We have 72 acres of 50/50 mix forest and pasture land. We bought 20 hair sheep today after not having them for almost a decade. Glad that were able to pick up where my dad stopped. Hopefully we can learn and become successful. Thank you for your knowledge.
You could easily graze though that buffer zone periodically and increase the rest in your pasture. Just use the electric fences a foot or so before the other fence and only leave them in there for a short time - perhaps hours. That buffer zone is still feed.
I'm surprised you aren't using temporary fencing. Watch more of Greg Judy & Joel Salatin on YT & you will learn about why you don't want to leave animals past 3 days because grass starts to regrow in 3 days. You need more like 45-60 days to reduce parasite load. If you are using temporary step in posts, you can vary your pasture size and shape to change the animal impact and improve your grazing. That 15' bufferzone is quite a huge area to not graze. I'd recommend you rethink that.
@@leelindsay5618 I've watched Greg Judy. Since my sheep come back to the barn everyday for grain and water, it's just open and close gates to change pastures which I felt was a lot easier then moving fence all the time. How many days they spend in a pasture depends on grass growth, but in many cases it's only 3 or 4 days before they move.
@@leelindsay5618 not sure what you mean by buffer zones there aren't any buffer zones. There is an alley way that leads to various pastures but no buffer zone
Lee, when you said buffer zone I thought you meant something else. Yes there is a buffer zone on one side, but the fence on the property line is not suitable for holding sheep so I can't graze the area in between fences. I thought it was easier to just build a new fence then tear out the old one, plus if my neighbors get livestock I have the buffer zone to keep them apart.
so you think you can graze the same amount of sheep on an acre in west Texas as east Texas, Colorado versus Alabama, or in my case western Nebraska versus eastern Nebraska. It's just not that simple, each part of the country is different, and in many cases each part of a state is different, so grazing rates will be different too.
Hell each part of a single farm can be radically different. Ive got acres that would quite easily support 6 or 8 or 10. I've got acres that would struggle with 2 or 3. All inside the same perimeter fence on the same farm. I'm only on 9 acres and investigating a small handful of sheep. We only do tiny "personal plate sized" dinner animals at the moment (Muscovy, Rabbit, Chicken, Turkey, Goose) Our biggest Tom Turkeys don't hit 40 pounds. Sheep seem like a nice, do-able baby-step up.
Cool video. I'm learning so much about the land, about grasses and pasture and fodder, and making all kinds of mistakes while I'm at it. Here in the PNW (Southern Oregon east of the Cascades), we're in the middle of an almighty drought. I'm trying to find homes for two more ewes so that I can get my ewes down to only 5. At the moment, I have 10 sheep and two Nubian goats. I'm going to whether my 6-horned gargoyle ram soon. I think I sort of mentally had an idea that 10 acres would support 3 horses, or 30 sheep. But alas, it doesn't even really support 12 sheep/goats. It has been exciting, however, as I'm now just past the one-year mark of having sheep, that I had all my ewes give birth, all the babies lived, and all the mums, and I've now sold 8 of the original flock, and 10 more (4 more from the original flock, and 5 babies I raised)... and yesterday I swapped out my 2 year old ram for new blood. So of the original 17 animals, I have only 4 left. It's nice to get a hobby to try to pay for itself.
Everyone's ground is different so there is no set number as to how many sheep can you raise on an acre of ground. Here we are starting our hot dry period so our cool season grasses will stop growing until it cools in the fall, then we might get a little growth before winter if we get some rain. I think active rotating will be a big help for me.
I have goats and sheep, and I didn't realize just how much forage sheep will eat. They are very similar to goats, just maybe eat a little more grass. I see all these goat grazing companies and they usually have 70% goats and 30% sheep, but what I think they really need is the opposite of that. Grazing sheep. If you have an area you want eaten down without eating all the trees and shrubs, get pastured chickens or pastured geese.
dip the wood cane for fence in Petrol or kerosene oil And use concrete to put them in the ground. the Fence can be removable so you just move the fence and the pole are permanent.
I've seen videos of people doing that. the posts I get are suppose to be pressure treated for full ground contact, but some just aren't as good as others.
Extension offices are departments located in local counties and universities. These offices are run by university employees and volunteers that are experts in local crops, landscaping, soil, gardening, pests, and more. Almost every single county in the United States has an extension office, and the offices are supported by state universities.
yes I rotational graze which allows for more sheep raised per acre, but even with rotational grazing you can only raise so many sheep on an acre of ground. I can put sheep out on 1 acre of ground, but if I split that area into 4 1/4 acres pastures that acre will be able to raise more sheep.