you want to think about how you can get one customer to spend $1,000 with you over the course of a year. And then you’ll only need 100 customers. I mean, think about that. If you can sell one customer $1,000 worth of product over the course of one year, you only need 100 customers to make $100,000 dollars a year. And that is where product stacking and diversification come in, and that’s something that I really started brainstorming early on. Of course, I knew I wanted to sell sheep. Of course I knew I wanted market farm products, but my wheels were turning. I knew that I could sell resources. I knew that I could sell merch. I knew that I could sell a variety of products, so long as I kept my mind focused on making sure that each of those new products I developed would appeal to that one singular customer base. And that’s something that I latched onto early on because I knew I wanted to be profitable as a farmer. 

This is the number four thing that I am exceptionally glad that I kept in mind early on: and that is, keep records. No matter how simple your records are, keep them. I love this planner. I’m not an affiliate, and unfortunately I’m not making a lot of money… Actually, I’m not making any money off of these, but I’ve plugged this like four times. This is an at-a-glance monthly planner. I’ve already bought one for 2026 to get my planning process ready for that. But basically, what you see on screen here, it’s got large spots for each day, and I’ll just keep simple records. If something happened in my flock, if something died, if something was born, if something unexpected happened, if something good happened, I just take a simple pen, and I’ll write it down in each of those day to day. And that’s a good way of just keeping simple records because typically if you’re out on pasture and you’re like, “Oh, I’ll remember that later,” no, you probably won’t remember it later, but you’ll probably need to remember it. So jot it down in whatever way that you can. I like to spend a little time with my coffee in the morning and my planner, writing down and keeping simple records, and I love to review them. It’s a very, very helpful tool for review as a farmer and managing your homestead, managing your business, whatever. 

Beginner mistakes to avoid with sheep

All right, now we’re going to roll into the things that I wish I would have known five years ago when I jumped into farming. And number one, this is something that is a misconception—in that people think sheep are easier because they’re smaller. Sheep are not easier because they are smaller. We initially bought sheep for our farm, thinking the size equates to ease, and that is just something that’s not at all true. Sheep are a higher-maintenance animal. And if you’re looking for a simple, low-maintenance meat source and you have the land for it, I’m going to tell you right now: stocker cattle are a much lower-maintenance option for meat than a breeding group of sheep. Now, I love sheep, I love raising them, I love all that I’m learning from them, I love them as an animal, but I do not raise sheep because they are the easiest thing to raise. I raise sheep because I love them. And so, if you are looking for an easy way to provide meat for your family, sheep may not be your ticket. Stocker cattle are a much lower-maintenance option for meat than breeding sheep. One thing I do want to mention here, though, is if you have a lot of small children and you are raising them in a family context, the size is actually going to be to your advantage, because what I do is I have a couple of little sisters and they were 8 and 11 when we very first started raising sheep. And really, we had no hesitation bringing them into the pens and involving them in that working process because the animals were much smaller, whereas if we were working them with larger cattle, that would just be something that is not at all feasible. But keep that in mind, the size is an advantage in the context of family and potentially being trampled by them. aBut in terms of ease, sheep are not easier because they are smaller. 

Sheep health, minerals, and deworming

All right, barber’s pole worm and cocci require two different types of treatment. This is what I wish we would have known as beginners with sheep. But essentially, in our early years, we did have to deal quite a lot with two different types of parasite-like worms—one being the barber’s pole worm and the other being coccidia. Now, unfortunately, we did not know that there was a difference between the two, and so we just treated everything as though it was the barber’s pole worm, and coccidiosis really got the upper hand in our first couple of seasons, simply because we did not know how to treat it appropriately. But, essentially, you’ll want to check for barber’s pole worm through anemia, and coccidiosis results in things that are like stunted growth, potbellies, and the severe diarrhea. In our early years, we had no clue that there were two different types of treatments. Now I will treat with a dewormer for the barber’s pole worm—something like Prohibit. And then for the Coccidiosis, I will treat with a toltrazuril. And this is an off-label product, not intended for human or animal consumption, but it is a product they use in Canada for this coccidosis, and it works fantastically for me. And when my animals get overtaken with it, I’ll just give them a pop and be done with it. 

All right, things I wish I would have known five years ago—can’t remember what number this is—but basically, as I alluded to early on, if you’re getting into sheep, you need to prioritize some sort of grazing rotation immediately. Even rotating just once a week is going to minimize big problems in a significant way. In fact, when we started to rotationally graze our sheep, basically every problem we experienced was either eliminated or mitigated by a significant amount. Number one, the worm problems obviously went way down. Number two, the hoof problems went way down, or just completely were eliminated because they were no longer walking over, you know, mud pits and dirty areas. The third thing was body condition improved because the sheep were constantly being pushed to eat more and more, and that grazing rotation pushed them to do that. So prioritize your rotation immediately. It doesn’t have to be a crazy Joel Salatin once- or twice-a-day thing. Those are great, and those have a great amount of advantages, but when it comes to sheep, even rotating just once a week is going to minimize your worm problems significantly. 

One thing I wish I would have known is: watering systems can be very, very simple, especially when it comes to sheep. Now, when you’re talking about sheep, they do not drink a lot of water. So, in the spring flush and when the weather is cool and the grass is at that juicy state, they will barely touch the water trough. They do not hardly need any water at that point in time. In the heat of summer, they’ll drink about a gallon per day, but I’d say roughly a third to a half of a gallon per day is what a sheep is going to drink. And so that leaves you with a lot of flexibility, especially with a small flock, in terms of how you get water to those various grazing paddocks. A lot of people are stunted in their ability to rotational graze because it hinges on setting up a big and complex watering system when you’re talking about cattle. But when it comes to sheep, you can get that grazing rotation going, and you can take a couple five-gallon buckets out there for a small flock, and that is all that they need. In fact, that’s all that I did in the early days. And now that my flock has gotten bigger, I have bought large 250-foot lengths of polyethylene tubing, which if you google search polyethylene tubing, what I like to do is I like to buy the 250-foot length with the simple hose and spigot attachments. And for under $100, I can get that water anywhere across my pasture. But when I first started, it was just a simple roller cart with a couple of five-gallon buckets on it, and that was all that I needed to launch my watering systems. 

All right, I think I wish I would have known when I first started—and I really wish I would have known this—but basically, selenium deficiency will cause more problems in your sheep than you can keep up with. Let me say that again because it’s that important: selenium deficiency will cause problems in your sheep than can keep you up with. Symptoms of it include the extreme, like white muscle disease—your lambs are going to grow very slowly. Eventually, I had lambs that grew so slowly, and then they developed these tremors. And if you let the tremors go, they will eventually have a heart attack, and die of white muscle diseases. That’s an extreme. Other symptoms being things like your lambs will be born and they can’t stand. Your lambs will be born, and will have things like curvature of the spine, be very, very slow to get up and nurse. You will have things like retained placenta in your ewes at lambing. You will have things like stalled labor in your ewes at lambing. I’m saying all of these things from experience, because this is exactly what I experienced in my first year of sheep farming as a result of a significant selenium deficiency. And what had happened was that I was just buying a general mineral from the local farm store, and that was, yes, better than nothing, but I turned the package over and there was about 10 ppm of selenium in that general loose mineral from the farm store. Again, better than nothing, but when you have sheep, you want to aim for at least 40 to 60 ppm of selenium in your loose mineral. Otherwise, you’re going to have a lot of problems. I love the Redmond sheep mineral, and I sell that at Shepherdess.com. You can purchase it there to support my work. 

All right. This is controversial, but this is something I wish I would have known as a beginner: sheep need copper. Now, yes, copper toxicity is a thing. Too much can kill your sheep. But I got to a place in my flock where my sheep were just suffering with chronic anemia. I had always attributed that anemia to the barber’s pole worm—to the fact that I just live in a really bad area for worms. And so I was just constantly drenching them, like fighting the battle against anemia with chemical drenches. One year—and I don’t know if I heard this from maybe another sheep farmer or not—but essentially, I heard from someone that copper deficiency leads to anemia. And a light bulb went off in my head because I was fighting this battle against anemia every single year in my sheep. And yes, I do believe that the parasites contributed to it, but I also believe that my flock was exceptionally copper deficient. So what I did was I sidelined a test group of 10 ewes, and I gave them all a copper oxide wire particle bolus. These are available at Shepherdess.com, but basically they’re like a pill that you’ll shove down your animal’s throat. You will administer this to the animal as a copper supplement. I did this with that test group of 10 ewes, thinking, “Okay, if they all die, it’ll be a hit, but I can take the loss of 10 rather than the loss of my whole flock.” Not only did those sheep not die after receiving that copper oxide wire particle bolus, but they fought parasites, and they fought anemia way, way better than the rest of my flock that whole year. 

The next year, I gave every single one of my sheep in my flock a copper bolus, and I’ve been doing so every single year since. I think I’m in my third year now of giving a copper bolus to every single adult sheep in my flock at the onset of parasite season. And guys, I got to tell you the difference this has made has been incredible. So do your own research. Copper is risky, but maybe do like I did: start with a little test group. See if it makes an improvement. If you’re having chronic issues with anemia, do that. I just had a lamb the other day who was really struggling with that bottle jaw—which is extreme anemia. And I had drenched it because it did need a dewormer. Just was not improving at all. And I went ahead and gave that lamb one of these copper boluses, and its parasite symptoms cleared up pretty much right away. So I think it was dealing with some copper deficiency in addition to this parasite. So, anti-parasitic sheep need copper. Long story short, test it out yourself, whether you add maybe a little bit of copper sulfate. Some people will mix a little bit of copper sulfite into their sheep mineral. That’s a good idea as well. Some people will offer copper sulfate free choice alongside the regular mineral. That’s a good idea as well. For me, I just prefer to force feed my animals one time per year, and make sure that they’re actually getting it. And I do that every year in April. I have to give my goats two or three of these every year. Goats need a lot more than sheep. I just give my sheep one. But there we go. There’s my controversial opinion for the night, but you will thank me. I believe you will thank me. 

All right. So, this is something I definitely wish we would have known as beginner shepherds. And again, there are going to be people in here with a varying degree of opinions about deworming or not deworming. I do deworm when my sheep need it. They need it less and less, thankfully, year after year, as I implement little things like copper and proper minerals. But one thing you need to know if you’re raising sheep and you’re using these conventional drenches, is that underdosing is deadly. And this may seem strange, but let this ring in your mind: underdosing is deadly. Let me see if I’ve got the Clemson University dewormer chart. This is a university study that gives you proper dosage rates, but essentially you want to at least double the package dose when you go to deworm your animals. And if you do not, your animals will have half of the worms inside of them killed. The strongest worms will live, continue to suck the life out of them, and infect your pasture with highly resistant parasites, leaving your flock entirely resistant to all chemical options on the market. While that’s going to happen at some point anyways, in animal husbandry, best practice is to not underdose so that you have a longer time period before that happens. 

But essentially, as a story from our personal experience, we got our flock, we went to deworm them for the first time, and we used the package rate to deworm. And we were just noticing sheep were still dying of worms. They were still dying of worms even though we were deworming them, deworming them, and deworming them. We called a local rancher friend and we said, “What’s up? We are deworming our sheep, but they’re still dropping dead of worms left and right.” He said, “Well, what is your dosage rate?” And we said, “Well, we’re just following the package instructions.” And he said, “You need to double the package instructions. Double the package rate if you are deworming animals that are severely infected.” The package rate is a maintenance rate. Essentially, that’s something you give just to keep your animals in good condition. But if you’ve got severely infected animals, you need to double the dosage rate for treatment. And that’s what that Clemson University dewormer chart is going to reflect: proper dosage rates. So keep that in mind, because this actually cost us—shame to say—probably this cost us about half of our original flock, which thankfully at that time, I think it was like… Well, that actually sounds awful. I think we lost about 15 sheep because of this poor practice, this underdosing. And I say that doesn’t sound like a lot. My flock is a little bit larger now. Losing 15 sheep would be really, really bad. But basically, it was half our flock when we started. So yeah, it’s that bad. Don’t let our mistake become yours. 

This is something I wish we would have known when we first started, and that is: when you go to work your sheep, confine them to as small a pen as possible. When you are working sheep, you want to pack them tight like sardines. Do not try to work your sheep, or catch them to administer any treatment in a large open pen, because you will essentially start chasing. And when it comes to sheep or goats, when the chase has begun, when their fight or flight is triggered, and you have a large, open space, it’s going to make for an exceptionally long day of trying to catch those animals to treat them. And while this may sound absolutely basic, we had no clue. We were first timers in raising animals, and basically we needed to deworm them one day. So we took them to this big 18-by-20-foot pen. It was 20, 25 sheep at that point in time, and we just chased them around the pen until we caught them and we administered their dewormer—whatever treatments they needed. Now, when I’m working sheep or goats at any level, I will pack them into a pen as tightly as I possibly can before trying to catch them at all. And I like to use these Lakeland Farm and Ranch aluminum panels. These are fantastic. I can basically make a pen as large or as small as I need to. I would highly advise you buying a set of these aluminum panels as a sheep farmer. But if you can’t, just at least makeshift with some hog panel. Get your space as tight as you possibly can for working your sheep, and it’s going to be a much, much easier day for you. You will thank me later. But when you get your sheep into a pen and you find yourself chasing them, remember: get some hog panels and pack them as tight as you can before you start the working process. 

All right, this is something also that I wish I would have known as a beginner shepherd, and that is: when you are looking at the body condition of your animal or trying to monitor them for condition or health overall, you want to score according to the rear end and not the belly. Their belly is never a good or bad indication of health. A sheep’s belly is going to probably always be big. And sometimes when they’re sick, it’s especially enlarged. But if you’re looking for an animal and you’re trying to make sure that it’s getting enough to eat or maintaining a good condition, then you want to look at the rear end. You want to make sure you see a fleshy back end in order to be an indicator of health in that animal. If you have something where the bones are sticking out, where it’s like a sharp, bony backside, that sheep has problems. It’s either sick and it can’t put weight on, or you’re not feeding it enough, and you need to get it some good supplement and back into condition. But remember that the rear, not the belly, is an indication of health. And never go out and look at your sheep with a massive belly and say, “That’s a healthy sheep.” You need to look at its rear end, make sure it’s fleshed out there. That is an indicator that it’s getting enough to eat and that it has some vitality and condition under it. 

Rotational grazing and pasture management

All right, this is funny, and this actually has some context to it. But basically, one thing I wish I would have known—especially when I first started rotational grazing—was that your sheep will not starve to death overnight. So the story behind this is that I got into rotational grazing and I was so concerned about my paddock sizes. I didn’t really know where to start. I did put a formula here in The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture for calculating paddock sizes to help you get past this particular phobia. But essentially, when I first started rotational grazing, I had no idea how to size my paddocks for sheep. And what I ended up doing, and what I tell people to do now, is that if you’re totally lost, just put them in something. If it’s too big, there’ll be leftovers tomorrow. If it is too small, do not worry. Your sheep won’t starve to death overnight. But basically, when I first started rotational grazing my sheep, I would be up at night with this fear that I had paddocked my sheep into too tight of a space, they had not gotten enough to eat that day, and I was going to wake up to a pack full of dead sheep that had starved to death. And it sounds really, really funny now because it probably takes at least five to seven days for a sheep to starve to death, but I was for certain that I was going to wake up the next day and have dead sheep that had starved to death overnight because I’d made the days paddock before too small. But just remember your sheep will not starve to death overnight. If you’ve made it a little bit too small the night before, they’re going to have eaten it down into the ground very, very deep, and you’ll know that you just need to make it a little bit bigger the next day. So, if I can alleviate anybody’s anxieties there, I hope that I can. 

All right. The thing I wish I would have known is: weeds are okay. Now, at my farm, if weeds overtake my pasture more than 20%, let’s say, I will mow mid-season to beat those weeds back. But a lot of the weeds that people will spray for in my area—that people would put herbicides on and try to eradicate from their pasture… Well, what I did one day was I just bent over and took a closer look. I realized that those weeds that people were spraying with chemicals and toxins to remove from their pastures were actually some of the most robust habitats for pollinators, like the ladybugs that you see here. If you guys can even see the milkweed on this side of the screen, that has some type of beetle—I can’t really identify it—but that milkweed is also a favorite of butterflies and a lot of, like I said, the pollinators. So you need to rethink weeds. What I did at the beginning was I knew I wasn’t going to use chemicals on my pasture, but I would spend my evenings pulling the weeds that I disliked on my pasture, and wasting a lot of time doing it. 

But now, I understand that weeds are okay. If they overtake my pasture beyond a 20% extent, or they’re edging into the feed that I need for my sheep, I will mow mid-season, reset the pasture, beat those weeds back a little bit, but otherwise I’m just grateful for the habitat that they provide for the pollinators that we do need. Fun fact, people used to kill milkweed because it’s toxic to cows. Sheep and goats handle them better, but cows struggled with it back in the day. The neat thing is I put my sheep onto a paddock, and they will go and they’ll eat that milkweed first. It’s really neat. It’s like candy to them. I don’t know if that’s every sheep or just mine, but I have barely any milkweed on my pasture any longer. I do wish they would eat this goat weed because I still have not found anything that will eat that woolly croton, but like I said, lots of dragonflies living in that, and ladybugs like you see here. I’m just like, “Okay, it’s doing its thing.”. 

The thing I wish I would have known at the beginning is: wasting hay is 100% okay when it’s wasted on pasture. I would post pictures on social media of my hay without a hay holder or a hay rack. I’d post pictures of my hay that I had basically put on pasture—square bales with no hay ring, bale net—and people would criticize me and be like, “You’re wasting so much hay! Go get yourself a bale net, go get yourself a hay ring.” But essentially, every ounce of hay waste that went out on pasture seeded and fertilized spring pasture for the next year. And I really don’t have any problems with wasting hay so long as I’m wasting it on the pasture. If you see here on the left side, this is basically where I fed and how I fed the hay. And on the right side, it took a totally infertile piece of pasture, and what you see growing here is a crabgrass, which is one of the most nutrient-dense, highest protein sources of grass for sheep and cattle. And that stuff popped up like crazy in that same area where I fed the hay without a hay ring or a bale net the year before. So wasting hay is okay when it’s wasted on pasture. Do not let conventional ranchers come by and discourage you over the fact that you do not have a hay ring. 

All right. This is something that’s really important to know. And this is something I tried to start out with—I tried to start out doing it all alone, thinking I could be my own woman and a one-woman show. But you can’t do it alone. And one day, I was having a massive day of burnout realizing that I could not do it alone, and my sister Ruth, who is the “chicken lady” on the channel, she came to me and she said, “Grace, I want you to know that I will be your backup whenever you need help.” She said, “Joel Salatin said this and you need to know it.” She said, “You cannot farm alone. So if you need anything, if you need help, I’m here for you.” And just knowing that there would be somebody that would fill that role was a mental boost as much as anything. But whether you just have someone that you can unload on mentally or emotionally when it gets really hard, whether you have someone who’s willing to come and give you a day’s worth of help, whether you have someone who can work alongside you every single day, the reality is that you can’t do it alone. If nothing else, mentally and emotionally, you can’t do it alone. So have somebody you can call. Have somebody that will be willing to come to your farm for a day to be a backup when you do need that help. And thank you, Chicken Lady, for meeting me in my hour of distress—and basically every hour of distress since then. 

All right. The thing I wish I would have known when I first started is: lamb first and rotate later. So basically, when I first started my farm, I tried to coordinate the launch of my grazing rotation alongside lambing. And now, I have moved my lambing back one month to where I lamb out, and I get all of that done mostly in a single paddock. So, I’ll leave them in a single paddock for about a month while they lamb out, and then I will start my grazing rotation. It’s a lot easier to do it this way. It’s not impossible to manage a grazing rotation and new lambs, but it is very, very difficult. And so I found that lambing first and then launching my spring grazing rotation works really well. So, I will lamb in February, and then launch my grazing rotation in March, and that is a much easier situation. 

All right. We are down to our last three. What I wish I would have known upfront is: you don’t need to plant pasture for sheep. If anything, just hand-broadcast some seeds. And what you see here is just natural pasture. And on top of it, I hand-broadcasted some clover. And those were seeds that I could just put on the ground, let the animals trample them in, and they kind of self-planted. I didn’t need any tillage—didn’t need anything at all. But essentially, when you have sheep, they are a great animal that will basically make a meal out of whatever green is on the ground. And if you’re running a really good grazing rotation year after year, those sheep are going to improve your pasture, guys—and you’re going to see new varieties and new levels of fertility in your land just through that grazing rotation. So my thing is that even before you hand-broadcast those seeds, try to get into a good grazing rotation for a minimum of one year and track what that good rotation will do for pasture improvement. 

Another thing I wish I would have known is: give your lambs some transition time after weaning. So when I first started, I did a pasture-based weaning. What I would do is I would wean the lambs off of their moms and I would run those lambs in a separate grazing rotation. Number one, that was a lot of work—that was difficult to maintain. But number two, the lambs were very stressed from being removed from their mom, and at the time I was weaning them, the forage quality on pasture had dipped. And so that stress, plus the dip in the quality of their feed, really didn’t produce a very good weaning situation. What I do now, which produces fantastic results, is I have a weaning pen. It’s a spacious pen that’s very clean, and in that pen, I will leave those freshly weaned lambs for about two weeks. And they will eat a really pure, fresh alfalfa hay—which is very nutrient-dense, very high quality, very high protein—and they’ll eat that for about two weeks while their moms dry off. And then once their moms are dried off, I’ll just return those weaned lambs to the regular grazing rotation. Don’t have to manage two groups, these lambs are looking fantastic because they move from their mom’s milk straight onto a really high-protein feed. It’s a little bit of a feed input, but it’s a really, really great way to work my system. And then once they’re all weaned, the moms are dried off, they can go rejoin their moms. They remember who their moms are. It is so neat to see them all sleeping in a group together, and those big, fat weaned lambs are still right next to their mom. So they don’t have that stress of separation for the long term, and it’s a much easier workload for me. So it takes about two weeks in the weaning pen, and then I put them back out to pasture with the main group. 

All right. Learn to tube feed, all right? And whenever you have a lamb or something that you suspect is hungry at lambing, tube it some colostrum, okay? When in doubt, supplement. You’ve got to get a lot of colostrum in those animals. The more, the better in those baby animals very early on. Nine times out of 10, my ewes do it themselves. They’ve got big, full udders, plenty of colostrum, but if at any point in time I am suspicious that that maybe first-time ewe did not supply her lamb with enough colostrum—maybe it was a twin and that twin looks like the other one hogged all the colostom—I will just in a split second, get my tube out, get it some colostrum supplement. Because to supplement is better than to not supplement if you’re ever in question, especially when it comes to colostrum. If you get colostrum in them early, you’re basically setting them up for a lifetime of success. But if they have been in any way shorted in this vital substance at the first of their lives, especially when we’re talking about pasture-based animals who have to have a very hardy immune system—we’re not going to be pampering them their whole life—they’ve got to have this colostrum. They’ve got to have a lot of it. They’ve got to have it early. So learn to tube feed, get them a lot of colostrum if there’s any suspicion that they have shorted as a result of being a multiple, or as a result of just not having enough for some reason or another. Supplement or be sorry. 

All right. But the final one is: just take a chill pill, okay? If you’re in your first year of farming, just calm down. And I’m not judging or speaking to anyone in particular here. I’m speaking to myself in my first year farming. But just calm it down because things are going to be okay. And the reality of the situation is that panic never improves a situation. There is always going to be time for a deep breath. The worst case scenario may sometimes happen, okay? But that doesn’t mean it’s game over. That doesn’t mean your story is over. It just means you had a difficult experience, and there’s going to be a next step. You’re going to be able to keep moving forward in some way or another. And that’s a testimony from me. I had a lot of really difficult experiences in my first year of farming. A lot of worst case scenarios happened in my first year of farming. But looking back, my panic, my fear, and my anxiety, never did anything to make things better. Okay? If anything, they stressed out the people around me, and made it difficult for me to keep moving forward. So as a reminder, sometimes the worst case scenario will happen, but it doesn’t mean your job is over. It doesn’t mean your purpose has been squelched. It does not mean you are a failure. It’s what do you do when that worst case scenario does happen? Do you let it make you quit or do you move on, and move forward to what is ahead for you? 

Answering common shepherding questions

Okay, guys, I’m going to get some questions answered tonight before we close out. Ruth asks, “Any issues with electric fences and/or electric netting in the winter with ice, snow, or etc.?” I don’t have a lot of snow here. I have not used electric netting in the ice either. I do not have a lot of experience with electric netting. If I’m honest, I have my sheep on two strands of polytape. I will use the electric netting for my goats or in times of emergency, but I’ve not used them enough in the snow and ice to have feedback. The second question is, “Does the off-label use of toltrazuril have to be a withholding time for processing?” Yes, it’s 71 days, which is very, very long. Even though it’s not for human or animal consumption, the company I buy from cites a 70-day withdrawal period, which is exceptionally long. I don’t even know where they get that, but I obey it, because when I’m giving my sheep that treatment for coccidiosis, it is typically when they’re six weeks old. They’re not slaughtered until they’re like anywhere from 6 to 12 months old. So when I slaughter them, they are well outside of that withdrawal period of 70 days. 

Another question here is from Ruth as well: “Have you tested your soil to see what copper levels are on your pasture?” No, that’s a very good idea. I considered it, but I’ve never done any soil testing in terms of minerals in my soil. That being because, you know—number one—I just have never needed to. My grass has always been good. But number two, I find soil testing kind of difficult because I have areas of pasture that are just way better than others. And it’s difficult; unless I did like a total cross-section of my pasture, which would involve maybe 10 tests, I would have a difficult time getting a good idea as to what my whole pasture looks like. Cindy: “What creep feed do you use—protein percentage?” Cindy, I don’t use any creep feed. When I do supplement, it’s typically alfalfa. So that’s the hay. I’m pretty much all forage based at my farm with the exception of: I keep a bucket of sheep and goat pellets on hand for anything that’s super sick. And those are just the sheep ones that I buy from Tractor Supply. I’ll keep enough sheep pellets on hand to rattle in a bucket. But other than that, I will just do pasture and then alfalfa hay or alfalfa pellets for any kind of ongoing supplement. 

TJ says, “Why do you not cross with Katahdins for hybrid vigor and parasite resistance?” TJ, because my flock has really good parasite resistance now after five years of culling, and being a purebred Dorper that has high parasite resistance brings a premium pricing on the market. So it was well worth it to me to maintain the pure breed, but just cull really hard for resistance. And now I have just this best of both worlds, praise the Lord, in my stock where I have really vigorous animals and really good parasite resistance for the breed. So, that’s why. Glenn says, “What is your process in maximizing your farm?” That’s a pretty broad question, but basically rotational grazing will maximize your pasture usage. So, rotational raising is my process. Nehemiah says, “Do you give the copper bolus only once a year?” Nehemiah, yes. For my sheep, I give the copper bolus only once a year in April. Cale says, “What do your temperatures get down to in the winter there in Texas?” Cale, I’m in northeast Texas, kind of on the border of the Louisiana-Arkansas area. So, I’m a little bit farther north than most people. We get into the 30s in the winter, and we do get some pretty significant ice storms—so 20s and 30s. 

Cindy says, “Will your goats eat the goat weed or the nightshade?” Cindy, they’ll nibble at it a little, but they will not graze it down or eat it to any significant extent. I’ve just found them kind of nibbling a little bit. I wish they would. Natalie says, “I have a rental ram coming in a week. My girls are rotated weekly. Should I not rotate them while they are with the ram? I was going to make a large net paddock and separate them into smaller paddocks with tape, but I’m worried about going in with the ram.” Okay, so it depends: if your rental ram is… It should be fine. I would continue to rotate them weekly to be honest. It’s not going to do anything but good. So continue to them weekly if you can. If you run into any problems, go to your backup plan, which is a short-term set stock situation for breeding. But try to keep them rotated weekly. TJ says, “If you have the parasite-resistant Dorper ewes, how do you choose a ram? Do you keep your own in house, or do you just choose a non-related ram and your ewes’ genetic composite?” TJ, I bought a really good-quality, parasite-resistant Dorper ram in 2021. And because I had such a large group of ewes at that point that were unrelated to him, I have not had to replace him yet. The genetic diversity has remained really strong. So what I’ll do is I obviously keep all of the unrelated ewes, all of their ewe lambs; as a result, I can have a massive flock without having to replace that particular ram simply because I brought in that good ram to a large group of unrelated ewes. 

Nehemiah says, “Have you ever had to retrain your sheep to the polytape? Mine no longer respect it.” Nehmiah, yes, I have. Now the issue that I typically run into is that the sheep will stop respecting the fence because there’s some kind of compromise in the power. So right now I have a 16-joule Cyclops charger and that will really get them good, and they stay within those two strands. Whenever I have problems, it’s typically there’s a short on the line somewhere, there’s something dragging the power down. So just get your power up. You want something pretty hot for those sheep. I struggled a lot when I had the solar chargers of maybe one or two joules. I struggled to keep my sheep respectful of that until I went and moved up to the 12-joule charger. They really did respect it quite a lot, and they do continue to respect it quite a lot unless they’re super hungry or unless the power has in some way been compromised. 

I do have occasionally a troublemaker who just really enjoys being disobedient and stepping outside the line; and if I have deemed that she is just disobedient beyond my management capabilities—meaning that I’ve done everything (I’ve checked my charger, I’ve upped my power, I’ve down everything conventionally)—I don’t hesitate to get rid of her. Now I’m going to give her every effort that I can before doing that, but if she continues to be disrespectful of my rules and my boundaries, and continues to train the rest of the flock to be disrespectful to my rules and my boundaries, I will make note of her, and I will cull her after much grace. But that is also an option. So, Nehemiah, if you note that there is a sheep that is leading the entire flock astray, give her some grace, give her some time to correct herself, but if she refuses, get her out for the good of your flock. 

Nehmiah says, “Is this the time of year to use a rental ram?” A lot of people are joining in October and November, so if you’re going to rent a ram, then this would be the time of year for spring lambs to breed. So, yes. Cale says, “What are your heights of the polytape? And do you use Timeless posts?” The heights of my polytape are—I like to think in terms of “too low to sneak under.” So I have one that’s about their nose when they’re grazing so that if they push up against it, they’ll get hit on their nose really hard. And that falls at about 6 to 8 inches above the ground. So it’s too low to sneak under and it hits their nose when they butt up against it. And then the second one I place basically so when a sheep is looking at it, it appears as though it’s too high to easily jump over. So that falls at about 24 inches above the ground. So 6 to 8 inches and 24 inches is about what I aim for with my two strands. But when you’re thinking in terms of being a sheep looking at it, you want it to be too low to sneak under and too high to comfortably jump over. 

All right. I think this is going to be the last question that I get. This is Hazel and Hansi in Nebraska. “I’m interested in buying finished meat stock. I’ve retired and have only two acres. I am interested in buying butcher stock, is that in April?” Okay, so if you’re talking about meat wethers, then those are typically available year round. If you’re talking about my stock specifically, I have sold out for the year, and if you want to get on the waitlist for next year’s stock, you can go to Shepherdess.com/newsletter. Thank you for joining me tonight. 

Hi friends,

This episode of the podcast is jam packed full of my own experiences and best advice for every shepherd running a pasture-raised sheep program.

Whether you’re still in the dreaming phase or wondering if there is a better way to manage your existing flock, I walk through the three core areas that have made the biggest difference on my own farm: maintaining above average flock health, implementing an effective rotational grazing system, and building a simple strategy to market lambs directly for premium prices. You’ll learn the most common mistakes beginner shepherds make, the three biggest causes of loss within your flock, and how to work with your land instead of against it.

If you’re starting from scratch, I’ll help you avoid some of the mistakes I made. And if you already have sheep, I will help you simplify your system and get consistent results with less input.

-the Shepherdess

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TRANSCRIPT

the Shepherdess Thank you guys so much for being here. We are gonna kick off the beginner shepherd crash course talking everything about raising, grazing, and marketing sheep for $480 each. I’m gonna be packing as much into the next hour on how I raise my sheep to maintain above average flock health, how I graze my sheep to minimize feed costs and maximize pasture, and how I direct market my sheep for $480 per head. And that’s without a farmer’s market. That’s without even leaving my farm. 

Raising sheep for profit and food security

All right, I guess I’ll go ahead and introduce myself tonight. I am here in Northeast Texas, and I raise Dorper sheep on 30 acres. I raise it on leased land. It’s my goal and my dream to be a landowner one day, but for now I’m just leasing the land from my family and so grateful for that opportunity. Now I am in Northeast Texas, which is kind of closer to the Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma area than it is to Waco or West Texas or some of those more characteristically dry Texas areas. So as a result, the climate reflects that. We receive about 47 inches of rainfall annually and a good bit of winter as well. And that especially compared to the rest of Texas. Now I raise my sheet in a regenerative pasture-based system, and my flock is made up of some of the best quality pasture-adapted Dorper stock in Texas. 

Picture this: you are looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20-plus acres. The sun is setting, and your flock is grazing across a green pasture. Something inside you affirms this is real wealth—at least when it comes to material things. You know how to take care of your sheep, your grazing system is improving your land, and you have a way to direct market each lamb that is born. This is how I feel when I look at my flock, and I want the same for you. So, I put together a free one-hour class that answers some of your most frequently asked questions concerning how I raise, rotational graze, and market my sheep for $480 per head. Go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast to sign up and receive the free on-demand class. What’s more is that I will follow up over the course of three days, providing you with even more free resources, including a free ebook, a free grazing sheep kickstart guide, and a free marketing sheep kickstart guide. This information is worth paying for, but I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast for how I raise, graze, and market my sheep for $480 each. Now let’s get straight to today’s episode. 

Now, in addition to bringing some of the best genetics to my farm to improve the initial flock that I bought, over the past six years, I have actively culled for the traits that are important to me and to my climate. Things like parasite resistance, good feet, and probably one of the most important, especially in the context of marketing, is a really good meaty carcass on forage only. And as a side note, I do raise Dorper sheep. Those are meat sheep, but the info in this presentation, it’s really going to apply no matter what kind of sheep you raise. And it really crosses over to goats as well. So keep that in mind if you’re here with a few goats on hand. But if I’m honest, sheep farmer is definitely not a title I would have ever expected to assume. I’ve actually been an entrepreneur for, well, the entirety of my adult career. And probably more specifically a digital marketer. So I was very much not a candidate for farming at all. 

Where farming really entered the picture was eight years ago when my family and I moved from the suburbs of Austin, San Antonio, Texas, so deep South Texas to 30 acres in the rural East Texas. And pretty soon after that big transition, my family, who at that point had never owned four footed livestock before, bought 36 sheep to maintain an agricultural exemption on the land. We wanted, or rather my parents were looking for, just a low maintenance way to maintain that tax exemption, sort of that sheep would be a good option. They opted for sheep as being family friendly, which they are in terms of size. They’re much more family friendly than the larger cattle. And they thought that the smaller size of the sheep meant that on whole, these sheep would be an easier animal to raise, which they are not. Now, at this point in time, just for full honesty, I was really not into the farming thing. Okay? I was very resistant to the idea. I kind of buried myself. I worked remotely, so I just buried myself in my work and probably would have been voted least likely to farm by every member of my family. 

And you know what, guys? If I’m kind of honest, I had a pretty bad attitude about the whole concept of farming and working the land and even looking at these sheep until 2020, when our food supply chain, I think, broke in ways that no one can or could ignore, and I woke up. And kind of as a side note, guys, it’s been breaking on repeat ever since. What we saw in 2020 is representative of a problem that’s way bigger than any presidential administration is able to fix. We need a continued groundswell of people who are willing to take responsibility for their own food security and to pour into the local food movement, okay? Raise your hand if you agree, if you’ve seen these issues and were impacted by them similar to how I was. Now this was a massive awakening taking place in me personally. And what happened at that point is that I looked out my front door at that 30 acres of grass, and I realized that I was living right in the middle of a personal solution to the food security crisis that we were seeing swirling around us. And I was really hit with, I can’t describe it as anything more than just a really weighty conviction that I was supposed to steward this natural resource to establish some means of food security for my family. 

Why sheep over cattle on small acreage

But I still, at that point, I really didn’t want anything to do with sheep because the sheep had been a struggle to manage from almost the moment they arrived on our farm. They were either dying of worms, or jumping the fence to eat our neighbor’s grass, and it felt like a total mess. So what I decided to do at that time, I decided that I would raise grass-fed beef for food security, and I would just let the sheep finish dying, and then take over the whole property with my grass-fed beef operation. I felt like it was really, really a pretty good idea. So I began researching what it would take to raise the grass-fed beef that I had in mind, and I stumbled on “Salad Bar Beef” by Joel Salatin. Now I’d never at that point heard of Joel Salatin or regenerative agriculture at all. I think I Googled something like how to raise grass-fed beef as a beginner. And I think providentially, that book popped up in my feed, my Google feed first. But it was Joel Salatin’s book, “Salad Bar Beef,” that first introduced me and excited me to the concept of management-intensive rotational grazing. 

And I was immediately captivated by all of the benefits outlined in this book: two times more grass in your first year of management; a self-fertilizing system, just through that even distribution of manure across pasture as you move your animals; healthier animals on whole, because they have reduced parasite loads, because you’re moving them away from their manure before they can graze over it again and become sick from it. And that was a big light bulb moment for me, because that was one of the main reasons all of our sheep were dying: the parasites. Every year we had dozens of beautiful lambs, and every year, by the end of summer, half of them would die of worms. We had a set-stock grazing situation: we weren’t rotating our animals in the way that we should have been. Everything was just kind of eating everything everywhere, leaving their manure everywhere, eating over the manure again and again day after day. And I realized after reading “Salad Bar Beef,” and being exposed to the concept of regenerative agriculture and rotational grazing, that specifically this grazing management—which really mimics the concept of true shepherding—was what was necessary to save those dying sheep. And so I looked out my front door, yet again, and I realized, once again, that I had a solution to the problem I was seeing. And I developed a really deep conviction that I had to do something about it. 

Now, coming at this from an interpersonal angle where my heart change was taking place, but also my mind was approaching this from a different angle business-wise, because my business brain was still working in terms of thinking about farming for profit and thinking about at least making it a little bit of a side hustle while I built out some food security for my family, because, as I mentioned, entrepreneurship is very strong in my background. And so, yes, I was compelled by the crisis, but I also jumped into farming with a plan to profit from it from day one, because I knew intrinsically that profitability in my operation would be necessary for sustainability. And I started to put pen to paper comparing beef to sheep, and realized that within my specific context, sheep had the potential to earn me four times more than cows on my 30 acres. Keep in mind here the cattle cycle, I did these numbers at the bottom of the cattle cycle and now we’re at the top. So while the numbers don’t quite pencil out the same today, what it looked like back in 2020 was that raising beef on 30 acres could earn me something like $8,000 in revenue and raising sheep on 30 acres would earn me something like $31,000 in revenue. And that was the math that I kind of liked. 

Now, as I mentioned, we’re at the top of the cattle cycle. Those numbers are different. It’s pretty profitable to raise beef right now, especially if you have a herd that was established from the cheap cattle six or eight years ago. But the real advantage to sheep is that despite market prices constantly cycling up and down, sheep have an unwavering biological advantage that allows them to cash flow better than cattle, no matter what market prices are doing. And just a quick run through here, this is because sheep commonly drop two lambs at a time. Cows typically only drop one calf. Sheep give birth five months after being bred. Cows take about nine months to produce and deliver a calf. Sheep only need four months before lambs are ready to wean. Calves typically need eight or nine months before they’re ready to wean. So basically, by the time a cow has been bred and given birth to a new calf, your sheep was bred, gave birth, weaned a couple of lambs, those lambs were able to go off to market, putting cash into your pocket, and depending on your system, your ewe has probably been bred again for a second time. 

So in summary, with all of the research and consideration behind me, six months after deciding that I was gonna be a cowgirl, I became a shepherdess instead. I ended up buying that flock of sheep that I had such a bad attitude towards for two years, and I coordinated a lease agreement with my parents for their 30 acres of pasture, took over the entire farming operation, paid for the sheep fencing they had just installed, and really poured everything into managing the flock and building my farm business from that moment until now. Now the transformation, specifically within the first 18 months of the management, was incredible. Those thin ewes that were so sick, they gained back their condition. Rough coats, which were really reflective of unhealthy internals, became shiny and white and began to reflect just a really healthy improvement in health; and sluggish and sick animals that were really at death’s door perked up once again. And I think probably the biggest change took place inside of me, in that really the flock that I hoped would die over summer so I could start my beef operation—instead of dying, it really entered a new season of life by God’s grace under the management of somebody who was completely changed alongside them. 

So, just some numbers here because this is what’s important, after my first 18 months of shepherding, the flock’s death rate went from something like 200% above industry average to 200% below industry average. Death loss basically stopped with the management that I’m getting ready to introduce you guys to here in the upcoming hour. This picture is a visual illustration of the difference in flock health. On the left you see lambs that are sick, overtaken by parasites, and on the right is a lamb crop that I just weaned. 18 months later, under new management—same genetics, same land, same climate—the only thing that changed was the management and application of basic husbandry principles, the ones that I’m getting ready to teach you in this next hour. The proof is in the pudding, and it was an amazing transformation to watch. Oh, and for me personally, my food security dreams came true on a farm business level, through the marketing methods that I am getting ready to discuss in the third section of this presentation. And through aggressive diversification, I personally was able to go full-time into agriculture by 2023, which was four years ahead of a seven-year goal that I had set for myself. And I developed a marketing system that allows me to not only sell my Dorper lambs for $480 per head, but it’s a marketing that allows me to diversify and cash flow the farm all year round by selling value-added products once my lamb is sold out. 

Beginner sheep health: worms, coccidia, and lambing

So without further ado, let’s go ahead and get to the meat of tonight’s topic. Oh, I just made a pun—I didn’t even recognize it. Or I should have pretended that I had that planned all along. But yeah, let’s get to the meat of the content. Okay, the first section we’re gonna go through tonight is raising sheep for above average flock health. So there is a saying by an old Chinese warrior. I did kind of update it to reflect a little bit more of a Christian worldview, but the original saying, I think it’s by Sun Tzu, is, “If you know your enemies and yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.” And I am going to do what I wish someone would have done for us when we bought sheep, and that is I’m going to introduce you to the three enemies of a beginner shepherd. These are the three enemies that killed half of our flock in our first two years of owning sheep. And those three enemies were the barber’s pole worm, coccidia, and lambing or post-lambing complications. 

All right, enemy number one is the barber’s pole worm. What is the barber’s pole worm? Now, the barber pole worm is a parasite or a worm that sheep are exceptionally vulnerable to, especially in a pasture-based system. And that’s because the barber’s pole worm lives on the forages growing in your pasture. A majority of the parasite population lives about four inches or less on the grass blade. And the unfortunate thing about that is that that’s the sheep’s favorite portion to graze. Sheep love the short succulent forages. So that is why they become infected so easily is that even if you’re sending them out into a pasture that’s 18 inches tall, you’re gonna notice their heads close to the ground trying to scoop up all of those short and nutritious forages. 

Now how does this particular parasite infect the sheep? Now, as you probably guessed, the barber’s pole worm, it infects that sheep as they graze the pasture, as they eat the forages, and those forages have the worm larva on it. Once the larva are ingested by the sheep, those larva latch onto the stomach, it matures, it begins laying eggs, and the eggs end up in the sheep’s manure and subsequently back on pasture. The eggs hatch into larva, which then crawl up the grass and the cycle repeats. It’s about a 7 to 14 day cycle, which is why rotational grazing becomes so important. Moving your sheep twice a week—even if you’re not able to go crazy Joel Salatin-style and do it every day—moving your sheep at least twice per week is going to do amazing things for their health. When the weather is balmy, typically spring and early summer, that’s when the barber’s pole worm is the most deadly to your sheep, and that is when diligence in your rotational grazing schedule is going to matter the most. 

Now, how does the barber’s pole worm actually kill the sheep? Now, the barber pole worm, it kills your sheep by sucking all of the blood out of it. It latches onto the stomach lining and it begins feeding on your animal’s blood. And that’s just the plain and simple of it. They’re like a million mini-vampires on the inside of your sheep. And I apologize if this is too much for some of you, but kind of getting that visual picture is gonna help you to combat and to fight and to know your enemy. But that’s exactly what the barber’s pole worm does. How do you find out if a sheep is in that severe infection phase? You are going to be looking at the eyelids. That’s typically how I look at my sheep. If your sheep is severely infected, you want to check the eyes for anemia. It’s called FAMACHA scoring and you just simply pull down the eyelid and check for a really healthy pink color. So you can see here: the top one is a healthy sheep, totally fine. The sheep in the middle is at risk—need to consider some action on her behalf. And the one on the bottom is actually dead due to barber’s pole worm infection. So that is what you’re looking at. 

Other symptoms include sluggish movement. So maybe you are moving your animals multiple times a week and you notice that there’s always that one lagging behind. You want to probably get in there and check her for some parasites. Also, severe infection involves bottle jaw; and what you’ll see is just the jaw becomes exceptionally sloshy and appears to be full of fluid—because it is. And that is called bottle jaw, you need to get that sheep taken care of pretty quickly or you will probably lose her. Those are the final phases of the barber’s pole worm. So when is the sheep at highest risk of dying of the barber’s pole worm infection? So barber’s pullworm presents the greatest risk to really two categories of sheep—and this is where we faced most of our losses as beginners. And that is number one: lactating ewes, and number two: lambs under 60 pounds. So if you notice symptoms in a lactating ewe or lambs under 60 pounds, you need to act pretty quickly or you run a big risk of losing them. 

All right, so how do I treat for the barber’s pole worm? Prevention is the best cure, meaning that being in a good rotational grazing routine—so the sheep are constantly on fresh pasture and not grazing over their manure every day—that’s gonna be your greatest advantage. Also, if you pen your sheep for safety at night, just make sure there’s no grazing space, no little grass nibbles, in that night pen. You want to have a really good protein and really good minerals in their diet. And you want to consider… Actually, guys, the last one is holistic or herbal immune support. I’ve not yet found holistic or herbal immune support that is really effective against knocking out the barber’s pole worm. Make sure it’s used as a preventative because I’ve yet to find herbs that will cure a sheep. 

But treatment becomes important when you examine those symptoms and it just becomes severe. And that is going to be your Prohibit dewormer. There we go. And it’s under the package name of LevaMed. That is what I use at my farm when something becomes severely infected. Now a lot of you guys may have watched that video on YouTube about using lye as a dewormer. Actually, it does work. It does work, and so do your own experiments with the lye, but consider that as an option for your sheep because I ran a fecal test using lye for the barber’s pole worm, and it did amazingly well. So that would be an option if you do not want to use the chemical. And just kind of as I touched on beforehand, in our experience, natural dewormers are better as a means of prevention than a cure. We’ve had little or no success saving a severely infected sheep with herbal or holistic remedies. Again, think prevention along those lines. I would definitely classify the herbal remedies as immune support rather than as disease treatment. But do consider that lye and do your own fecal testing. It’s very risky in terms of using lye. It can cause some internal problems if not administered with care and carefulness. And if you were to tell your vet that you were using lye as a dewormer, they’d probably tell you to stop listening to me. And I will tell you: do not use lye as a dewormer for your animals. It might kill them. But I did, and it’s all I use for my dairy goats right now. I have yet to fully move over there with the whole flock, but there you go. 

So, when it comes to sheep, the bottom line is—and a common complaint that I hear about sheep is—that they’re always looking for a way to die. But I personally found that if you can keep the barber’s pole worm at bay, it’s actually really hard to kill a sheep. They’re incredibly resilient, but if they have thousands of tiny vampires on the inside of them, yes, they will die without hardly any notice. So keep the barber’s pole worm under control and you will have a very good chance of keeping all your sheep alive. But enemy number two is coccidia and the barber’s pole worm—that was a long one. I’ll go faster with the coccidia, but the coccidia is a protozoan that lives on your pasture, again, in the same conditions as the barber’s pole worm does. It also lives in dirty bedding. So, if you have your sheep in a barn or in a pen, coccidiosis and cocci thrive in that dirty bedding. So, if some feed falls on the floor of your barn or your pen and the sheep eats it off the ground, it’s gonna be exposed to that cocci. And cocci infect grazing sheep in the same way that the barber’s pole worm does, as a result of grazing or eating off of infected surfaces. 

Now, once that cocci oocyst has been ingested by the sheep, it burrows into their intestinal linings and creates holes in the sheep’s intestine. And this intestinal damage keeps them from absorbing and processing nutrients properly. All right, so if your animal is infected, you’re gonna notice symptoms like stunted growth. Even though they’re eating plenty, they’re gonna be stunted. Persistent diarrhea, a pot belly that is disproportionate to very skinny legs—these are all indicators that your sheep has coccidiosis. Now the good news here is that sheep do develop immunity to coccidia (or cocci) at about eight months old; so if you can get your sheep to that age, most of your problems are gone in terms of this particular issue. Look for messy rears if you’re looking for a coccidiosis infection. We had a horrible year where the coccidiosis was subclinical, meaning that the diarrhea wasn’t present. It was just that big, huge gut and the super skinny legs—stunted growth. So watch for the subclinical stuff. 

So prevention against coccidia is obviously rotational grazing. And a big, big one is ensuring that protein content, for those young and growing lambs, is really high. As an example here, twins or triplets, they’re gonna struggle more with coccidia than singles do because they are sharing the milk with a sibling rather than that single that’s getting all the protein-rich milk. So you’re gonna notice it in multiples, potentially being more of a risk—that coccidosis. And again, what I do is I do not hesitate to treat this particular issue conventionally if I observe it in my flock. And what I use is Toltrazuril. And what I’ll do is a preventative dosage rate: one dose at 1 cc per 5 pounds at six weeks. This typically does it. I give that a six weeks and it works and keeps the coccidiosis at bay, pretty much for the whole rest of my lamb’s life. 

What I’m gonna do, guys, for you really quick is I’m gonna drop a handout, and this is gonna have all of the sheep supplies that I use on it. It’s gonna even include that dewormer that I talked about; it’s gonna include this coccidiosis treatment that I talked about. Download this, save it for later, review it after the class. I’ll make sure to include it in that follow-up email. But this is super, super important because this is actually gonna have the minerals that I talk about that are important to keep your sheep healthy, and worms at bay. So, there you go. Download that handout right now, but do be assured it’s gonna come to you in that follow-up email sequence that I want you to be watching for. 

Enemy number three would be lambing complications, and that is typically the third biggest killer on a sheep farm. I’m gonna go ahead and buzz through this one since I have so much more to cover with the grazing and marketing sheep, but I want you to watch for three things at lambing. Number one is mineral deficiencies, selenium primarily. Make sure your sheep mineral has a minimum of 30 parts per million of selenium in it. On that supplies list, I’m gonna give you the sheep mineral that I use—click it, buy it, use it. Mastitis. Is something else you want to watch for. As an infection of the mammary glands, it prevents milk flow, and it can result in the lamb starving to death despite appearing to be nursing just fine. So what you’re seeing right here on screen: beautiful lamb, super attentive mom. She was suckling, but that lamb ended up dying at about 24 or 36 hours just because there was no milk flow through that udder. 

And number three is inadequate colostrum intake in the lamb’s first 24 hours. This can be for a multitude of reasons, whether the mom is just too young, doesn’t produce enough colostum, too thin, or was previously sick. But long story short, I learned how to tube feed, and if I’m ever the least bit suspicious that a lamb has not gotten enough colostrum, I will supplement it. No questions asked. A lot of the big lambing outfits—they have big vats of colostrum. Any questions, they’ll just tube it with some colostrum. It’s just that important for setting a lamb up for a lifetime of success. If they don’t get a lot of good quality colostrum, they’re more likely to suffer. 

All right, so guys, we’re gonna transition out of the raising sheep portion here of this presentation, but I want to add a bonus point—and that is just really starting small. It’s gonna solve a lot of your problems because we started simply with just too many sheep. As beginners, we started with 36 sheep and that was way too many sheep for a family that had never raised livestock before. Despite the fact that we had plenty of land to raise them on, that 36 sheep became 96 sheep at lambing. It’s just a whole, whole lot. So when I’m asked by beginners in livestock about how many sheep they should start with, my answer is always just start with three to five ewes and a ram, okay? If you take really good care of that flock, it’s going to double or triple within five months—being that sheep have a high twinning rate and five months is the gestation period. So as beginners, it’s way easier to go from 5 sheep to 15 sheep once they lamb, than it is to go from 30 sheep to 60 or 90 sheep once they lamb, and then hit a lot of losses just because it’s way too much to handle. So start small to grow your winds and shrink your losses. 

If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com. You’ll find a direct link in the description. 

Rotational grazing to improve pasture and reduce costs

Section number two is grazing sheep to minimize feed costs and maximize flock health. Now I’m gonna give you an overview of my rotational grazing system for sheep, which was just the major breakthrough for flock health. Like I’ve mentioned already, when I started rotational grazing sheep, we stopped losing those animals in mass almost overnight. I was moving those sheep to fresh pasture daily, and they were no longer, plain and simple, grazing over their manure day in and day out. The bacteria-related diseases and infections—things like hoof rot, mastitis, things that are a result of just returning to the same loafing spots at all times—those things became almost non-issues because the flock was no longer returning to the dirty sleeping area every night. They were constantly on fresh pasture rather than laying on a buildup of manure. Something else I want to note is that I do not do any fancy or broad-based pasture plantings at all. What you see here is really what grows on its own, and my pasture really just keeps getting better and better year after year with good grazing management. Now, a caveat here is that occasionally I’ll use a bag seeder and I’ll sow maybe an acre or two of ryegrass and crimson clover, but not even that is super regular. It’s just an option when I want to. 

Now my grazing system has two added benefits in addition to the flock health and land health. Number one is it really minimizes the feed costs, okay? I do not pour a ton of feed into my sheep. I overwinter, and if I’m really, really wise with my pasture, I only have to feed for maybe six or eight weeks of winter. Also, number two is that I actually spend less time caring for my sheep overall, which sounds crazy because I’m always moving them, but as a result of the improved health, I’m not treating a whole bunch of sick sheep all the time. So what you’re looking at here is the fact that when you rotational graze and you pressure the sheep into a small spot, they are forced to basically clean their plate. Not only is more grass growing on my land because of all the benefits of the spread of manure, but my sheep are confined and forced to eat all of the pasture, not just their favorite parts. So, instead of eating maybe 70% of the pasture in some sort of, you know, free-grazing situation where there’s no confinement, no pressuring them, they’re eating like 95% of pasture because I’m forcing them to clean their plate, and not just letting them eat their favorite part. 

Now, both of these factors, again, less feed inputs in my system and more dollars in my pocket overall at the end of the day. Now, the best way I think to explain my grazing system to you guys is to answer some frequently asked questions about it. And the number one question I get is, “How frequently do you rotate your sheep to a new paddock?” I aim for a minimum of two times per week on average, meaning in the spring and summer, I’ll try to move daily or every 48 hours, and during the winter when the pasture is dormant, I’ll maybe move every 10 days. But I try to make it an average of twice per week. Question number two that comes through quite frequently is, “How long does a paddock rest before returning to graze it again?” So again, this is a general average but you want to aim for 45 days. During droughts, I obviously need to provide more rest. During seasons when we get two to three inches of rain per week, pasture recovers faster, and I can graze it before that 45 days mark. But as a general average, letting something rest for 45 days before returning to it is the goal. 

What electric fence charger do you use? I use a 12-joule Cyclops fence charger as my permanent unit for this 30 acres. And it really packs the punch that you need to keep sheep in line. As a backup, I keep a Gallagher 4-joule solar charger. This is for areas of the property maybe my electric fencing doesn’t quite reach yet, or maybe my electrical fencing is down because a tree fell on it—like it is right now—and I have to pull out the solar charger for just temporary until I can get to sawing down that tree and freeing up my fence again. But this is a great little backup unit. It’s pretty expensive, but it’s lasted me a really long time. Okay, so what fence do you use to set up your temporary grazing paddocks? And I use a poly tape. Now, we started out with polywire, but I did switch to this tape because poly tape has five times the visibility of polywire. And I did this because we had a failed rotational grazing attempt with the polywire. They just pretended like they didn’t see it. So I gave them the benefit of the doubt, pretending they didn’t see it, upgraded to poly tape, and it works great. I use two strands placed at 6 inches and 24 inches above the ground, roughly. It’s essentially too short for them to sneak under, too high for them to jump over. That’s kind of what I think when I’m setting it visually, I’m like, “Okay, does that look about too high to them to jump over? Too short to sneak under?” And that’s my 6 inches and my 24 inches. 

A question I get a lot is: What is your perimeter fence made above? And the perimeter fence is a six by six woven wire. This is a lot of fencing, but here’s what it does: I sleep really well at night because it keeps predators out, keeps sheep in, and keeps neighbors happy. And for small acreage, I find that this is really, really important because if you kind of think about it—I think you maybe watch Greg Judy, he’s running on huge leases, single-strand polywire—and essentially if Greg Judy’s sheep jump his polywire, which I don’t think they ever do, I’m sure, but if they do, they have 100 acres before they’re bothering the highway, or they’re bothering a neighbor. Mine don’t. They’re gonna jump that wire and go straight into the neighbor’s yard or straight onto the highway. So this perimeter fencing for small acreage makes for good neighbors, happy neighbors, and I don’t have to buy liability insurance for the fact that my sheep are on the highway when they decide to be disrespectful of my fencing. Which I don’t even know that you could buy insurance on sheep like that, but anyhow. 

All right, as a bonus point here, as we round out the grazing sheep portion, guys, I want to again encourage you to start small. I’ve worked over the course of the last five years, little by little, to really improve the efficiency and the quality of my grazing system, but I started really small, okay? I started with this tiny solar fence charger from, I think I found it in my parents’ garage. I started with some really cheap step-in posts from the hardware store and some plastic reels. I think they were actually for electrical cords, but I started, I think, for a little under $250. And if that’s all that you can afford right now, is a cheap setup to see if this works for you, works for your sheep, just get your sheep moving. Put in the sweat equity upfront, and when you get the cash, make incremental improvements to your equipment. Buy a new reel one season, get a better fencing the next season. But get your sheep rotating and grazing right because it is so worth getting started as fast as possible. 

How to market sheep for premium prices

All right, marketing sheep for $480 each. Yes, I market and sell my sheep for $480 each. And I’m gonna start this section by addressing some of the common questions again, and then dive deeper into what it took to build this kind of a customer base. The question I get most frequently is, “Where do you sell your sheep?” And the answer is my email newsletter list, which I accumulate subscribers for that list through strategic use of social media. Question number two is, “What kind of sheep do you sell?” And the answer is Dorper sheep. Dorper Sheep are hair sheep raised for meat. I sell premium quality animals which are purchased as breeding stock, but the carcass is so good that they produce enough meat to be very highly marketable as pasture-raised lamb. Question number three is, “How much time do you spend marketing your farm?” Now this is gonna surprise you, but if you want to make profit on sheep, you need to know it right up front: I market on a 3-to-1 ratio, okay? That means every one hour that I spend raising sheep, I am marketing sheep for three hours. And yes, that is a lot of time, but it’s so worth it to be able to work from the peace and comfort of my own farm. I do not need to go to a farmers market to set up and sit there for hours on end. It’s just not my personality type to enjoy that kind of a setting. And as a sales venue, I can market from the peace and quiet of my own home and earn an income from my flock through my email list. 

So with those three frequently asked questions answered for context, I’ll go ahead and give you the full story here. Also I want to give you a heads up that I sell all of my sheep, including my meat, through that email newsletter list using my website to accept payments, and to actually facilitate the sales process there. So in 2020, I’ll go ahead and with that context, I’ll give you the full story. In 2020, when I launched into farming, I wrote my business plan and I found that I would need to earn around $400 to $500 per lamb to meet my financial goals as a sheep farmer. But I knew two things really, really right up front: I knew that I will not earn $480 per sheep consistently at the sale barn unless we’re in a really good market. And I knew, that number two, as a solo farmer, I would not have the energy to set up at a farmer’s market every week because when I started farming, I was still working my full time job, growing my farm on the side. I didn’t want to add a farmer market to it. 

So what I did very early on was I started my email newsletter list for my farm and I used social media like Instagram, Facebook groups, and YouTube to add subscribers to my list. I started building my list almost the moment I started farming, and what I would do through this list was I would send people updates and engaging pictures from my farm, and then when it was time to sell something, that was when I would put the buy button in there. I’d keep them engaged through engaging pictures, stories from my farm, and then, when it was time for them to buy, they were really, really warm and ready to buy. It took time. It took time to build this trust and this relationship, but that effort really, really paid off. Here’s a little bit of a timeline. In year number one, I sold my lambs through my newsletter and through Craigslist for around $225 to $300 each. Now keep in mind that even though I started right away, I didn’t have enough subscribers in my first year to sell all of my sheep through my email list. I diversified, used Craigslist for what was left over. So never be afraid that you’re starting too early when it comes to marketing because you can never start too early. 

But in year number two, I had built some serious momentum through my email list and I sold my sheep for an average of $580 each. Value was brought up because I had some registered breeding stock in there. And year number three, I once again sold all of my sheep through my e-mail list at $420 to $480 each, and this time I sold all my lambs within four minutes of opening reservations. Same story with my meat—I’ll sell my meat boxes at about $210 per box. It’s a 10 pound box. This factors in shipping, and these are all, again, sold through that email list where people are watching these sheep grow and be raised in a really healthy, beautiful setting, and they’re like, “I want to eat that food because that is a healthy environment. I want that food.” So it all kind of comes together there. 

Now, here are the numbers that you kind of want to aim for in terms of those meat sales that I just mentioned. You want to aim for 100 pounds live weight. 100 pounds means that your lambs will come back, about 50 to 55% of that, in meat and bones. So essentially, if you have 100 pound lamb… I just took a bunch of 95 pound lambs, for example, up to the butcher, and they came back with about 40 pounds worth of marketable meat product. So your lamb share situation, you want to be charging about $240 per half lamb, or like I did, I just talked about my meat box situation—I did about $210 for a 10-pound box of a variety of cuts. It’s easier to market them that way because people are a lot more familiar with just, “Hey this is a 10 pound box of premium cuts. Here’s what you’re going to get: neck roast, lamb leg, shoulder roast, et cetera,” and they’re a lot more willing to pay for something that they understand than they are for maybe a half of a share, et cetera. It takes more education, if that makes sense. I go a little bit more into it in the marketing, but I wanted to give you that little primer here. 

Now before jumping into lamb for meat sales, I personally did some local market research to see if my competitors were able to get the prices that I knew that I needed. And to do this I went to local farmers markets. And I did this before I started building my email list because I wanted to make sure that in the worst case scenario, I could go local and get the prices that I needed. And so I found at my farmer’s market that ground lamb was going for $13 a pound and fancier cuts for upwards of $25 and $26. So I knew that my local markets could sustain the prices I needed. So if you’re sitting there and you’re like, I don’t know if my local market will support that, do your market research. Make sure you follow up on those hiccups in your, basically, business plan, before you jump in. But know your numbers. Know that you need a sheep that’ll produce—that’ll grow to 100 pounds before it hits 12 months, that comes back as a 50% carcass yield from the butcher, and then go from there. And do remember that if you have a good quality sheep, selling both meat and breeding stock is an option. More than likely, you start that email list, you’re gonna have a waitlist for the females, and you’re going to be able to sell the males as meat. It’s a real two-edged sword in terms of raising sheep. 

But I want you to picture this, okay? Set yourself here: 3 years from now, you’re looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20-plus acres and your flock is grazing across a green pasture and you know that you can take care of these sheep. You know that your grazing system is improving your land. You now have an abundance of nutrient-dense meat in your freezer to feed your family or to market as a premium product. You have marketing streams that you can move this product through and healthy food to feed your family. This is exactly how I feel when I look at my flock and I want the same for you.

Common beginner questions about raising sheep

All right, here are the questions. Brett says, “I’m amazed at how you worked to get those prices for your lamb.” The neat thing is that the MAHA movement is kind of doing a lot of the work for us now. It’s never been a better time than now to get in the market with your pasture-raised product. Because now more than ever, politics are promoting healthy food. RFK Jr. has become a great marketing asset for us. So it is a good time to market to the MAHA movement. 

Jose said, “How do you avoid inbreeding in your sheep?” And that is just to rotate out fresh genetics in terms of a ram. I will breed father to daughter for two generations. Stop it there, get a new ram, or get rid of all of the ewe lambs that he has fathered beyond those two generations. Margaret says, “Do you have your sheep processed in a processing facility?” Yes, Margaret, I do. I have a local U.S. Inspected processing facility. BJ said, “Full-time farmer retired with 88 acres looking to get 10 sheep, 10 goats for tree clearing and two calves. Can I run them all together daily rotation in between clean pastures?” Yes. They will run together just fine. The only thing is that I have goats as well, and I have struggles with containment on my goats that I don’t have with sheep. And my goats basically need that Premier1 electric netting to stay in the fence. David said, “Number of sheep per acre?” David, it just depends on what your rainfall is. I’m gonna tell you here at 45 inches per year, 100% grass-fed, no fancy pasture plantings, just letting them eat whatever is native, three sheep per acre is about maximum. And that kind of includes the lambs that they’ll produce as well. So it includes the swell. 

Jason says, “How many sheep per acre is ideal?” Again, Jason, kind of use those numbers I just mentioned. Again, when people ask me this question, my answer is always start small because sheep will reproduce and you can save all of the replacements a lot more easily than you can de-stock, or find that you need to de-stock. If you bought too many. So just start small. Start with one sheep per acre. If you have a good source for sheep and you’re finding you have just too much grass, increase your stocking rate. It’s easy enough to do, but don’t overthink it. But do start small, Bill says, “What do you use for predator protection?” Bill, I pretty exclusively rely on my fencing right now. I just lost another dog. Pyrenees are wanderers. And can anybody attest to that? Yes or no? And we just live a little bit too close to a lot of traffic. And unfortunately we’ve lost about four dogs to that traffic. I tried to tether them, tried to pen them, tried to kennel them, cannot keep them away from that traffic, and I don’t want to commit to another dog without having some electric shock collar in place to keep them off the highway. So basically the woven wire fencing. 

Kay says, “Wow, I’ve learned so much and I have a profound respect for you. I also feel like it’s time to accept that I am too old for this. I can’t eat them, but I feel like I would be a wonderful lamb grandmother.” Thank you so much for being here, Kay. Maybe you have a child who will take up the mantle for you. Teresa says, “If you don’t want to package and market the meat, how do you sell the whole lambs through your newsletter?” Teresa, it’s really easy through the website that I built. I will say I have breeding stock available, or I have half a lamb share. And through that website, that e-commerce website, I can control pricing and just price a listing according to what I need for that half lamb share or that breeding stock. But that’s how I do it. And it’s how I’ve done it since the beginning. I will tell people exactly what I have available through my newsletter, and then I funnel them to my website to accept payments. So it’s like having employees work for me 24/7. Sells product while I sleep. I mean, it sounds too good to be true, but that’s what happens when you have your systems in place, your digital systems in place. And that’s really what I go in depth on in the masterclass. I think it’s about 11 hours. I think the marketing is about 11 hours of training in there. 

All right, question here: “Interested in your ability to prevent herd resistance to tick-borne disease and worms; also interested in the best grass seed to use. We’re in a hot, wet summer now, but my concern is maintaining pasture in winter with temps that go below 23 degrees Fahrenheit.” Okay, good question here, Brett. I’m gonna answer it in the parts that it is. So, tick-borne diseases and worms. Sidectin is really, really effective for the external parasites. Thankfully, I don’t have ticks on my sheep. I haven’t found ticks on sheep, even though I do live in Northeast Texas where ticks are really bad. Sidectin is a good solution for the external parasites. The best grass seed to use. I would go to White Clover Sheep Farm. I don’t know exactly where you are, Brett, but it sounds like with temps that go below 23 degrees Fahrenheit, you’re probably in a little bit more of a cooler climate. Ulf Kinslow at White Clovers Sheep Farm has a lot of good articles as to what he plants for his pasture. I would with his information because as I mentioned earlier, I primarily graze my sheep just on the native pasture. I will plant some red clover. I will hand broadcast some ryegrass every once in a while on a bald spot. But I just work with what grows naturally of its own and improves over time. 

A question from James, wild James Almeida. He says, “When you pen your sheep, how long do you leave them there without grazing?” I’m gonna answer this question first. I, as a rule, do not pen my sheep. I leave them on pasture all night. I will pen them maybe if there’s a winter storm, freezing rain. Very, very rarely do I leave my sheep in a pen. So at the maximum, they’ll be left there for sleeping for eight hours. What is the length of my T-posts? And is it necessary for a wood post every couple of feet? This is a great question. I’m gonna try to answer this and try to remember it. I think we have our set at 10 to 15 feet between the metal T-posts. I don’t have any wooden posts. I’m going to say I have wooden posts maybe every 100 feet, but otherwise it’s just the corner braces that are wood. Question number three here is, “Contractors around my area claim they have experience in this. Maybe they do, but I doubt its rotational grazing. They recommend clearing the land with machinery and overseeding it to get it prepared for grazing, but that’s very costly.” That’s typically a recommendation that people will put forward for cattle because cattle are not naturally browsers. But if you have an area that has a lot of wooded area, a lot of brushy area, your sheep are gonna clear that. You just want to clear your land enough to get maybe a perimeter fence in there or some electric fencing in there. But I would avoid the costly land clearing process as a beginner. Try to see what you can get started with just your sheep. 

Edmar says, “Have you ever heard about running chickens in the pasture so that they can eat the barber’s pole worm larva?” Edmar, this doesn’t work. Chickens will eat external parasites. So let me give a quick thing on this one: a lot of people hear Joel Salatin moving his chicken tractors behind the cows for parasite control. What Joel Salatin is talking about there is fly larva. You guys can visibly see fly larva in a cow pie. They’re little white worms. That’s what the chickens are eating out. But when it comes to barber’s pole worm, eggs or larva, chickens are not even gonna be able to get those if they could see them. And so the good thing that chickens will do is they’ll scratch apart the manure, but they don’t eat them, they don’t ingest them, and it doesn’t work quite as well as the cow pies and the fly larva that Joel Salatin is referring to there. Chickens also, when they scratch apart sheep manure… Sheep manure are like little balls. They’re not those big pies that stretch in all different directions. So that’s another factor. It’s just totally different species, so no, it doesn’t. 

Kelly says, “Do you use the CDT vaccine?” Kelly, I gave up the vaccinations about three years ago just at my own risk. It’s been completely fine. CDT is still recommended for most sheep operations. It’s tetanus and overeaters disease. And I still think it’s a smart move for most people, in terms of the tetanus and overeaters disease, but I just chose to stop vaccinating about three years ago and have not lost a sheep to either issue since then. Deidre said, “Should a newbie start with ewes and lambs without rams? Will a ram get lonely when he is alone?” Good question. If you can find some ewes with young lambs to buy, I think that would be a great buying option. But there’s really no advantage to buying eyes without rams, with or without rams. Other than that, you can keep them from breeding until you really want them to. Will rams get lonely when they have just one? Yes. I’ll always keep him with a wether, which is a castrated male. So yes, you want to keep them with a companion. So I just do a castrated male. 

Andres says, “How do you work the butchering process?” Andres, when you’re selling the meat direct to consumer, you do have to have it U.S. Inspected. And when you sell the lambs as halves prior to them being butchered, then you can do any kind of processor that you want, because technically the lamb belongs to the new owner, and as a result, they don’t have to have the U. S. Inspection. So you basically sell the lamb—it’s called on the hoof—and sell it prior to being butchered and you have a lot more flexibility in terms of your processing. Kelly says, “If you ever need to overseed, what would you do?” Good question, Kelly. I actually cover this in my book, The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. And I talk about improving pasture quality without heavy equipment or machinery. And I go through the three things that I actually seeded on my pasture with success. Some of them required more impact than others. But essentially in this book, I walk through everything I was able to plant by hand with success, and it was only three things: it was the ryegrass and crimson clover, and then I had an oak grass that I had a little bit of success from. But the only reason I had success with this was because I had a small beef herd that was able to create some impact to get those into the ground as deep as a… typically they have like a seed drill or something to plant those oak grass, but those are the three things. And the book talks about the really specific animal impact that I had in those contexts to get it to come out, but ryegrass, red clover, and oak grass in very, very special circumstances. 

Dom says, “How do you keep predators out?” My fencing does a really good job of keeping predators out. I still have to be really careful not to put my sheep in the woods basically, especially when they’re young lambs, but I have that six inch woven wire fencing and it does a great job of protecting my property from predators. Elena says, “What is your take on raising Icelandic sheep for the multi-purpose ability?” It’s a great homesteading sheep, but whenever you have a multi-purpose sheep, you’re going to notice lower performance in all of their purposes, I guess you could say. So for example, if you have a sheep that was specifically bred to be an amazing meat sheep, like a Dorper, you’re gonna get a lot of meat off of those sheep. When you have sheep that’s bred to an amazing dairy sheep, like a Nawasi or a Finnsheep, things like that, they’re gonna make a lot of great milk. When you have a multi-purpose sheep like the Icelandics, they’re just gonna make a moderate amount of wool, a moderate amount of meat, and a moderate amount of milk. And when you get a multi-purpose sheep, that’s honestly what you want, is just moderate in all of those things. That said, if I was just exclusively doing something for homesteading, I would be less adamant on, “I’ve got to get a carcass to 100 pounds by six and a half months,” and I would be more open to the multi-purposed animals. But because I want a marketable sheep and I’m marketing meat primarily, I focus on the high yielding carcass and I focus on the specific meat breeds. So I hope that made sense. 

Oscar asks, “How do you deal with ticks?” Sidectin is good for external parasites. I don’t apply anything externally. Sidectine handles it for me, but I don’t have a lot of ticks, thankfully. That may be one thing that the chickens help with. My sister has chickens all over this place. I was like, “How many chickens do you have?” And she’s like, “Well, anywhere between 200 and 800.” That’s a joke, but anyways. The chickens will eat ticks. And so we don’t have any ticks. Maybe that’s why. Dan Smith says, “The lye seemed effective for you. Why not use it as a regular wormer?” Dan, this is a really good question. The lye is still really new. I just had my first successful case study with it on the goats last September. And so as a result of it just being new, I don’t have enough data to back it as a broad spectrum treatment for my flock. That said, I have applied it twice to my flock—great results—and it basically knocked out one of my quarterly dewormings. So I’m using it as a way to just wean off, but I’m not going to use it as a cold turkey. That’s kind of how I do anything in terms of a new protocol on my farm. And so it’s currently a wean-off rather than a cold turkey situation because I have a lot more sheep than goats. I have like four goats and a lot more sheep than that. And so making sure that everybody gets an equal amount of feed with the lye on it and so forth is a lot more tricky for my flock. So, a lot of different factors there that are keeping me from going 100% lye. 

Veronica says, “How do I go about raising sheep when I’m surrounded by heavy brush and thorns? Any starting points?” Veronica, this is a situation where I would just get a good quality mower, whether you have to rent it or not, to just get that initial path for your electric fencing or path for your perimeter fencing cleared. I wouldn’t go full on land clearing, but if I just had an impossible acreage full of brush, I would use some sort of equipment, whether a… I don’t know. Leave in the comments, guys. There are probably some guys in here that would know how to clear brush or what kind of equipment would be necessary to clear the brush that Veronica is talking about, but I would rent that equipment and at least get a path cleared for my initial parameter fencing. “Have you explored adding guinea fowl, chicken, quail, or ducks to deal with the parasites?” I think I tackled that question. The chickens are really good for like the black fly larva and the ticks, and we have a ton of those, and we don’t have any ticks. So that’s kind of where it’s at. But I guess if anybody’s wondering, we have a lot of chickens on this place, but I still have to be careful about the barber’s pole worm. So if your question is regarding, “Do chickens help with the barber pole worm?” the answer is not really. Not really for sheep in the nature of their manure. 

All right, so Marie says, “How do you provide shade and rain protection in a smaller paddock for say three sheep?” Good question, Marie. I actually have a shade structure for sheep and goats. Just go to YouTube and type in portable shade structure for sheep. You’re gonna find that; that’s what I use for three sheep. My mom invented it. It’s kind of an amazing little pop-up situation that I’ll drag around, or I did drag around when my flock was much smaller. Now my flock is larger to where I can make the paddocks larger and incorporate a tree at all times. When it comes to rain, if it’s raining and 70 degrees, I don’t necessarily worry about them having protection from rain. It’s just like a warm shower. So I’m like, “Hey, I like a warm shower of 70 degrees.” So I don’t necessarily worry about the rain protection when it’s 70 or 80 degrees outside, but when it is freezing rain, I have to get them under cover. I don’t want my sheep in freezing and wet conditions. So that helps. Make sure there’s a tree if it’s freezing rain. 

Okay. Veronica says, “How do I treat PEM?” And I do not have any data or information for you on PEM or polioencephalomalacia. No, I don’t have any information for you on that, I’m sorry. Jason says, “Is there any known natural repellent for the barber’s pole worm?” Jason, again, the lye: there have been people who have claimed—this is just allegedly—they have mixed lye and water in one of those weed sprayers or crop sprayers and sprayed it over a one- or two-acre paddock, and then put their sheep into that paddock to graze. I don’t think it kills the barber’s pole worm on the grass, but that water and lye solution sprayed on the grass enables the sheep to graze it and get it inside of themselves, and these sheep farmers allege that it deworms their sheep through the grazing process. So, something to look into. I have not tried that yet. Tammy says, “How much land is needed per sheep?” About a third of an acre per sheep where I’m at. Again, it’s gonna depend on your rainfall. I have pretty high rainfall. A quarter to a third of an acre per sheep is sufficient. 

Tammy says, “Thoughts on lespedeza pellets for deworming?” Tammy, I had not done the fecal egg counts on those, but I have bought some lespedeza pellets for my goats. Unfortunately, I just didn’t do the research for that to get you the numbers like I can for the lye, but I do hear it’s effective. I just haven’t heard the numbers in the drop in egg count, so I can give it to you firsthand. “What if I do not have enough land to let one paddock recover for 45 days? Any suggestions?” Ace, I would just designate what would be a hay lot. And if your land is not getting enough recovery, just put those sheep on a hay lot and feed them until your pasture can recover. I don’t know that this is necessarily best practice, but this is what you can do should you want to carry more sheep than your land can naturally support. Not something I necessarily recommend, but it is an option if you choose to use your free will and raise as many sheep as you desire, even though you may only have like two acres and you want to raise 20 sheep. That’s what you’re going to have to do. That’s an option, not a suggestion. 

Veronica says, “How do you deal with smart sheep that don’t care about electric fencing, and how do you train them?” Ooh, this is good. Okay, you want to make sure of three things: Number one, make sure that your fence charger is hot enough. Okay, I referenced that 0.22 joule solar charger at the start of my journey. Pretty quickly my sheep got real smart—that was just gonna be a little flick on the nose and then they could run to whatever pasture area they wanted. So I had to update to that 12 joule fence charger. And, you know, it was like the difference between a little flick on the nose, and basically a nine millimeter in the nose. And that taught them to not be so smart. So that fence charger is going to be your best way to keep your sheep in. There’s always gonna be that one, and if you’ve done all of your diligence and there’s still that one that is disrespectful, I would get rid of her. It doesn’t sound nice, and it’s my last resort—I make sure that all my ducks are in a row and that my chargers are strong enough—but I’ve had a couple where it’s just like, I hear one out and I know which one it is. And I’m like, if it gets to be where I know which one is, I’m going to not deal with her leading the flock astray. So she does not get to be a part of the group. 

Natasha says, “What are your thoughts on marketing sheep milk? Is it more in demand and premium pricing than goat’s milk?” It’s going to be really dependent on your area. And what I found with sheep milk is that it takes a little bit more consumer education than goat’s milk or cow’s milk. It’s naturally in less demand because people just are not aware that it is a thing. Sheep milk is more of a novelty. Now that said, sheep milk has so many nutritional advantages that if you’re good with consumer education, you can tell people, “Hey, this is like two to three times more protein per cup than cow’s milk. This has got two times more healthy fats in it than goat’s milk.” Things like that. I’m not giving you specific numbers, but there are serious advantages that if you can learn how to market it, you could really get a premium pricing. More premium than goat milk? I don’t know. More premium than cow milk? Probably not. People are more accustomed to drinking cow’s milk. But that’s my thoughts on marketing sheep milk. Know your advantages, know the nutritional analysis, and really go hardcore on marketing and promoting the nutritional analyses, the increase in protein content, healthy fats, because I know those are the two advantages of sheep milk, and then build your audience off of that. 

Andre says, “Maremmas are not wandering dogs.” Good. Patrick says, “Are there weeds or vegetation that is harmful?” Patrick, so far I have not had… There are a couple of weeds at my place—I’d say the nightshade is harmful, and the goatweed in large quantities is harmful. All that said, I’ve seen my sheep nibbling on small quantities, and nothing’s died. If you are at a place where sheep have enough to eat otherwise and they’re not starving to death with only nightshade to eat or only goatweed to eat, then most likely they’re going to understand the toxic nature of those plants, and they’re gonna avoid them naturally. Shiv says, “What do you do about dog poop in sheep pastures?” Try to avoid stepping on it. I’m sorry if I misunderstood your question, Shiv, but that’s what I do about dog poop and the sheep’s pasture. Dom says, “Can I combine grazing and hay rotational?” Yes, you can supplement your pasture by putting out hay. A lot of people do that. Eric says, “Have you thought about a donkey for predator protection?” No, I had a really good counsel from a longtime shepherd up front early on in my journey, and he said, “You need to fight predators with predators.” If you choose something or an animal for predator defense, you need to fight predators with predators. He said, “I started out with a donkey, moved to livestock guardian dogs because my donkey got really lazy. He was good for maybe a year, and then started losing lambs left and right.” What stuck with me was you have to fight predators with predators, and should I seek an animal for predator protection, I’m gonna go for a dog. 

All right, Amber says, “New sheep with a small herd. How can I tell if my ewe is pregnant?” Typically they don’t display signs until the very last 30 days. And in the last 30 of gestation, their udders will develop, drop, and look full enough to feed a lamb. Their backside will also start to protrude. Again, I get kind of visual with it in The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture, as well as in the master class on what signs to look for in pre-lambing. Essentially you want to look at their backsides, you want to look at their udders, and those are the ways that you can really tell that a lamb is coming within just a matter of days about the way that those areas are developing. Anything before 30 days pre-lambing, you just need to do a blood test or just keep track of when you added that ram, and just figure that unless she’s an infertile ewe that she bred within the first 17 to 34 days of having that ram in, and bank on lambs accordingly. Rich says, “We use burrows for protection. Any thoughts?” Rich, I say if it works for you, that is really good, but I kind of just go back to what that shepherd told me, that veteran shepherd, that is just “Fight predators with predators whenever possible.” 

JP says, “So do you sell lamb shares, and what percentage?” No, JP, I don’t sell lamb shares. I either sell those meat boxes, which is 10 pounds of premium cuts, or I will sell breeding stock. So the premium cuts are super easy to sell because I can be like, “Hey, you’re gonna get lamb chops, you’re gonna get lamb leg, you’re going to get…” And I can explain to people cuts that they already know versus, “You’re gonna get a lamb share,” and they’re like, “Well, what’s that?” And I have to walk through, through, though. But if I can tell them they’re gonna get 10 pounds of premium cuts, it’s a lot easier to sell at a premium price. It’s just a marketing thing. Veronica says, “Any other fencing suggestions for rotational grazing?” Pretty much what I just mentioned here, just that poly tape, high power charger, and then I cover a lot of the setup in the grazing sheep portion of the master class, which is that eight videos that goes into how I set up my watering system, and all of my electric fencing. If you have a specific question, Veronica, I definitely will answer that, but those are my suggestions. 

Leaf says, “What do you recommend for the pasture when the cold winter and pasture is dormant?” So Leaf, I’ll put a video up on my Facebook tonight or social media—Instagram or Facebook. Right now my pasture will be ready to graze in about three or four weeks, but I have my sheep on what I call my spring lot or my spring waiting lot. And it is a pretty good sized paddock, and it’s netted off with electric netting so they can’t jump to the pasture—it’s trying to prep for spring grazing—and I’ll feed them their hay on this paddock. I like to position this paddock in maybe a more depleted area of the pasture so that all the hay that I’m feeding during that extended period of time is going to improve the pasture, but that is what I call it. And they’ll stay here… I mentioned rotating them. They’ll stay in this spring prep lot for about two to three weeks. It’s kind of when I come to the end of my stockpile, and I’m giving every part of my pasture time to get ready for spring. That’s where it’ll be. And just check Facebook tonight, and I’ll try to post that right when I get off here to give you guys a good idea of what I mean by that. 

Justin says, “Do you ever run your goat bucks with the rams? Do they get along?” Yeah, they do. My goat bucks have always been a lot smaller than my rams, so my rams assert their dominance, make them know they’re boss, and they get along just fine. So yeah, if you didn’t have a wether, you could put those guys together for company. “How do dogs escape the pasture?” They’ll crawl under, dig under, and find holes. I wish I could say how I knew those other three… They kind of just slipped out the front gate too. Those were how the other three found a way. Yeah, they did. Oh, the electric fencing. So with the Pyrenees that I had, the electric fencing, he just was smart enough to know how to get through it, and so just jumped through it. Veronica says, “How do I keep my sheep from suffering heat stroke in 120 degree summers?” Lots of shade, and lots of fresh water. Dom says, “Can I combine hay and rotational grazing? Yes, I think you already asked that, but yes, you can supplement your grazing with hay to extend the rest period, and get more out of your spatial situation. Again, it’s not a suggestion that you load your land down with more animals that it can naturally support. You’re going to run into a lot more health problems that way. But if you want to, again, just use your free will as a citizen of the United States of America, and you want to put 20 sheep on 2 acres, do that. But yes, you will have to buy in a lot more hay supplements, and a lot of feed supplements. 

Jim says, “How do we contact you if we have more questions?” Jim, these live streams are the best ways to get your questions answered fast. I do answer questions at Sheperdess.com. It’s just the volume coming through there makes me a little bit slower to answer, but I do try to answer people as I can. Patrick, harmful plants, already addressed that. Margaret Johnson says, “Does your sister still keep chickens?” And the answer is yes. She has social media at Harmony Farms Chickens on Instagram. Veronica says, “When should you change rams?” I change rams when I want to keep the third generation. So I’ll breed a ram to his daughters and his granddaughters, but not that third generation, I’ll sell it. And that’s when I’ll change my rams is when I want to keep the ewes from that third generation. Dom says, “Do you recommend commercial ewes and a full-blood ram?” Dom, that’s what I have, and I love the product because it sells really well as breeding stock. Super, super fancy, and beautiful lambs that are still so productive with that commercial element in them. The commercial ewes have been cold. They are not kept and pampered because of papers, and that full-blood ram does have some really good bloodlines in him. I know a lot about him. So that’s what I do. But mostly I’m looking for performance over papers, but that just happens to be my setup. 

“Do chiggers affect your sheep?” I don’t think so. They do scratch themselves sometimes, but they’ve never told me it’s chiggers. JP says, “Do you measure your sheep’s worm load?” JP, only through those visual indicators: things like if I’m seeing sluggish, bottle jaw, things that visually tell me the anemic (eyelids). Those are the only ways that I measure my sheep’s worm load. I don’t run fecals just because visually, I can tell from like a mile off, “Okay, she’s got worms and I need to figure out what’s going on?” “Can you eat a sheep that has had medication?” Bill, every medication will have on the back of the package a withdrawal period. You want to pay attention to that withdrawal period. Something like this Levamed will have what’s called a residue warning, and you want to make sure that you obey that residue warning. So this one says, “Do not administer to cattle within 48 hours of slaughter for food. Do not administer the sheep within 72 hours of slaughter for food.” Pay attention to those residue warnings on whatever you administer for your sheep, and the package will guide you. Justin says, “Can you test your pasture for barber’s pole worm?” Never found a way to do that, no. James says, “Forestry mulcher potentially if you have super, super bad pastures, and need to mow a fence line.”. 

All right, guys, gonna make sure I try to get to all your questions, and get them all answered. David said, “Are you still farming 30 acres? If so, how many sheep are you running into that rotation?” I max out at about three sheep per acre. That’s kind of where my maximum threshold is if I don’t want to buy a ton of inputs, and if I really want to economically manage my resources. David said, “Skid steers with a chipper and grinder for clearing out your brushy pasture, and getting your fence line perimeter ready.” Justin has a good question here: he said, “I thought you said earlier in the presentation that you said to keep the sheep off the pasture at night, and then you said you leave them on the pasture night?” Justin, I aim to never take my sheep off of the pasture. That said, in times of inclement weather, they’ll go to the pen for safety and protection against freezing rain, snow, and ice. Those are the exceptions where I’ll put them in the pen. If I’m having a really rough time in terms of… Let’s just say this winter is a time in which I made an exception to the no pen rule. I had them grazing in an area where predators were bad. I lost two sheep in one month because there was some compromised fencing and predators were just sneaking in and getting them. In that pasture, while they were grazing that pasture, I would walk them to the pen after they were done grazing for the day, because I didn’t want to leave them overnight until I could get that area of compromise fixed. That’s the exception. Otherwise I aim for 24/7, 365, with the weather and predator exceptions when I have to. 

Yes, Andres, thank you for clarifying that. I think that’s what Justin picked up on. I said, “Don’t let them graze when they’re penned.” Yeah, yeah, that’s really good. Just make sure your pen is a dry lot. Judy says, “What is the industry average of sheep deaths?” At lambing, it’s 15%. Dom says, “What does the average processor charge for sheep?” Mine is at $125 per head. Dom says, “What is a fair price for ewes these days?” I use the San Angelo sheep market report for a commodity commercial pricing on current pricing. So that is what I do. Deidre says, “Do you have equipment to weigh your sheep or do you use a visual?” Deidre, I have a really nice scale from Lakeland Farm and Ranch Direct and that weighs my sheep for me. That scale’s really important being that I do process a lot of my lambs for meat, and I need to know they’re ready, and that I’m getting a good carcass yield, and so weighing them prior to processing is an important thing for me. Teresa says, “How do you keep your sheep from getting fat on pasture only?” All mine are chunky. I just let them get fat. Kind of like running in a pasture-based system, they’ll use that extra reserve in the winter when the pasture is just a little more lean, and I just let them fatten up, and then it’s just prep for the lean months. So condition them well when you can, and then it’ll give them a little something to live on when the pasture goes dormant, and they’re eating crispy brown grass for a month or so. 

Deborah says, “How long do you keep breeding your ewes?” Deborah, I noticed they start slowing down at about six, seven years old. Some of my really good ewes will go up to nine years, and what I mean by slowing down is I just mean that sometimes they have a harder time keeping weight on at seven years old. Sometimes they’ll have a harder time with being infected with mastitis, or little things that’ll just impact them more in their older age than their younger age. But my best ewes, I will just keep until their natural death. I’ll just take a little bit extra good care of them at the end. I want to keep them in my system as long as I can—the really good ones. But about six years, seven years is when they just start to slow down a little bit. Shiv says, “Dog feces contain Neospora caninum, which can cause abortions and reproductive issues in sheep.” Okay, Shiv, that’s good clarification there. My sister currently has a border collie, but other than that, we don’t have a dog in the pasture, and I’ve never experienced problems due to dog feces infecting my sheep, mostly just cat. I’ve had the toxoplasmosis once or twice in my flock. 

Okay. Andre says, “If I sell on the hoof, is that directly to the customer or to the butcher?” To the customer. It takes a little more consumer education, but on the hook would be to the customer. So essentially you sell the customer a live animal, promoting that they could take that live animal to the butcher. A lot of people will do that for the customer, but essentially you’re selling your animal alive in order to circumvent the difficult processing red tape that exists. I don’t like it, but that’s a way of circumventing the need for a US inspected processor. Ethan asks, “Would ants irritate my sheep? They seem agitated by something, and I can’t figure it out. What’s bothering them?” Yeah, I’ve noticed my sheep get into an ant pile every once in a while, and it does cause irritation. Veronica says, “How much is a breeding ram from you?” Anywhere from $500 to $700 right now. Rich says, “A good cookbook for lamb?” Rich, I have a free cookbook called Five Ways to eat lamb, and that’s available through my YouTube video called Five Ways That I Eat Lamb. That’s my free cookbook. I’ve never purchased a lamb cookbook, but maybe if there’s somebody watching or listening that could drop it in the comments before we leave tonight, do leave the lamb cook book in the comments. 

Andres says, “Question: working a full-time job, would you recommend getting USDA certified, or paying for a processor?” I don’t fully understand this question, Andres. I think you’re maybe talking about processing options. When you process, you have USDA-inspected processors and you have what’s called custom processors, which are not USDA-inspected, but any meat that you take through a custom processor, you can’t sell to the public. You just have to eat it yourself. But you want to have a USDA processor for meat sold to the public. So I hope that helps. Didn’t fully understand your question. All right. Okay. Dom says, “When are you gonna sell some of your lambs this year?” Be watching the email list, probably will be around September. In terms of the breeding stock, I save back a few ewes, and I sell them as bred ewes. And I get a little bit of a better price for that because people sometimes get a three in one, and they’ll pay a little more for a bred ewe. So I’ll keep my lambs, I’ll grow them out until September, and then I’ll breed ewes, and sell them bred. I sold some bred ewes last year, and it’s so fun to get messages from customers. One sent me one just a couple of weeks ago. And he said, “I just got twin ewe lambs out of this ewe that I bought from you last year.” He said basically three for his money. So I like selling my breeding stock like that because it gives people a really good head start, and more for their money, and a little bit higher price for me on the breeding stock. So watch the email list for that if you’re interested in that. 

Bob says, “Do you shear? If so, how did you learn?” Bob, I watched like a million shearing videos on YouTube, and then I just bought myself a set of Premier1 4,000S shearing machines. Now, I don’t have but one or two that keep so much of their fuzz that it needs to be sheared, but I just kinda like it, and I like giving haircuts. So at the beginning of every year, I’ll just shear whoever needs to be. And it was pretty messy at first. It was like a wrestling match at first, and I’m still slow, but I just watched like a million videos, and bought a good pair of shears from Premier1 and I just have fun with it now. Again, one of the things that I did for my flock—and I’ll close it out here, I’ve got two more questions, and I’ll close it out—but quick story time. I bought a ram that really bred all of the fuzz out of my flock. When I first bought my Dorpers, there were so many fuzzy ones, my thought is that because they were commercial at some point in the bloodline, there was a Rambouillet, and so they had a lot of that fuzz on their back. But I bought a slick shedding ram and just within a generation or two, most of the fuzz was bred out of my flock naturally. I’ll just give haircuts to a couple of them. 

Ace says, “Is there a specific time that you sell your sheep?” I think I just answered that. I’ll sell them in September, typically. At least that’s what I’m going to plan on doing this year. Had a lot of ewe lambs born this year, but what I am going to do is what I just mentioned: I’m gonna save them back, I am gonna grow them out to a good size, and I’m gonna breed them so that I can sell like two-in-ones or three-in ones to people. So they’ll be bred animals. Jason says, “Can you recommend a breeder in Virginia?” Jason, I know where Upstate New York is in relation to Virginia. I don’t know how far of a drive it would be for you, but I recommend to people in that particular region if they’re looking for Dorpers, go to White Clover Sheep Farm in Upstate New York. Some of the best looking Dorpers that I’ve ever seen, and they’re regionally acclimated. They’re commercial, nothing registered, but he does a great job, and he’s pasture only. So it’s worth a drive, even if it’s six or eight hours from you, to go to Upstate New York, White Clover Sheep Farm, get some of his stock. 

“Do you use some sort of chute to handle the sheep?” Deborah asks. Deborah, I had a Lakeland Farm and Ranch complete handling system. The interesting thing is—I’m getting ready to make a video about it—my sheep have become so docile, they will essentially stand… They’ll just walk up to me and stand for their drenches. Sounds weird, but it’s exactly what happened last time I worked them. They don’t have that flightiness that’s necessary to work them through a conventional handling system. So I’ll just put them in a tight square pen, walk from sheep to sheep, and drench them. It’s just a result of them being handled every day and rotational grazing. They know me, they’re calm around me, and I don’t need a chute or handling system any longer. That said, Lakeland Farm and Ranch has amazing sheep handling products, and would be where I would recommend going if you have sheep that are just flighty and difficult. 

Deidre says, “I feel God has blessed you for being so faithful, honest, and generous with what you have learned. Thank you.” Thank you, Deidre. I really appreciate that. That’s encouraging. Okay, guys, I think that’s the end of the questions. All right, thank you guys. Thank you for sticking around, and feel free to join the other two live classes I have in the next week. Gonna be a repeat, but if you just want to rejoin and enjoy the company again, you are welcome to come to those other live classes. Appreciate you all. Have a good night. Thank you. 

Hi Friends, This farm update is coming to you from AFRICA. It was an honor to be hosted by the Afrikaner farming community in Southern Namibia. Below is a brief recap of the trip! Episode 1 of 4 is live NOW: Watch Episode 1 Namibia is the driest country in sub-saharan Africa. During a good year rainfall rarely exceeds 8” annually. However, my visit to Namibia came on the heels of a 12 year drought. Rainfall during this time period dropped to as little as 1 inch per calendar year for 12 years straight. This decade-long drought ended in early 2025, restoring forage to the landscape and hope to the farming population of Namibia. We (my brother and I) were hosted by the Afrikaner farming community in Namibia. Afrikaners are southern Africans, descendants of the Dutch, German, and Huguenots settlers who settled southern Africa in the 1600’s. The word “Afrikaner” is simply Dutch for African. The Afrikaner population is estimated at 2.8 million as of 2025 and makes up .2% of the entire population of Africa. The Afrikaner farmers I visited raise meat sheep as well as cattle for the food supply chain of Southern Africa. These stockmen offer their best breeding stock (referred to as “stud” animals) to other farmers in the region in order to help those neighboring farms to improve productivity and profitability. More in Episode 1 Be watching the channel for the remaining 3 episodes! -the Shepherdess “And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.” Isaiah 45:3

Hi Friends, ​ Questions are pouring in about my annual $100k Homestead Coaching program. Tonight’s livestream (at 7pm CST) will be dedicated to answering your questions. ​ I will be giving you a “1000 ft view” of my personal marketing system… This is the marketing system I use to generate $100k+ from my farm. ​ If you are considering the coaching opportunity, this livestream will give you more info … If you just want a free business class, c’mon in!😁 ↓↓Register through this link ↓↓ Register ($100k Homestead Overview) ​ If you cannot attend live, register for the replay! Application for my coaching group opens tomorrow and I am only accepting 50 students this year -so you don’t want to miss out! ​ -the Shepherdess ​ *I will be sharing about my sheep farm business, but the business strategy works for any home-made/home-grown product. Think: meat, livestock, leatherwork, homemade skincare, cottage bakery, etc. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 1 Cor. 3:7 ​

Hi friends, Once per year I coach a small group through the exact business and marketing strategy I used to grow my farm* business to $100k+ annual revenue. ​ I meet with this group personally (via weekly LIVESTREAM) for 6 months; teaching marketing and sharing the best tools for (home-based) business growth. ​ This opportunity is not for everyone… Only those ready to take actionable steps toward $100k+ from their farm or homestead. Tap the button below for more info! More info, please! -the Shepherdess p.s. I am limiting my $100k Homestead coaching group to 50 individuals this year. Tap the button above for the best chance at securing a spot! ​ *I will be sharing about my sheep farm business, but the business strategy works for any home-made/home-grown product. Think: meat, livestock, leatherwork, homemade skincare, cottage bakery, etc. Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord thy God who teacheth thee to profit, who leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. Isaiah 48:17 ​

Hi friends, Here is the monthly update from my farm! Lambing finished with a 40% increase in twinning rate. I traced the increase back to one simple adjustment. Scroll for details! ​ By the way, if you requested my $100k Farm Business plan today and had trouble with the download, click the button below and you’ll be taken directly to the Business Plan Video at my blog: $100k Farm Business Plan I shared about my massive canning project in MY LATEST VIDEO. I have had questions about the tools, recipe books, and supplies I used, so I created a spreadsheet with all the resources. Click the button below to access it: Canning Meat Resources (feel free to hit “reply” to let me know if the list is missing anything!) Spring grazing is about to kick off! For about 2-3 weeks prior to launching my spring grazing program, I park my flock in one spot. This gives the tender spring pasture a head start before my sheep start to graze it intesively. ​ I try to choose a low quality area of pasture to “park” the flock. This allows all of the nutrients from the hay I feed to fertilize areas that need it most. ​ I must use the netting to contain the flock during this time period. Once those juicy green sprouts pop up on the other side of the electric fence, it is almost impossible to convince them to stay behind the polytape and eat hay. 🤣 My twinning rate increased by 40% this year, which was amazing (no grain or feed inputs at all)! I traced the increase back to the fact that I mowed my pastures in June. This put over-mature forage back into it’s growth-stage and dramatically improved the flock’s performance. If you are a beginner interested in Raising Meat Sheep (on 30 acres or less), I wrote the Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture for you! BUY w/ FREE SHIPPING -the Shepherdess Yes, the Lord will give what is good; And our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before Him, And shall make His footsteps our pathway. Psalm 85:12-13 ​

Heads up! I’m hosting a (free) livestream Q+A with Karl Ebel tomorrow night (Thursday at 7 PM CST)! Karl Ebel has been regenerative-ranching meat goats and beef cattle for 20+ years. We will be discussing low-input systems for beef cattle (as well as meat goats) and answering your questions live! JOIN US! (If you cannot join us live, register anyway for a link to the replay) Hope to see you there! -the Shepherdess p.s. Get to know Mr. Karl by watching my previous livestream with him HERE.​ “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Cor. 12:9

Hi friends, Time for the monthly farm update! The winter storm rolled through and everyone stayed pretty cozy. Meanwhile, I completed a unique project (scroll for more). 🥩 ​ Quick note: For those waiting for breeding stock, I plan to have 2 breeding-ready rams for sale tomorrow night. Click the button below to be notified about availability: Notify me about Breeding Rams! This month I took on a unique project. I converted roughly 500lb of meat into shelf stable, meals ready to eat. ​ This meat was the accumulation of a couple of years: meat that is amazing quality but not marketable (eg. a grass-fed sheep that is too old to market as lamb or home-butchered meat that can’t be sold to the public). ​ I am excited to share a video of this process with you, including recipes (hoping to publish on the channel by the end of the month). This was my first time canning and preserving food. I enjoyed the learning process. I might not recommend making 500lb of meat your first pressure-canning project, but rest assured you can do it if you have to 😅. I ended up with 220 jars (or 617 meals worth) of finished product. I lost about 8 jars due to rookie mistakes, but those still remained edible – just not shelf stable. ​ I now have Lamb Stew, Taco Filling, BBQ Sandwich Meat, Teriyaki, Stroganoff, and MORE stashed on the shelf. ​ My version of fast food and a great backup for the grocery store the next time the world shuts down.😅 ​ ​ I emptied my freezer just in time to fill it again with a new round of market lambs! ​ January’s lambs finished out nicely. Average finish weight for this group was 95lb with a carcass yield of around 50% – super pleased with these numbers! (reminder: click here if you are looking for a breeding ram from these genetics) ​ Due to low quality winter pasture I supplemented this group at a rate of 1.5-2lb per head per day during December and January. The supplement was a 50-50 mix of whole oats and alfalfa pellets. ​ 🥩 Click to join my waitlist for Dorper Meat Boxes! If you are interested in raising your own meat sheep, buy my book for beginners: the Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture ​ ​ Buy the Book (w/ free shipping) Stay the course, -the Shepherdess “…yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me.” Psalm 52:1-2

Hi friends, Better late than never: MERRY CHRISTMAS and a Happy New Year :). I am on my annual 7 week social-media fast…. but I always leave leeway for email updates during the break 😉. ​ Here is what’s happening behind the scenes (with 2 books I am loving right now at 30% off). This month I learned how to use my meat saw. This one is on sale for $80 off right now. ​ (nope, I’m not earning commissions on that link, but if sharing about the discount helped you you can buy me a coffee with some of your savings.😉) BUTCHERING (the lamb and goat version) has been my go-to as I slowly learn butchering side of shepherding. ​Buy the book for 30% off (and free shipping) HERE.​ BUTCHERING Book Lambing season kicked off (yep, winter lambing is a Texas advantage). Twinning rate is way up and ewe lambs are leading on a 9-1 ratio! This is good news for those on my waitlist for ewe lambs! I plan to open reservations for breeding stock in February. ​ Prayers for Lazarus (the little guy not standing) would be appreciated. I found him 1/2 frozen and the verdict is still out as to whether or not he will “come forth”. It takes 12-18 gallons of quality milk to raise one lamb. (which translates to about $250 per lamb when I buy goat milk at retail) Instead of buying milk, I use 2 dairy goats to build up a milk bank over summer. These girls definitely earn their keep! Raising Goats Naturally has been my favorite book for Dairy Goats. Buy the book for 30% off (and free shipping) HERE.​ ​ Raising GOATS Book ​ Keep at it, everyone. ❤️ -the Shepherdess “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Phil. 4:19

If you are like me, you are… ahem… a bit last minute. 🎁 So in honor of you (and me 😉) I am hosting a FLASH SALE on select homestead books, children’s books, and STOCKING STUFFERS: $2 and $7 with $10 FLAT RATE PRIORITY SHIPPING! HURRY, order deadline is THURSDAY at 12pm! ​ I plan to ship everything on Thursday afternoon via PRIORITY MAIL. While I cannot guarantee USPS service standards, I will be packing and shipping for best chance for delivery by Christmas!!! ​ SHOP NOW! ​ $7 Homestead Books ​ ​ $7 Hats and Tees ​ $2 Stocking Stuffers $7 Children’s Books ​ “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” James 1:17

This video shares 3 business tips for new farmers from Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farms model!

1 HOUR INTERVIEW WITH Joel Salatin: https://bit.ly/2022atPolyface

Finding Lease Land using onX:    • HOW TO FIND LEASE LAND FOR FARMING & RANCH…  

Join my Newsletter: http://bit.ly/ShepherdessNWSLTR

SALAD BAR BEEF BOOK: https://bit.ly/SBBeefBOOK

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How to Go Full Time in Farming (from the Polyface Farm Business Model)

There are three primary challenges small farms face today if they want to be profitable — not just an expensive hobby:

1. Access to land
2. Human resources
3. Cashflow

During my visit to Polyface Farm, I saw firsthand how Joel Salatin’s unique business model tackles all three of these obstacles. In this post, I’m going to show you how the Polyface example can help beginner farmers break through these same barriers.

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How Polyface Inspired My Own Farm Journey

When I first jumped into agriculture, Joel Salatin’s book Salad Bar Beef gave me the confidence that I could raise livestock profitably on just 30 acres — even as a complete beginner.

I read that book nearly six years ago. Three years later, I went full-time in agriculture on my own 30-acre enterprise. I had zero prior experience, and while my journey took a turn away from beef and toward sheep (a better fit for small acreage), I scaled my revenue and built a full-time farm by mirroring key parts of the Polyface model — not just the meat production side, but also Salatin’s value-added enterprises.

For those unfamiliar, the Polyface business model is radically different from the conventional farm model. Joel routinely catches criticism from the “farm establishment,” largely because he refuses to leave money on the table. Polyface isn’t just a meat farm — it’s also an agritourism hub, an educational platform, and a mentorship ecosystem.

Small farmers willing to follow this example quickly discover something powerful:
Inviting people to interact with your farm not only widens margins — it fulfills a deep cultural hunger for connection to land.

As you read through these three challenges and three Polyface-inspired solutions, I encourage you to identify at least one unconventional idea you can apply to your own farm. Drop a comment telling me which one resonates most with you.

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1. Land Access: Getting a Foot in the Door

The price of land today makes it nearly impossible for a beginner to purchase acreage outright — at least, not with farming income alone. Thankfully, Salatin highlights three practical pathways for securing land access without shelling out hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Option 1: Steward Family Land

Landowners are aging, and many end up selling only because no one is willing to carry their vision forward. This was my route.
I don’t own my farm. I lease 30 acres of family land for my sheep enterprise.
It has been a win-win: I have access to land I could never afford to purchase, and my family has someone maintaining the property.

Option 2: Lease Land from Strangers

This option is similar to the first — just without the family connection.
I’ve secured several short-term leases this way (I’ll link the full step-by-step video below). Yes, cold-calling landowners is uncomfortable… but you get over it.
My method:

• Use OnX Hunt to find the landowner’s name
• Track down a phone number through community connections or
• Send a letter requesting a lease

Option 3: Inheritance

This is the least common path — most of us aren’t inheriting hundreds of acres.
Joel himself took over Polyface from his father, who purchased it as a worn-out, degraded piece of land. Joel chose to carry forward his father’s vision and build upon it. That willingness to steward legacy is often lacking today, which is one reason many landowners choose to sell rather than leave property to their children.

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2. Human Resources: Solving the Labor Crunch

New farmers often start with enthusiasm, juggle every role themselves, and burn out within a few years. The Polyface model solves this through a self-feeding labor pipeline built around two components:

1. Seasonal mentorship programs (“Stewards”)
2. A small core of year-round staff

The Steward program brings in young people to live and work on the farm during the busiest season: late spring through early fall. These individuals gain hands-on experience and contribute enormous labor value exactly when the farm needs it most.

Stewards work for room, board, food, and mentorship rather than cash — and the very best are sometimes invited to join the full-time paid staff.

This model is ingenious, sustainable, and absolutely repeatable — even for tiny farms.

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3. Cashflow: The Polyface Superpower

Cashflow is my favorite topic — and the one I studied most closely while building my own enterprise.

Polyface is not a commodity farm. They don’t sell grain to elevators or livestock at auction. Instead, they operate a direct-to-consumer meat business, selling:

• Pork
• Chicken
• Eggs
• Lamb
• Turkeys
• Rabbits

These are sold through online ordering and local buying clubs, with scheduled delivery drops in affluent, health-conscious communities in Virginia.

But what really widens their margins is the value-added enterprise stack layered on top:

• A farm store with merch and local goods
• “Lunatic Tours” at $25 per person
• Multi-day on-farm seminars
• Self-published books (over 100k copies sold)
• Paid speaking engagements

Not all of us are Joel Salatin–level personalities, so some of these opportunities may not translate directly.
But after interviewing Joel in 2021, I challenged myself to see how many I could adapt as a complete nobody — a brand-new farmer with no credentials.

Here’s what that looked like for me:

• Instead of a physical farm store → I built an online store with handcrafted merch
• Instead of weekly on-farm tours → I publish weekly YouTube videos (digital agritourism)
• Instead of hosting on-farm seminars → I host live online workshops
• And I self-published a book on sheep farming

All of these became meaningful revenue streams that buffer my farm income through the ups and downs of startup life.

If you can find even one unique income stream outside raw food sales — a value-added product, an educational angle, or a digital version of agritourism — your farm’s cashflow becomes far more resilient.

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Ready to Take the Next Step?

If you want to see exactly how I scaled from $0 to $100k on a 30-acre beginner farm, watch the next video where I break down the entire process step-by-step.

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Hi Friends, This farm update includes some long-awaited info. My Fall Lamb and Starter Flock sale kicks off this month! Click the button below to receive exclusive email updates about my Autumn Sheep Sale: Notify me! (Unless you tap the button above you will not receive any updates on sheep for sale… make sure and click!) For the past 5 years I have culled hard for 4 characteristics: Parasite resistance, good maternal traits, hoof health, and meaty frames on pasture only. This year a 5th trait is really emerging: uniformity. It is super encouraging to see such a notable consistency in frame (meatiness), lowline, and hair coat within the flock. Fall lambing is underway! Due to a breeding-glitch that happened back in May, my fall lambing season is a bit smaller than usual… but the new additions are looking great! If you have been waiting to buy lambs or a Complete Starter Flocks from my farm, be sure to tap the button below to be notified once the livestock sale launches! NOTIFY ME! I added the last of the inventory to the $10 tee sale!! We filled all the orders from the August rush, then added leftovers to the site. This is the end of my tee shirt collection until at least 2026, so grab yours!! $10 Tee Sale ​ More to come :), -the Shepherdess “The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.” Nahum 1:3

Hi friends, There is a saying that goes: ​ “If you know your enemy and yourself (God), you will not be imperiled in a thousand battles.” (yes, I updated the original saying a bit, but the principle applies regardless 😄) ​ 🪱As you raise sheep on pasture, internal parasites (worms) to be one of your biggest enemies. ​ In fact, worms killed half of our flock in our first 2 years as beginner farmers (yep, ouch!). ​ Today, however, worms are no longer a major issue. To keep parasites at bay, I use a combination of: Management Practices Natural Deworming Methods Conventional Deworming Methods Tomorrow I am going to share all of my practices! Come with your questions because there will be LIVE Q+A at the end! ​ Special bonus: I vet-tested the viral “Lye as Livestock Dewormer” concept and will be sharing the results from the veterinary office at the end of the livestream (as well as the potential risks of using lye as a dewormer): 🪱 REGISTER (Worms 101) Much of this info will apply to goats as well as sheep. 🐐 If you are unable to attend live, please register anyway and you will receive a replay. ​ There is a room size limit of 150, so please log-on early to secure one of the LIVE seats. All registrants will receive a replay! ​ To support these free monthly meetups please consider one (or both) of the following: Make a donation via Buy Me a Coffee​ Buy a copy of my book: the Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture​ ​ I look forward to seeing you tomorrow (7pm CST)! -the Shepherdess ​ “The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Psalm 24:1 *DISCLAIMER: I am not a veterinary professional. Please do not attend this meetup in search of (or to supplement) professional veterinary advice. I will be sharing based on experience from my own farm.

🎉📚 MY BOOK’S 2nd BIRTHDAY EVENT IS LIVE!! (Shepherdess Dorpers Ceramic Mug to the first 10 book orders, and the $30k Side Hustle Planner comes WITH EVERY BOOK*!!) ORDER NOW! Birthday week bonuses:🎉 (Bonuses start in for all orders after 8am CST on 8/15 and are granted on a first-come basis) First 10 orders receive a Shepherdess Ceramic Mug. First 20 orders receive a “THINK BIG” Notebook & Pen Set. First 50 orders receive the $30k Side Hustle Planner (a simple business planner + video course) First 80 orders Receive a signed copy. FREE SHIPPING ALL WEEK. Keep in mind, the first 10 orders will receive all of the above in ONE MEGA BUNDLE… there are some serious perks this year!!!🎉🎉🎉 ORDER NOW! Already own the book, but want access to the $30k Side Hustle Planner? Leave a review at the website and I will email you a digital copy! LEAVE a Review *Offer runs while supplies last or until 8/21. For a look at how the book came together, watch this video! The Basics of Raising Sheep Book is 100% printed and constructed in the USA!⬇️⬇️ -the Shepherdess “So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” 1 Cor. 3:7

Hi Friends, ​ It is time for the Monday Briefing! I am pretty excited about this month’s 🎙️COMPLETION PRIZE, so scroll for info!! ​ ASSIGNMENT SUMMARY: We are in week number 1 of Month 5! In our final months of Bootcamp I am going to be unpacking my entire Content Marketing Strategy for you. ​ This week, I am addressing the importance of a Service-based Mindset in Marketing: Lesson 1 in Month 5: Marketing Mindset & Messaging VIEW ASSIGNMENT (be sure you are logged in when clicking this button or you will see “not enrolled”) ​ Good Marketing is founded on 3 principles, primarily: Addressing the motive rather than promoting the product. (as counter-intuitive as that sounds) Speaking always and only to your ideal customer. Delivering value first: serve before you sell. Principle #3 has been the most important for my business: serve before you sell. ​ In my first year of marketing, I was giving my customer base a lot more than I was receiving. ​ I “gave” in 3 primary ways: A variety of (valuable) Opt-in Offers. Educational Blog Posts and Videos. Product Samples. These were ways of giving that were tied into my Lead Capture strategy (the one that I taught you in Phase 2), so it was a win-win… but the premise is the same: I had to give before I could ask… ​ and it paid off… By the time I had products ready to sell, I had an email list of people that I had been serving (through a free resource, videos about my flock, and educational blog post)… ​ …and these people were warmed up ready to buy. ​ This is also why I suggest that you start marketing before your product is ready to sell. The warm-up process takes time :). ​ 🌱 What a soil base and a customer base have in common… As regenerative farmers, we know that a soil base usually requires that we give it something before we pull a harvest out of it. The same principle applies with to a customer base. Constantly taking is never a winning strategy. The size of our harvest typically relies on the strength of our input… ​ More on a how to establish a Service Based Mindset in Marketing in Assignment 1: VIEW ASSIGNMENT COMMUNITY UPDATES: PODCAST IS UPDATED! I have updated the member-only podcast with: ​Month 5’s Live Coaching Instruction (an easy way to listen on the go). Here is how to add the Member-Only Podcast to your Podcast Library: COPY this URL: https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1461007.rss​ Open your podcast Library Click the 3-dots in the upper right corner Select “Follow Show by URL” PASTE. ​ COMPLETION PRIZES for Month 5: All students to complete this month’s assignments will be entered into a drawing for one RODE NT-USB Mini USB PODCASTING Microphone. This connects to your laptop or tablet and is ideal for Podcasting and recording audio narration for YouTube videos. As a reminder: completion prizes are a fun incentive to stay focused, not an encouragement to rush :). ​ Keep at it, slow and steady! -the Shepherdess ​ “And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: And establish thou the work of our hands upon us; Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.” Psalm 90:17 ​ Earnings Disclaimer: Every effort is made to equip you with the tools and strategies you need to reach specific financial goals. However, there is no guarantee that you will earn money using the classes I provide for you. God alone gives the increase and will dictate whether you are profitable or not. This education comes with no warranties or guarantees. By participating you agree that you understand this earnings disclaimer. ​