help a newbie planning for sheep please?

[ohiogoatgirl]

i am in the research/planning/saving stage and am wondering some things about how i will be feeding my sheep once i get them
i was just reading over this thread: http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=11773&p=1

so some questions:
~i am thinking to have a few acres fenced off and rotate the sheep through them to keep them from overgrazing any one spot. but not sure yet exactly how i'm doing this. i am still deciding on things like having the ram in with the ewes all year and only seperating during lambing or to have another pasture(s) setup for the ram and wether herd and just putting the ram in for breeding then back to the "boys club" herd lol.
~i am hoping to be able to fence enough pasture that i only need to grain them during breeding and lambing. so how many sheep per acre?
~is there any sort of estimation i can use to see how much hay i need per sheep for the winter? having them on a winter pasture and free feeding hay.
~anyone have pics i can see of y'alls sheep hay feeders? and what you like or dislike about them? i have goats and am doodling some designs for sheep hay feeders to minimize waste hopefully. but wondering about dimensions and things too.
~thinking possibly growing things in the pastures... like the winter pasture will get lots of manure so i could till it in spring and plant it with (pumpkin, sunflower, indian corn, etc? suggestions welcome!) and keep them off that pasture until fall after i harvest. then they will have the spent plants and some goodies for fall/winter eating. thoughts on this?

any thoughts or suggestions are more then welcome!

 

[SheepGirl]

1. My sheep used to live at my neighbor's farm before he moved and we had a continuous grazing system set up. The smaller the flock, the less they would roam away from the barn to graze (the 9 head flock only stayed in the front pasture, about 8 acres, while the back pasture, about 10 acres, wasn't touched by them even though the gate was open). When you have a larger flock, they have more confidence and they venture out farther (when the flock was up to 40 ewes, they would make their way to the back pasture and graze).

Right now I also have a continuous grazing system set up and as of yet, I have no intention of doing rotational grazing. I plan to have my ram on a dry lot (other than breeding season) unless we can set up a pasture for him away from the ewe flock.

Sheep will graze in a pattern and will graze this way every day. At my neighbor's farm during the cool months, in the morning, they would start in/around the barn and make their way to the back pasture and make a big circle there and then move to the back half of the front pasture by 5 pm. By then I would be down feeding and I would call them in and they would come in running. When they were done eating, they would head back out and only graze in the front pasture, and make a big circle around the place. When it got dark out they would go back in the barn or lay in the grass surrounding the barn. During the hot months, sheep would stop grazing around 10 or 11 am and make their way back to the barn until after 5 pm, when I would chase them out of the barn to graze after feeding.

I'm still trying to figure out my sheep's grazing pattern at my house I have found that in the mornings when I go out to feed they are grazing, but by 10:30/11 am they go and rest in the shade for a couple hours and then they graze off and on throughout the day and then around 6 or 7 pm they go lay down right next to the water bucket.

2. The amount of sheep you can put on your pasture depends on where you live. I would call your extension agent and ask them the stocking rate per acre, or how many acres you need per animal unit. One animal unit = 1,000 lbs. The general rule of thumb is 1 ewe + her lambs = 0.2 AUs, so you can have 5 sheep per 1 animal unit. The University of Maryland recommends 1 AU/acre in the mid atlantic region.

3. At my neighbor's farm, the sheep were on pasture year round and they only got hay when there was snow on the ground (sheep can graze through snow, though). This year, I am going get another round bale (400 lbs) for winter. I don't think I will even need that much for my 5 sheep but it will be there if I do.

However, sheep require 2% of their body weight in roughage for maintenance (not breeding/gestating/lactating/growing). Usually sheep can eat at maintenance level up to the 3rd or 4th month of gestation. So basically a 150 lb ewe needs 3 lbs of hay per day, not including waste.

4. Here is a 10-head feeder I built for my sheep in shop class. It cost me $30 in materials. I like it because it does minimize waste (though my sheep, when you first put the hay out will pull it out and stare at you eating it, while dropping some on the ground) and it is easy to move (I roll it around). The only two things I don't like about it is that it gets moved around...the sheep will push up against it trying to get to the hay on the other side because they are too dumb to walk around to the other side where they can reach it better. Also my sheep don't eat all their hay by the time I go and put their grain in the feeder, so they have to dig through the hay to get to the grain.

5. Never done anything like that...but my thought would be your crops would take all the nutrients and you won't have many nutrients for the grass for your sheep to eat in the winter...and you will end up having to feed hay and/or grain.

 

[Cornish Heritage]

All I can tell you is from our own experience so hope it helps. Our rams (8 of them) are in a bachelor pasture way down the bottom except in breeding times which for St. Croix is every 8 mths. Unless the weather is really harsh we do not feed them any hay or grain.

Our ewes (43 of them) stay together in one herd until breeding time when we separate into 3-4 flocks for 2-3 mths. We do not feed grain of any kind. When we had the drought this past summer we gave them access to hay 24/7. With the grass now growing back they only have hay at night. Once the grass goes again then we will feed more hay. When on hay full time, one big square bale - 1000 to 1200lbs lasted them about 7 days, maybe 10 if the bale was bigger. Right now a bale is lasting nearly 3 weeks which is much better for our pocket book

We do bring our ewes in at night to a pasture closer to the house - probably about 2 acres.

We purchased the hay feeders from Premier this year. http://www.premier1supplies.com/detail.php?prod_id=99&criteria=sheep+feeder Although expensive they are well worth the money. Because we also run cows & pigs here we needed feeders that everyone could feed from & these have been superb. Pretty heavy duty. The one bull we had we pretty rough on one & beat it up but he is now gone & the other bull is much better! You can see what the feeder looks like made up on a blog post I wrote:

[http://blog.chventures.com/?p=4447][/url]

Our perimeter fence is woven wire BUT our internal fences are all temporary electric or Hi-Tensile & for the most part the sheep respect. Sometimes a young one will go through it but not often. We have 4 pastures here that we rotate the sheep through but not on a daily basis.

All the best,

Liz

 

[BrownSheep]

Using the winter pasture as a field would be really cool! I would things like pumpkins and turnips. Things sheep could eat the following fall/ winter.