The Soay Sheep Chronicles

Looking for a gift for your favorite shepherd, especially a slightly clumsy one?  Can you sew a straight seam?  I have just the one-hour project for you.

Experienced shepherds, of Soay sheep or otherwise, and almost any do-it-yourselfer will sympathize with what I am about to say.  When you feed your livestock guardian dogs in the pasture, there is nothing more annoying than to have your bucket tip over, requiring a trip back to the barn for more goody.  Not the kind of catastrophic event that puts a flock in jeopardy, of course, but enough to make you grit your teeth and who needs that?

Same thing if you are in the midst of a home fixup project, your selection of nails-in-old-coffee-cans is sitting on the workbench, and your sweatshirt sleeve knocks a couple of them over onto the floor.  Or you are trying to repair a fence and your can of fence staples tips over in the lush pasture grass.

Wouldn’t you rather have a no-cost, tip-proof container for this stuff?

Luckily, as with so many other aspects of keeping a flock of Soay sheep, help is readily at hand, this time in the form of a square-bottomed cloth bag, a transportation system for your dog food or nails that cannot tip over and spill.  Here are two of our dogs’ “stockings” filled with half their daily ration and ready for the evening feed:

As you can see, Chuy and Isaac’s stockings are tip-proof.  You just pick them up and off you go. 
 
Why don’t these bags fall over and spill?  The secret is in the square-shaped bottom end, illustrated by Isaac’s upended stocking: 

The bottom really is more or less a square, and whatever its geometrically accurate name, that bottom surface keeps it upright just fine.  In fact, when the top of a longer bag droops over, it helps keep out rain, dust, and inquisitive border collie noses. 

The ideal raw material is old jeans, so heavily worn that the owner can no longer go out in public in them (holes you-know-where) or torn enough to make them unsafe to wear near moving machinery parts.  And there is a side benefit.  If you do not make bags out of them, you eventually will have to throw the jeans away, so these sewing projects should qualify as “green” even though they are a sorry excuse for blue.  Here is a good example of a recent candidate for reinicarnation.

The only other materials you need are a sewing machine, a few straight pins, and any color thread.   No zigzag or button hole or other “foots” to discourage the novice seamstress in this project.

Before I launch into the illustrated directions for making a square-bottomed feed/nails sack, a credit is in order.  We adapted this idea from generations of rock climbers, including Steve in his younger, more agile days, who use stuff sacks to keep their carabiners, pitons, ropes, and legendarily minimal toiletries organized in their backpacks.  You can still find this kind of sack in outdoor gear stores, but you will pay a relative arm and leg for them, and why not use your own free jeans legs instead?

Making the Saltmarsh All-Purpose Carrier

Step 1.  Cut one leg off the jeans, leaving the bottom hem intact, or what passes for intact.  An initial length of about 14 inches will yield a bag about 10 inches tall that easily can hold a quart and a half of dry dog food or a coffee-can’s worth of nails and still have enough fabric to grab onto. 
 
 

Step 2.  Turn the severed leg inside out and lay it flat with the existing side seams more or less forming the edges.  If you are using a tapered jeans leg, this will not be an exact science. 

Sew the open end (not the already-hemmed bottom edge of the leg) shut with a plain straight seam about one inch from the raw edge.  Here’s what the prepped material looks like and how you sew it: 

Step 3.   The goal now is to create a box-shaped bottom that will not tip over.  First, put the new seamed edge in front of you running vertically — up and down. 
 
Grasp some material on either side of the seam and pull outwards to form a diamond/box shape.
 

You want to turn the pointed ends at the top and bottom of the diamond into the sides of a square, which, when you turn it back rightside out will form a box.  Take my word for it, please.

Figure out where you can hem crosswise to create the sides for your box.  In the following picture, I have marked with a black dotted line the two “sides” you will create by sewing these two new seams.  I recommend you mark yours as well, unless your dogs will be offended at having the seams of their stockings show.  We girls endured black-seamed stockings for decades without permanent emotional damage, as I recall.   

Now sew each of the marked seams.  You will be sewing through quite a bit of heavy fabric, so use a heavy needle and your trusty straight pins. 

 
Be patient and gently work the machine through the material.  Don’t forget to sew both seams.

  
 
Here is what it looks like, still wrong side out, when both “sides” have been made.  For reference, I marked the very first straight seam with a wiggly line so you can see how the various seams fit together.

Once you’ve got both seams done, turn the whole thing right side out again.  Nudge the fabric into the corners to see if you have made two decent-looking square corners.  We’re not talking engineering precision here, just something that will work.

Step 4.  To check your work and my directions, fill the bag with some rocks or beans to be sure it is stable.  Hint:  it will be!

To tidy up the inside of your new stocking and leave more room for goodies, turn it inside out one more time and trim off the extra hunks of material, always leaving about an inch of material outside the seam so it will not ravel.  
 

Be careful, of course, not to cut off the working parts , or you will dribble dog food down the lane and have nothing left for your loyal protectors to eat. 

  
 
Turn the whole thing right side out one final time, wrap it with festive Santa wrapping paper, an artsy bow, and you’re all set. 

Accessorizing your stocking.  What, you thought I was going to stop at the basic bag?  Not a chance. 

Monograms.  If you have two or more dogs who eat different kinds or amounts of food, or more than one kind of nail, you can make a good-enough identifying monogram by cutting an initial (as in “i” for Isaac or “C” for Chuy) from any contrasting scrap of cloth you have lying around.  Sew it on near the open end of the bag, high enough to let you slip the open end of the bag over the sleeve arm of your sewing machine. 

This one would work nicely for oatmeal for the birds, or a sack of “O” rings if you are putting together your own satellite.  

Drawstrings.  In the days of yore, pre-velcro, the climbers’ stuff sacks had drawstrings with jim-dandy clamp-like things to keep them shut.  Are you are going for the Martha Stewart award here?  If so, you can add rickrack, or use extra jeans legs for fireplace sachets (I am not making this up), or you can add drawstrings by cutting off the hemmed bottom edge of the jeans and making your own open-ended, tube-like hem, with those little slits for threading through a drawstring, etc.  Personally, I would rather clean gutters than thread drawstrings through anything, much less a jeans leg, but if you’ve got a good movie to watch, have at it. 

Once you figure out how to make these bags, you can crank them out in assembly line fashion and have a selection of sizes to pick from when you need to take a handful of insulators, a few nails, and a spool of electric tape out to work on your fence, or when you need to take a couple of irrigation pipe fittings and a small or medium-sized wrench or two out to a malfunctioning riser or rainbird.  And when the winter rains or snow arrive in earnest, you can fritter away whole days re-organizing your nails, nuts and bolts, screws, all those PVs (Potentially Valuables) in your tool shed.

If I don’t get back here before the end of the year, may your Christmas stocking be coal-free and not tip over.

Happy holidays!

By the time we discovered Soay sheep, we already lived on a farm with a huge old dairy barn.  At first, it seemed a waste to raise animals too small to take full advantage of our cavernous barn.  But we soon realized that little sheep can co-exist quite nicely with a very tall, very wide structure.

We should all look so good well past our hundredth birthdays.  There is quite a story to the restoration of this handsome structure, but that’s for another day.  Back to the utility of a big barn for raising Soay sheep.

As our flock grew and grew and grew, we were glad we had ready-made storage for the many tons of hay it takes to feed all those hungry mouths in winter.

I’m sorry I do not have a camera with a lens sufficient to capture the haystack top to bottom, but at least you can see how to make use of the tall center section of an old dairy barn.

If you have a barn, it will come in handy for both housing and working your Soay sheep.  Although legendary for their hardiness, if the truth be known our sheep like getting out of the heavy rain and occasional snow here in Southern Oregon.  In our climate, sheep also need protection from the sun during the hot, dry summer months.  Barns also can function as predator control.  Sheep trained to follow you into a barn each night are safe from coyotes, cougars, and whatever other animals lurk about hoping for rack of Soay on their menu. 

When it comes time for annual tetanus vaccinations, hoof trims, or periodic worming, having a barn will give you both an enclosed small space (for example, the old milking stalls) to actually work the animals, plus a secure place to store your supplies:  a camp stool for you, a sheep chair for particularly large rams, extra “hog” panels for nudging your flock into the work area, and almost any old discarded cabinet-like affair for storing the little stuff.

What if you do not have a barn?  Pretend.  Treat a small shelter as a barn.  A square roofed shelter with even two enclosed sides (made of old plywood, for example) can double as your working and sun protection area.  Here’s an example.  Even though the sheep (and baby llama Hank) are grazing a section of pasture some distance from the shelter, Steve has left a path for the animals to reach the shelter, where they can get out from under the sun, have access to their mineral feeder, and find water (the tank is barely visible in front of the shelter, left side).

If you give the shelter four high sides and just one door and your flock is small, the shelter can serve as night protection as well.  Voilá!  You’ve got yourself a reasonable facsimile of a barn.   True, the shelter will not give you the same warm, fuzzy feeling as a barn redolent of new-mown hay, but then again, the shelter will cost a whole lot less and will not take up as much valuable pasture space, either.

Author’s note:  This post began life as a 10-minute exercise in “just getting started” at a recent farm writers’ workshop sponsored by Oregon State University.  You never know where you are going to find blog material.
 
For now …

Remember when you were growing up and your mom or dad nagged at you to take your daily mineral-fortified vitamin pill?  Here is good news.  You never have to nag your sheep about mineral; you just have to keep their mineral feeder full and I promise they will eat enough to keep them healthy.

You say you did not take your vitamins and you turned out just fine anyway?  How nice for you.  The same cannot be said for your Soay sheep.  Pastured animals — cows, goats, sheep, horses — need mineral.  Why?  Because they cannot range and graze far and wide to find naturally occurring outcrops of mineral-rich rocky deposits where they can lick up the mineral nutrients they need, just like their ancestors did.

So what is this “mineral” that you must provide to your sheep?  Mainly it is salt, plain old sodium chloride, common salt.  But other things are added, too.  What gets added, and in what proportions, depends on the kind of animal and on the part of the country you live in.  This brings me to two particularly critical components of sheep mineral that I want to talk about next.

First, copper.  Sheep need copper, just like other farm mammals do.  But sheep have adapted to life in regions where levels of naturally occurring copper are very low, and they did this by becoming very efficient at taking up and retaining the copper.  So all the copper they need in their mineral these days is a very low dose – a trace, if you will.  Mineral formulated for other animals (e.g., cattle) has much higher levels of coppe.  If you give this relatively copper-rich formula to your Soay sheep, they will not be able to handle the copper load and it will accumulate in their bodies to toxic levels.

Second, selenium.  In the Pacific Northwest where we are, and in some other areas of the U.S., there is very little selenium in the soil and thus very little in the grass.  Apparently the selenium leached out during pre-historic rains or the glaciers or some such geology-related episode.  Selenium is an essential nutrient for animals and humans alike.  Sheep in particular do poorly without it and are at risk for something called white muscle disease.  So sheep mineral in our area also includes selenium, and you should watch for it if you live in a selenium-deficient area.  Your county extension service or your large-animal vet can help you with this one.  

Bottom lines?  If you are not already providing mineral for your sheep, please go to your farm store tomorrow, get yourself a bag of mineral, and be sure it is mineral formulated for sheep.  Sheep mineral comes granulated, not in block form.  If someone tries to sell you a mineral block for your sheep, thank them politely for their time and walk away.  Why?   If the mineral is in a block, it is not formulated for sheep.  How do I know that?  Because  sheep will try to eat the block and break their teeth, and the manufacturers know that.

Mineral is suprisingly expensive, so you want to minimize waste.  Unfortunately, there are as many ways mineral can be wasted as there are wily sheep.  Mineral gets dumped on the ground, by either clumsy you or a clumsy ewe tipping over a tray of it.  Or, hmm, how to say this delicately.  Sheep have an annoying habit of backing up to mineral feeders, water tanks, and just about anything you would like to keep relatively clean, and either peeing or pooping in them.  I am not making this up.  Or the mineral gets naturally rained on and you cannot break it back apart.  See what I mean about how easy it is to waste pricey mineral?

You will need a container of some sort in which to put the mineral and a place to put it where the sheep – but not the rain, snow, or irrigation sprinklers – can get at it 24/7.  First, the container.  We probably are not the only breeders who tried to cut corners at first and simply put out trays or buckets we already had lying around the barn.  Big mistake.  Sheep tip them over, ruining all the mineral that was in the buckets, or they use the trays as their personal latrine.  In short order, the chagrined shepherd changes to a better design.  We know of two that are in common usage.  For several years, we made and used a white tubular getup that resembles the pipe configuration that leads into or out of a toilet or a sink.  Here is a picture of such an arrangement:

At first blush, this setup seems ideal.  Steve made several of these dispensers and used them more or less happily for awhile.  In theory, the sheep come and lick at the mineral in the short angled part of the apparatus and more granular mineral then drops down to the opening, like those self-feeders for dogs or cats marketed in pet stores.  This design does have the advantage of not providing a big target for the sheep’s back end, so the white PVC contraption stays pretty clean.  The problem is, it also has an annoying habit of clogging up, even if you stick a piece of rebar in it to stir the pot, as shown.  We have turned perfectly respectable mineral feeders of this design into tubes of cement-like material that defies all efforts to break it apart (the PVC breaks before the mineral does), either because we forgot to cover the top of the mineral feeder when we irrigated, or simply because the mineral eventually attracts moisture and hardens up “naturally.”  The pipe thing simply will not reliably keep the mineral flowing over the long haul.

The best alternative we have found, although by no means perfect, is a squarish green plastic container sold in any farm or feed store, and which hangs over the fence or a 2×4 or can be nailed to the wall of a shed or barn.  Here is a picture:

True, there is a larger area for the sheep to use as a toilet, but that same larger area means that if you forget and irrigate the feeder and it hardens, you can simply turn it over into a metal bucket, knock out the mineral block, and break it back apart with your trusty sledgehammer.  Or, you can place it where it will not get wet and then keep it only partly full so that what sits in the feeder for several days does not accumulate moisture and harden up.  Steve has managed to jerry-rig our square green mineral feeders in a corner of each shelter with just enough board in front to allow the sheep to crane their necks and reach the mineral but not enough to allow them to back up to the feeder, a big plus in the sanitation department.  Having the feeder wedged in the corner also means the rams cannot bash it apart when they get randy in the fall.  The next picture shows how the feeder is tucked behind a sturdy board and secured to the existing batter boards so it will not tip over or get soiled or dislodged.

Other breeders who use these feeders simply nail them to the walls of their barns or sheds high enough so the sheep cannot back up to them. I know this may sound like a lot of work, but it is not as time-consuming as I probably have made it seem, and besides, you will need a mineral feeder until you quit keeping sheep, so you may as well make one now that will last as long as your shepherding life.  The best news is that once you figure out what will work in your particular setup, all you have to do is remember to keep a supply of mineral in the feeder.  We fill old half-gallon milk containers with mineral and leave one of them hooked to a shelter beam wherever our sheep are pasturing so we don’t have to make a special trip back to the barn whenever  a green mineral feeder is empty.    However you set up your mineral feeder, you will immediately see why it is so important.  Your Soay somehow know they need mineral.  They will rush to the feeder whenever you fill it and lick to their hearts’ content.  Life should be so easy for us humans, eh?

Well I’m embarrassed.  When I put together the chart of grain amounts we feed our ewes to enhance twinning, I included amounts in both ounces and cups, most likely because I am wasting a brain cell remembering an old ditty from home ec class about measuring the dense ingredients (butter, for example) in baking:  “a pint’s a pound the world ’round.”

Not so with livestock grains; the equivalency does not work.

The sheep books I have read, and the chief shepherd here at Saltmarsh Ranch, measure in ounces.  For those of you who relied on the cup measures in my posting last month about flushing, I apologize.  You will find a corrected chart in the original post.

Hanging my head for now …

No, I am not referring to your trusty Kohler or Toto.  Flushing is shepherd lingo for increasing a ewe’s nutrition in the weeks leading up to breeding in order to trick the ewe into releasing a larger number of eggs.  Most of the sheep literature we have read, and a number of Soay breeders we know, report higher multiple birth rates if flushing is part of the pre-breeding regime.  The concept is straightforward:  ewes ovulate more readily and release more eggs if their bodies sense that times are good, that food is plentiful, and so it seems a good opportunity to raise a larger litter.  As I understand it, commercial breeders use flushing routinely.  They must have a high ratio of multiple births to make sheep-raising financially viable.

Here is how it works from the shepherd’s standpoint.  Two weeks before you put your breeding groups together, start feeding your breeding ewes a little something extra along with their normal diet of grass or hay.  We use a product called “ewe/lamb ration” from our favorite feed store.  It is 14 % crude protein.  COB (corn, oats, barley) or other pelleted feed with 9 % crude protein is another alternative.  If you don’t mind the hassle of soaking beet pulp pellets (also 9% crude protein) every day, you can use that as well.

The goal is a gradual and modest increase in the ewes’ “nutritional plane” — to boost them slightly from where they start.  If they are already fat, flushing probably will not help and it might be counterproductive, because really fat ewes are reported to have lower fertility rates.  But if your ewes, like ours, are starting to complain about the quality of the late-summer grass in your fields, or you are down to the last few sorry bales of last year’s hay, the increased nutrition should have the desired effect. 

We start with 2 ounces per ewe per day and gradually increase that amount to 4 ounces by the end of the first week.  You do not want to change your ewes’ diet abruptly for at least two reasons:  their rumens need to adjust to the change in composition of the material to be digested, and apparently if the new stuff passes unprocessed into the intestines, the ewe is at risk for scours.  In other words, ramp up rather than change abruptly.   

How do these numbers play out?  Here are a few examples:

# ewes     Days 1&2      3&4              5&6            7                   8-14

1                      2 oz       2.5 oz           3 oz             3.5 oz            4 oz

4                      8 oz       10 oz            12 oz           14 oz             1 lb 

8                      1 lb        1 lb 4 oz       1 lb 8 oz      1 lb 12 oz       2 lb   

Stay at the increased level for a second week (days 8-14), then put your your ram(s) with your ewe(s) for breeding.  On the day you begin breeding, start tapering off the goodies gradually until you quit supplementing them at all after two more weeks.  In other words, four weeks total of supplementation, gradually up, gradually down. 

For the same reasons flushing is designed to increase the number of ova released, it also encourages the ewes to start ovulating a little sooner, which may put them in sync, and that in turn may concentrate your lambing so it does not drag on for weeks.

Most books recommend a second trick to get your ewes ready for action, i.e., getting them to cycle well.  If your pasture situation and prevailing winds allow it, place your ewes near or at least downwind from the rams.  The smell of the rams (and believe me, they smell at this time of year) helps trigger cycling, as does the shortening of the days.  If you can put your ewes in a location adjacent to your rams – a stout fence and a view block separating them – all the better.  That way, the rams also can smell the ewes and get charged up.  But – and this is crucial, you must have sturdy fence and you really should use view blocks.

Will you agree with me that these pictures of some of our 2008 twins provide yet another reason to flush your ewes — the sheer pleasure of looking at the little ones together?

If you flush your ewes, you’d best get your lamb kit ready because before you know it, lambs will begin arriving two by two to entertain you. 

For now … 

If your first Soay sheep are about to arrive, you may be a little apprehensive about whether you have the right “stuff” and the right setup for your new flock.  There are a number of detailed “how to” accounts online and in books, but here is a rock bottom list that will get you started.  Details in subsequent posts. 

1.  Food.  Grass and forage in the summer if you are lucky enough to have grass all summer, either naturally or because you irrigate.  When the grass gives out, switch to good quality grass hay.  Sheep do not need anything as rich as alfalfa hay and you should not feed it to your rams anyway.

2.  Water.  A stock tank will do just fine.  Where we live, they come in tall and short – get the short one.  If you only have one or two animals, you can make do with a big plastic bucket secured so it will not tip over.  Sheep need access to water 24/7/365, which means if you live where water freezes in winter, you need to make provision for that sooner or later.

3.  Mineral.  Get sheep-appropriate granulated (not a block) mineral from your farm store.  Cow mineral contains too much copper and is toxic to sheep. Put a pan of the sheep mineral where the animals can get at it 24/7.  Keep it out of the rain, preferably in a container up off the ground so it will not get kicked over or pooped in.

4.  Treats are an easy way to persuade your sheep to follow you. Use just a little in a bucket (so you can shake it and make a sound the sheep recognize), but do not give it to the sheep on a regular basis or they will follow you all the time and become a nuisance.  Any sort of treat will do:  ewe/lamb mix, beet pulp (soaked overnight), COB (corn, oats, barley mix).  See what is on order at your local farm store.  Caution:  never give more than a few particles of a grain-based treat such as COB to the rams.  The only times Soay need supplement beyond grass or hay are when you are flushing them or they are gestating or lactating ewes, and all that comes later.

5.  Fencing to keep your new flock from running away.  You need mesh with fairly small holes, e.g., 2 x 4 no-climb or similar, or else a solid wood barricade fence.  Sheep can get their heads stuck in ordinary field fence trying to reach for grass on the other side (remember, “the grass is always greener … “), and lambs can crawl right through.  If you are buying both genders in order to breed later in the fall, you need two separate areas, and a view block if they adjoin.  You do not want your new ram(s) bashing down your new fence(s) to get at your new ewe(s).

6.  Shelter.  In the summer, any structure or area with a roof  that is big enough to let the sheep to get in out of the sun.  A tarp over a section of the fenced area will do in a pinch.  In the winter, depending on your climate, the sheep will need an area they can retreat to in heavy rain or snow, and in severe winter areas, the shelter will need sides to cut down on wind.  If you have a barn, all the better.  The sheep do not need heat, just protection from rain/snow and wind.

7.  Predator control.  Unless you are sure there are no coyotes or mountain lions in your area, protect your sheep at night by (1) bringing them into a barn or other enclosed shelter that coyotes can’t get into; (2) procuring an experienced livestock guardian dog or llama that can live with the sheep outside 24/7; or (3) electrify your fences with a hot wire on top and on the bottom (coyotes will dig under).

8.  Medical.  Locate a veterinarian who will treat sheep and if you can, get to know him or her before a medical issue comes up.  Buy a rectal thermometer and keep it where you can find it, since it is your number one ally in diagnosing whatever may ail your sheep.  If you do not already own a large airline dog crate (hard plastic, slatted sides for ventilation, we’ve all seen them), go out and get one so you can take a sheep to the vet if necessary.

9.  Book learning.  If you do not already own either Storey on Sheep or Ron Parker’s The Sheep Book, go online to your favorite book purveyor and get yourself one of them to read in your spare time (see below).
.
10.  A comfortable chair.  How else will you be able to sit and fritter away hours watching your irresistibly adorable Soay?

That’s enough for now …

Everyone here at Saltmarsh Ranch, animals and shepherds alike, heaves a sigh of relief each spring when the sheep and their guardian llamas first move out of their winter hay feeding areas and onto pasture grass.  To be sure, the sheep cannot help but gorge themselves, creating havoc with their excretory functions but putting huge smiles on their faces and ours.  It is a ritual we never tire of.

The trick with starting grass grazing and taking the animals off pricey hay is to figure out the optimal time for the transfer.  Neither of us knew when we first started this Soay sheep madness that the timing decision would carry financial and farm management consequences.  It is not that the wrong decision is fatal to the operation, or even a mortal wound, but it is an aspect of sheep raising that creates an opportunity for sound fiscal management and better animal health if done right.  Here’s what I mean:

It would be a straightforward matter, and frankly make life in April and May easier on the shepherds’ daily routine, if we simply put the sheep out to pasture as soon as the grass starts turning green and quit lugging hay around.  The sheep would be elated.  Spring is when they get not only live grass, but also their favorite delicacies, the new growth of poison oak and blackberry leaves.  Each year we are tempted by the simplicity and the intuitiive correctness of getting the sheep onto grass as soon as possible.  Shove them out of their winter living quarters, a small section of the fields where they appear to create a desert wasteland out of a perfectly nice stretch of pasture and where they consume hay at a rate calculated to create heartburn in the resident accountant. 

But if we were to put the sheep onto grass as soon as the grass turns green, we would  regret our haste come July.  The grass needs to get a really good start, untouched by ovine mouth, if it is to recover in the 2-3 week cycle required for successful grazing through summer and into October.  We have not actually measured the height and density of the grass, but we have to wait roughly until the first growth is about knee high or more, and by golly it is hard to look at all that grass and not immediately open the gates.  Here’s what it looked like the day we put a big bunch of ewes, and their guardian dog Isaac, on the South Cannon pasture in early June:

The same terminology used for haying — first cut, second cut — applies to our pastures.  When the sheep make their “first cut” in a section of grazing area, they leave a lot of stemmy grass behind.  First grass growth is the plant’s reproductive phase.  (Note:  I have no idea what the correct botanical terms are, but if anyone reading this is bothered by the casualness of my word usage, please feel free to comment and I will update this post).  The plant concentrates its energy on making seed and the stiff stalk, I believe called “carrying stock,” that holds the seed heads high off the ground where the wind can blow the dry seed across the pasture so that come next spring, a whole new crop of grass will appear as if by magic.  There is not much leaf on the grass at this point; that comes later.

We were surprised to find a lot of the seed-laden stalks left untouched by the sheep.  They really are looking for the soft leaf growth, such as it is at first, down by the ground.  Their preference against the seeds seems odd considering how much the sheep love other grains (oats, corn, barley) and how rich in protein those grass seeds must be.  I mentioned it to a professional landscape friend of ours yesterday.  She too was surprised but surmises the seed heads contain something icky-tasting (from the sheep’s perspective) that serves to protect the seed from being eaten before it can get to the ground, rest for the winter, and then germinate in the spring.

It is this reproductive phase of the grass plant that explains why we see the almost ghost-like appearance of the pasture after the Soay make their first pass through — nothing but a lot of greenish-brown sticks topped with fronds of seeds.  And the need to make seed first, and then leaves, serves as a caution against putting the sheep out too soon.  We need to let the seed growth and dispersal happen first, or next year we will not have a lush new pasture.  We could knock down the seed stalks with a mower and make the pastures look tidier, but our timing would have to be at a level of precision – too soon and the seeds are not mature, too late and our sheep miss days on grass — we prefer to avoid when we can.  Better to let the sheep tromp down the seed stalks; their little hooves are just the right size to act as miniature ploughs poking the seeds into the ground.  

Before we stopped to figure out what was happening in the reproductive phase,  I was convinced we had ruined our pasture by incorrect rotation practices.  Have a look at that same first area after our ewes made their first pass through it a few weeks ago:

For comparison purposes, here is the picture of the same part of this pasture that I included in my post last September:

Back then, I was bragging about our expertise in pasture rotation.  Compared to last year’s lush green, it sure looks like the shepherds at Saltmarsh managed to ruin a perfectly good pasture, doesn’t it?

But wait.  Let’s look beyond those dry stems leftover from the Soays’ “first cut” a couple of weeks ago.  Here is how that same section looks up close 18 days later.

  You can still seeing the drying stems, but now there is a wonderful new layer of vegetative growth down closer to ground level.  Not only is it green, it is a good mix of various grasses and nitrogen-fixing clover.  When we return the ewes to this area in a few weeks, their little feet will trample the remaining dry stems as they work their way through the new growth.

Another temptation in the spring, and throughout the summer actually, is to leave the sheep in an area for more than four days.  Big mistake.  Regular readers will recall that grass begins to regrow four days after it is cut/eaten.  Actually, I was told by another breeder in Wisconsin that he has to move his animals every three days — must be the effect of all-summer-long rain.  But whether it is three days or four days where you live, if the sheep remain in one area longer than that, they will begin eating the new growth and the pasture will not recover as quickly or as well, nor will the new vegetative growth have time to store nutrients in the roots for next spring’s reproductive growth.  The cycle continues.  And here is where Electronet comes in so handy.  It allows us to make larger feeding areas for our groups during the spring and early summer to ensure the sheep eat down the grass to the right level, and then shrink the areas later in the summer when the grass growth slows down, but still allowing the proper amount to be eaten. 

Now that our flock, including the newly-weaned lambs, are busy making their way, 3 or 4 days at a time, through all the sections of our pasture, both sheep and shepherds reap the benefits of waiting for the grass to get a good start before starting the rotation a bit later in the spring.  Remember the old folksong, “green green, it’s green they say”?   Green it is on the near and far sides of our hills … for now.     

I have such mixed feelings about Patterdale, our first and only bottle baby.  She seemed so vulnerable when she first arrived and then as she started to grow in our breakfast nook, yattering away to be sure we knew she was there and needed milk — all the time.   Both Steve and I had to resist the urge to smother her with attention, lest she get too attached to us.

We need not have worried.

These days, Patterdale hangs out with the friends she made in the Nursery when she first moved outdoors:  Sedgwick and his mom Yalo, and Milburn and his mom Catalaya.  We are relieved that she does not cling to us, or pay any attention to us at all, truth to tell, except when she wants milk.  Yalo and Catalaya will not let her nurse, of course, but Patterdale beds down with one or both of them nearby.  It is a surprisingly endearing family group scene for “just” sheep.

During the day, Patterdale is one of the crowd, exploring the hay feeders, running in and out of the creep feeder,

and generally learning the only skill — eating adult food — she will need until the Ancient Rituals — breeding and lambing — kick in.

But back to milk.  Notwithstanding her increasing independence, all it takes is a ring of the dinner bell hanging on a nail, or simply calling Patterdale’s name, and she comes racing over from whatever games or other mischief she’s gotten into with her lamb colleagues.

It is not very often I allow Steve to act as the official Saltmarsh Ranch photographer, mostly because he is somewhat of a perfectionist and I get impatient waiting for him to take the ideal picture.  But a few days ago he grabbed the camera as I was strolling down the gravel lane in the Maternity Ward to feed Patterdale.

Does the old Al Jolson tune, “Me and My Shadow” come to mind?

When Patterdale first moved inside with us, we used a purchased lamb nursing bottle, but once she moved out to the Maternity Ward with her buddies, we needed something a bit bigger so as not to be running back and forth to the house all the time.  Enter a no-longer-needed-for-human-consumption Schweppes Diet Tonic bottle — just the ticket.

As you can see, there is no shortage of enthusiasm for eating in this little ewe lamb. 

I have to laugh at our naivete in this whole episode, especially our unwarranted fear that we would not be able to find Patterdale amidst the throng of lambs in the Maternity Ward.  We actually put a big swath of green marking crayon, the stuff we use to tell us which of our Soay have been vaccinated when we work the ewes or rams, on Patterdale’s head. 

Oh yes, the red nipple.  For such a mundane tool, it has an awfully fancy name, “Pritchard teat,” and it is widely available in farm stores.  Unfortunately, as you can see it is way too big, as is a lot of sheep-related equipment not made especially for the little Soay, lambs or adults.  So far we have not had any luck finding a reliable smaller nipple and we welcome any advice on where to find one.  The nursing/watering equipment for rabbits and such in the pet stores never seems to include a nipple and we cannot imagine the Soay taking a liking to one of those stainless steel “straws” that little rabbits are supposed to lick on for liquid intake.

I haven’t decided whether to submit this next picture to the American Dairy Board or whoever it is that puts out the ads featuring celebrities with milk mustaches, but if life gets boring around here, I may just give it a whirl.

Meanwhile, as endearing as Patterdale is, on balance I will be relieved when her rumen is fully operational so she can live exclusively on hay and grass and we can commit the Schweppes bottle to the recycling bin.

For now …

One of the most enjoyable, ordinarily light-hearted rituals on our farm is the annual selection and implementation of lamb naming themes.  This year, picking the right theme took on a certain solemnity as we welcomed lambs with the first-ever new genetics in the British Soay flock here in the U.S., thanks to the wonders of AI. 

As you can imagine, selecting a naming theme for these historic sheep has occupied many hours around our dinner table, the hay feeders, and points in between for the last several months.  One day as Steve walked the pastures, he had a small “Eureka” moment:  why not name our Soay pioneers for members of the Saltmarsh family who settled here along the Little Applegate River in southern Oregon?  It was the Saltmarshes, after all, who as earlier pioneers homesteaded and lived on our farm for nearly one hundred years.   

Down off the bookshelf came the local histories.  Some of the names were easy to identify.  We presented our first draft list of names for review by our consultative body, which convenes each Wednesday for breakfast at the local cafe to discuss the weather and other urgent matters.  To our delight, we learned that Melvin and Curtis Saltmarsh, sons of Arthur B. (”Bird”) and Dora, had been named after the father and uncle of one of our favorite breakfast companions, Jerry McGrew.

Connie Fowler, a close-by neighbor and co-author of a wonderful book about Buncom, a ghost town three miles down the road, provided a wealth of additional detail about the Saltmarsh “begats.” She also pointed out a couple of unsavory characters undeserving of a place on our list. 

How we wish we had known the namesake, Genevieve Eliza (”Vieva”) Hamilton Saltmarsh, of our first AI ewe lamb, Saltmarsh Vieva.  Here is the “real” Vieva as a happy, rosy-cheeked young bride, dressed in her overalls:  

Vieva obviously engendered genuine affection and admiration from everyone she knew; we began hearing about her as soon as we purchased the Saltmarsh Ranch and we are still learning about her exploits during the decades she lived here.  Vieva farmed right alongside her husband, Robert Glen Saltmarsh, shown here at the gate leading down to the barn.

Vieva also kept the local weather records for the U.S. weather bureau for many, many years.  She was widely known for keeping a pet deer and protecting it from hunters by painting its antlers day-glow orange.

Here are Vieva and Glen in front of the farmhouse some years later.

The story goes that Vieva went to town the day after Glen died to buy the piano she had always wanted, becoming the first in the valley to have a piano at all.  To this day, Vieva’s Sunday musicales are remembered here with fondness. 

We are grateful to Vieva’s best girlfriend, Emily Savage of Montague, California, who found us a couple of years ago when she read an article about our Soay sheep in The Capital Press, for providing us with these photographs and for sharing wonderful memories of Vieva and Glen with us.  Emily and her husband John also pioneered in our valley.

But back to the sheep.  Here are our AI twins Glen (on the left) and Vieva, basking in the sunshine at Saltmarsh Ranch at the ripe old age of two weeks:

You may admire all eleven of our AI lambs by going to the 2008 Lambs album in the Open Flockbook Project Gallery.

Earlier generations of Saltmarshes built the barn that still stands as a landmark in the valley over a hundred years later.  Pictured on the home page of our website, the barn served as the nighttime home of our AI ewes throughout their pregnancy, keeping them safe from predators and dry during our wet winter.

We would like to think that Vieva, Glen, Cap, Bird, Arzie, Emmett, and all the other Saltmarshes would approve of the new turn of events on their homestead and in their valley.  Who knows, perhaps one day we will paint our AI progeny’s horns with day-glow paint to keep them safe!

For now …

When last we met Patterdale, she was just a few days old, traumatized by her mother’s rejection, confused by her wanderings in the Maternity Ward, wishing she could have continued as Tolcarne’s adoptee, and a bit uncertain about her prospects in the makeshift pen in our breakfast nook.  Not to mention the nearly hourly strife of going nose-to-nose with a border collie through the wire dog crate.  Weighing a mere 2 pounds 4 ounces at birth, she had a long way to go.

What a difference a week makes!  This morning as I was feeding her, I realized we should weigh the little darling to see if she ihas made any progress.  To our great surprise and delight, she has put on nearly 2 full pounds in just 12 days, to a whopping 4 pounds 3 ounces.  Not only that, she is no longer fazed by Molly’s border-collie intensity (see Molly back there quietly observing the proceedings?), and she has decided every Soay lamb should have a kindergarten chair as her personal gym equipment.  Have a look:

A few minutes ago, I turned the chair sideways and she actually jumped right over the seat.  Time to get her out in the nursery, that’s for sure!

So what have we learned thus far?  Patience.  Now there’s a newsflash, patience with a baby.  But a particular kind of patience – not feeding too much.  Patterdale never actually scoured, thankfully, but she did not pass the … hmm … how to say this, the ”solid waste products” test.  She has been slow to pass this second test of potty training despite her best efforts.  Fortunately, Steve had squirreled away for just such an occasion a bag of an energy supplement with electrolytes by the grand name of “ARREST,” to be used for “scouring calves, pigs, foals, lambs and kids.”  As near as I can tell, it is the ovine equivalent of Gatorade or one of the other energy drinks.

In any case, it works just dandy.  We mixed up an empty water bottle of the stuff per the dilution directions.  The first day we used equal parts of the supplement and milk replacer, reducing Patterdale’s total milk intake.  The next day we used one part supplement to 3 parts milk, again substituting the supplement for part of the milk.  By the third day, Patterdale was tired of reduced milk rations and let us know in no uncertain terms.  She may be only the temporarily-adopted sister of Otley the Noisy, but by golly they have the same robust vocal cords even if they are not biologically related.

One caution about electrolyte supplements for scouring:  do store the mixture in the refrigerator.  Unlike milk replacer, which can sit out at room temperature without spoiling, at least for a day, the electrolyte mixture will start to ferment at room temperature.  What we do not need around here is a tipsy lamb; she and her ilk are not exactly rocket scientists stone-sober, after all.  Besides, I don’t know about you, but an exploding plastic bottle of sugary solution in my kitchen is not my idea of a good time.

Patterdale, you’ve come a long way, baby.

For now …