Welcome to The Chronicles. I hope you will enjoy my posts about the joys of raising the oldest breed of sheep in the world -- the always intriguing, easy-to-raise Soay sheep. With few exceptions, posts contain what I hope is useful information interspersed with a bit of whimsy. Feel free to comment on anything you find here. If you want to send me a private message, that's okay, too. Send your note to the address on the "contact us" page of our main website (***saltmarshranch-dot-com). Meanwhile, enjoy The Soay Sheep Chronicles! Priscilla
It’s post-season in major league baseball and breeding is about to begin on our Soay sheep farm. While the world awaits the (inevitable?) demise of the Cubs, we are pacing (mentally) in the dugout, wondering how our selection of rams to call up from the bull pen will turn out. Will our three British “starters” for our conservation breeding program […]
For eleven months of the year, I watch with glee as our sheep search and destroy the wild Himalayan blackberry vines that are the curse of fields and streams here in Oregon and throughout the Pacific Northwest. Each year we are amazed at our animals’ ability to forestall the re-infestation of our fenced pastures. Nary has […]
Loyal readers, I must apologize. It has been suggested that what I described in my last post was not, technically speaking, pasture rotation, but rather something with the intriguing label of “strip grazing.” I don’t know about you, but visions of a major thoroughfare in Las Vegas featuring a bevy of either restaurants or another […]
As we approach the autumnal equinox, we begin our annual fretting about how long the pasture grass will last and when we have to convert to pricey hay feeding for the winter. The worry meter reads particularly high this year because much of the Pacific Northwest got far too little rain, so the demand for hay […]
Perhaps the greatest initial investment a Soay keeper needs make is decent fencing to keep the little darlings home and safe. Alas, the aesthetics of a run of taught, newly-installed wire fence fastened neatly to precisely aligned, precisely vertical fence posts is of no concern to the rams, especially during rut. They bash away without […]
When you are putting together your Soay flock business plan, remember you do not need to include haircuts and perms in the expense column. For the most part, Soay will shed their fleece without your help. But you do need to pay for someone to trim your animals’ hooves or, better yet, learn how to do […]