The Soay Sheep Chronicles

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.     

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 kind of treat come to mind when I hear that term. 

Be that as it may, let me set the record straight for the terminology perfectionists in the audience.  Here at Saltmarsh Ranch, we engage in both pasture rotation and strip grazing.   Pasture rotation refers to the placement of parts of our flock within, and the infrequent move out of, a large section of pasture delineated by stout permanent fencing. Depending on the weather, irrigation, and number of sheep involved, we need to rotate pastures every few weeks.  Within each pasture, however, we strip graze by moving the sheep every three or four days to a new small section of the same pasture using temporary fencing. 

To make jargon matters worse, one or both of these practices sometimes is referred to as “managed grazing” and I have no doubt there are other terms as well.  Call it what you like, the key is to keep moving the sheep every four days so the animals will only eat the grass once before it has a chance to grow back.

I promise there will be a more interesting post next time.

For now …

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 outstrips supply.

Short of taking the flock down the road to the knacker, we have few options for keeping the hay bill in check.  Our most promising tactic is disciplined pasture rotation.

For the grass novice, pasture rotation is neither an astrological gimmick nor a game of chance.  It refers to the notion of putting grass-eating livestock on very small portions of a pasture in succession so they will of necessity eat all the green stuff – grass and weeds alike – evenly and not move through the entire pasture all at one time, cherry-picking the tastiest new grass and leaving everything else to flourish in its place.  Move the animals  systematically, before they take the vegetation down too far, and each part of the pasture recovers nicely, ready for the animals again when the rotation starts a second time.

Let me illustrate.  The following picture shows five sections of one of our pastures, labeled sequentially according to when the sheep first grazed on them in this rotation.  Please bear with me in this labeling and description and I will do my best not to be unduly pedantic.  Section ”A” was the first section eaten, B the next place we moved the sheep to, and so forth.      

The sheep are in section D, which still looks pretty green.  They already have eaten, in turn, sections A, B, and C.  When I took these pictures on August 24, the sheep had been on section D for one day.  Mind you, there are over 50 sheep and two llamas, our adult Llucy and her cria Hank, eating this pasture.  At least from a distance, section A, which they ate 7 or 8 days earlier, already is in pretty good shape, regenerating nicely.  Section B doesn’t look very good in this picture, but take my word for it, it has turned over a new leaf or two.  In fact, I will show you a closeup of section B in a minute to illustrate how much has regrown in just one week.  Section C of course looks awful because the sheep have only been off it for a day or so.  Section E, to which the sheep will be taken next, looks even better than a “last” section usually does because no sheep have been on it for several weeks while we worked other paddocks.     

The downside to pasture rotation is that to make it effective, you need to enclose areas smaller than your instincts tell you or than you want to.  Even more important, you need to move the sheep every 4 days.  If you have the right sized group for the right sized area, the sheep should eat it down in those 4 days.  Even if you guess wrong and all the grass has not been eaten down, you still need to take the sheep to the next area.  Grass starts regenerating after 4 days and you must get those hungry mouths moved before they start eating the new growth.  You can move the animals before all the grass is eaten, of course, but then you are not taking full advantage of your pastures, are you?

Here’s the good news:  if you use something lightweight for your interior pasture dividers, it is really easy to move the sheep from one section to another.

Now let’s look at the same section of our fields from a different angle. 

Areas A and E, where the sheep have not been for the longest time, are quite lush.  The most recently-munched areas, B and C, are starting to recover.  Area D is in the process of disappearing into rumina.  And by the way, the far and near paddocks in this picture held a good portion of our flock about 3 or 4 weeks before this picture was taken.  Recovered nicely, didn’t they?

What is amazing about pasture rotation is how effective it is, and how fast pastures recover in the summer and early fall if they are irrigated.  Let me show you comparative closeups, actual photos with zero retouching and zero tampering from any photo software program.  In the next picture, you are looking at section C taken with my zoom lens, the section the sheep left just a day or so earlier.  From a distance, it appears a wasteland (look back at the first picture above), but look more closely and you will see a lot of live green grass shoots under the scruffy-looking stuff on  top.  Those shoots are healthy enough to start growing robustly again now that several dozen efficient mowers have moved on to greener pastures.

Truth to tell, Steve left the sheep on this section one day too long.  Live and learn.

Next I want to show you what 5 or 6 days of recovery had done to section B by the time I photographed it on the 24th.  First,  look at this medium-range picture of section B, tucked between the “virgin” section E below and the first-eaten section of this pasture, section A up there in the left-hand corner.  See how “hurt” section B looks from mid-range?

Now look at this same section B up close through my zoom lens.  Again, absolutely no retouching and taken within minutes of the other pictures. Not bad recovery for land that had several dozen sheep on it just a few days ago, eh?

And finally, here is what the grass looked like up close in section E, where the sheep had not been for several weeks.  Obviously it is the most lush, lots of high quality grass, lots of clover, pasture yearning for a bunch of cute little Soay mouths.

Because this is our first year of disciplined pasture rotation, it is too soon to know know how far we can extend the grass-eating season into the fall.  For our large flock of about 130 Soay, every week we can keep them on grass and off hay saves us a lot of money, easily enough to get a shepherd’s attention.  Even if we had a small flock, perhaps 8 -12 animals, the process of moving temporary fencing every few days would still be cost- and time-effective.  Using the theory of compensatory cash flow, any shepherdess worth her salt can readily convert the savings into a weekly visit to the local spa, perhaps a leisurely pedicure, or something equally worthy.

As for how you divide up a large pasture area into the small sections required for effective pasture rotation, almost anything portable and capable of fooling the sheep into staying in one section at a time will work.  The best and easiest setup uses three “sides” worth of divider material, one for the leading edge of the procession across the pasture, one for the trailing edge (so the sheep will leave the “used” section alone and let it recover), and a third one to create the new leading edge while leaving the current setup in place.  You can do it with two pieces, but try persuading the sheep to wait in their well-worn section while you set up the yummy new one next door. Life’s too short.

If you happen to have a bunch of lightweight plywood panels, or sheep panels, or horse panels, you can string them together into dividers.  Or you can do what we did, and spend part of the savings in hay costs to purchase three lengths of ElectroNet, a dandy product from Premier that is lightweight and effective.  The amount of electricity it uses is miniscule, and it is remarkably easy to move around.  It will not suffice as your permanent perimeter fence, because once in a while a determined Soay will simply walk through it and accept the electric shock, but since the animals get moved before they perceive themselves as starving, they generally do not want to escape.  I have assigned myself the director of hay procurement so I can pilfer the remains of the savings for the aforementioned compensatory self-indulgence.

Before closing this interminable post, I have to boast a bit.  I just went down to the fields  to be sure the pasture featured in this recitation (South Cannon by name, but that’s a story for another day) still looks good.  Wow!  Have a look.  The first of these “after” pictures was taken from the same angle as the first picture in this post.  The second “after” picture shows the same area as the section B mid-range wedgie photo above. 

Data report: (What, you thought the wife of the geneticist-turned-shepherd could get away with zero data in a post?)  I took these pictures and their counterparts above 19 days apart.  You can judge for yourself whether pasture rotation works.    

Educational note:  If you ever see a flyer announcing a pasture management seminar given by Woody Lane, by all means attend.  We learned more about caring for our fields in a couple of hours with him than anything we had picked up from books.  If you can’t find a Woody Lane seminar near you, here’s a link to an excellent summary of what he and others of his ilk have to say about pasture rotation and pasture management.  For serious pasture managers, the bottom line is that we shepherds do not keep Soay for their fleece, their meat, their genetics, their attractive appearance as lawn statues, or their status as a rare and endangered breed — all attributes near and dear to a Soay breeder’s heart.  To the contrary, sheep exist only as grass conversion machines.  Not a bad way for all of us to think about our flocks, actually.  If nothing else, it turns the beautiful fleece, tasty meat, and intriguing genetic puzzles into appealing bonuses beyond the core pasture rehabilitation function.   

We are still experimenting with the right size for each section as we march the sheep across pastures of differing grass density and quality, but one thing we know already.  To every field there is a season: turn -  turn -  turn.

For now …