(6/29/16) Still learning...
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Imagine Shepherdess Jen, sitting down with her morning cup of coffee, thinking about what to tell you all about this time...a heavy sigh emits from deep within...she takes another drink of coffee...
Have you ever had days where you feel like you ROCK...where you make the right decisions...where everything you touch turns to gold? Yeah, that's not what I'll be writing about today.
Instead, have you ever had times when you feel like everything you touch turns to garbage? Where you can look back and plot the poor decisions you've made, then draw a line connecting all of those little dots of doom, until your finished product looks like a child's dot-to-dot puzzle gone really wrong?
Yeah, that's what I'll be writing about today.
1. Rotational Grazing
When you have a flock of grazing animals, it's very important that you pay attention to the pasture to make sure that it's not being grazed down too far. A good rule of thumb is to let them into the pasture when the grasses are 6-8" high, then let them graze it down until it's no shorter than 2-1/2", then move them to another section of pasture, allowing the previous section to grow back. I knew this - I learned last year that they will graze down a pasture very quickly, so I needed to be ready to move them into new pastures (which meant making sure we had adequate shade shelters for these other pastures as there are no shade trees in them). I had a plan - I swear, I had a plan!
But you see, last fall, we allowed them to become yard sheep. And we continued to allow them to be yard sheep...all winter long and into the spring, they were yard sheep. Even when their beautiful, lush pasture (that they originally started in last spring and grazed down) was ready for grazing, what did I do? Allowed them to be yard sheep. Which means their beautiful, lush pasture didn't get grazed, and I didn't realize until it was too late that it is now shot for the year - it's totally gone to seed and the sheep won't eat it.
We've tried making them stay in their pasture, but they won't graze. Now, please understand - I know they're spoiled. And perhaps they will eat it if I make them stay in there - but sheep know, for the most part, what's good for them - what tastes right - what they need to be eating. And if they're not eating this, there's a reason - all of the taste, the nutritional value, everything good about it, is gone for the year.
The upside to this is that I learned a very valuable lesson - my sheep are not pets, they are livestock. I know this is shocking to read, and please don't tell the sheep - but I have to stop treating them like dogs in the backyard. It doesn't change how much I love and adore them - it merely changes how I have to interact with and care for them.
2. The Perils of Yard Sheep
As I've previously noted, having yard sheep doesn't work well. It means they want to eat the bushes, tree branches, and all of the yummy variety of things in the yard as opposed to their pasture. It means that some of them get it into their woolly heads that they are King of the Yard (I won't name names...but he's a wether...that's all I'll say) and can treat their owners like the help. And it means that if you happen to have a set of concrete steps leading down to a concrete patio that the sheep really love clip-clopping up and down, accidents can happen...and Mikey got hurt pretty badly on these steps. Imagine falling down a set of concrete steps with your hands tied behind your back...that's what happened to him, and it breaks my heart that he got hurt like this. My dear son noticed that he was covered in pine needles and junk, so he came in and said, "Mom, I think Mikey fell down the stairs outside." I was skeptical because he is always rubbing on the trees, so figured that stuff was what Iain was talking about...nope. Not only did he have a large amount of pine tree mess on him, but his poor face was scraped up - big scrapes across his eyelid, under his eye, on top of his head...it was bad. The kids and my husband held him while I cleaned him up, and I had our vet come out and check on him the next day to make sure all was well. Other than scrapes and a black eye - yep, sheep can get black eyes - he's doing fine and healing up.
So the Trio will no longer be yard sheep...oh, the disappointed little faces...but doing what is best for the livestock is the right thing to do. Yes, I said it...the livestock (a second heavy sigh emits from deep within).
3. The Importance of Minerals
Sheep, like humans, need vitamins and minerals, and what they can't get from food, they need to get from their mineral supplements. Icelandics are a bit different from other breeds in that they need a lot more copper in their diet. Many breeds of sheep will die from copper poisoning, but Icelandics need it, so when I brought them home from Lee's, I fed them the same mineral supplement with added copper that they always got from her. At first, I mixed their salt, minerals, and kelp (Icelandics also need kelp) all together in their feeders, and they ate it - at least, the levels were going down, and we had to refill it occasionally. So at least one of them was eating it, and hopefully, all of them were getting some. But then I was told by somebody that everything should be separated out - the salt in one feeder, the minerals in another, and the kelp in a third. So I did that. That's when the levels stopped dropping, except for the salt. But to be honest, I just didn't really notice it that much. There was so much to pay attention to and figure out over the course of our first winter with sheep that I just didn't monitor the supplement feeders like I should have. Only recently did I figure out that they just aren't eating their minerals - and only recently did I discover that this oddball change in Black Velvet's fleece color is due to copper deficiency:
See those beigey-brownish patches on either side of the dorsal stripe down her back? Yup...copper deficiency. As with Mikey's injury, I got a sick feeling inside - how could I let this happen? How could I not notice they weren't eating their minerals? WHY did I change what was working (salt/minerals/kelp mixed together)??? Because now I can mix until the cows come home, but they want nothing to do with their old mineral mix. I've also tried some new minerals that an Icelandic shepherd in Oregon gave me this past weekend - nope. So I've done two things that I am praying will help turn this around - first, I've placed an order for Copasure, which is a copper capsule for sheep and goats. I can open one of these up, pour the powder into molasses, mix it up really well, spread it on a piece of bread, and before she knows it, Black Velvet will have downed a dose of copper that should get her levels back up to normal. I need to consider whether or not to give them to the other two - Panda Bear is quite a bit smaller than her sister, so I hesitate giving her too much copper. I want to do some comparisons between her coloring now and this time last year. And I think Mikey would be fine having a dose, but I am unsure whether or not he needs it, so I'll do some more research before giving one to him. The second thing I'm doing, and which helped to make me feel like I haven't totally flunked as a shepherd, is adding a little bit of sweet feed on top of the minerals. I tried this for the first time this morning, and...drum roll, please...IT WORKED! They couldn't avoid the minerals - they were so busy gobbling up the sweet feed, they were also gobbling up the minerals!
I can't begin to tell you how much this small victory meant to me this morning! Just knowing that I figured something out to help them be healthier made an enormous difference in my self-confidence. I want to do right by them - they give me wool, of course, but they also give us so much joy, and I want to make sure that we're giving back to them as well.
So every morning, they will be taken out to the pasture you see above...there is a lovely new sun shade, courtesy of my talented husband who rigged it up for the sheepies...and every morning, they will receive a little bit of sweet feed with their minerals. When this pasture is done, they will be rotated down into the next pasture, and by that time, there should be a 4th sheep in the mix...DAISY! Despite my worries...my insecurities...I know I can learn to do this better, and I still plan to grow my wee flock into a slightly larger wee flock!
Thank you, as always, for reading! I will leave you with my view this morning, as I stood at the bottom of the pasture and watched them graze...my sweet woolly (livestock) babies!
Postscript (6/15/17) - There is so much wrong with this blog post, which I recognize now. But then, hindsight is always 20/20. The biggest mistake I made was listening to one person about the Copasure and Black Velvet's coloring being due to copper deficiency. I should have talked to Lee...I should have contacted the WSU Veterinary Hospital for advice before administering something as potentially lethal as copper. I am grateful that I didn't lose a sheep because of the copper, but part of me will always think it is an odd coincidence that Mikey died so soon after the copper debacle. Despite what the necropsy results said, I can't help but feel responsible. So please...if you are a new-to-sheep shepherd, take this post with an enormous grain of salt. Know your soil - know your breed - do research! And if you have any questions at all, please let me know - if I don't have the answers, I will help you find them!
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