Sheep in the WINTER | Essentials + Tips
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- čas přidán 21. 12. 2020
- Hello! It's winter at the High Mountain Homestead! How do you take care of your pasture raised grass fed sheep in winter? In this video we show you how we take care of water, food and shelter and a few extra tips on winter care to keep your sheep ship shape.
Happy homesteading!
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I would get a sheep just because it's cold af up north and I know people love being warm
Another great natural dewormer is garlic juice and pour it over the alfalfa
I love that idea! I've heard of garlic powder mixed with apple cider vinegar and molasses. But getting them to take it could be hard.
Garlic juice is probably cheaper than pumpkins.
But what kind of interval/frequency do you need for the garlic juice?
Thank you.
Regarding the assumed picky grazing habits. Why?
Plants are high in toxins. Sheep instinctively manage this by consuming small amounts of each, testing it in there system. There is also a pecking order of each individual plant, based on all sorts of factors they are intune with.
But one dominant tendency, is to eat the best first, second best second etc. It's just the natural way for animals.
I guess what you have been experiencing, is the animals determining if what has been provided is the best option
great video , great chanel
Awesome video. 👍
Thanks!
Awesome video. İn which country is your farm bro? for comparing with our climate
This video was in Utah, USA. But I currently live in NC, USA.
@@homesteadingwithPJ thanks
Does it matter if you put the hay on the ground outright, or if its in something raised above ground? I've seen more than one point of view on this and don't get why ppl disagree on it.
And you said pumpkin is a natural dewormer, but what is the minimum ideal frequency of how often you have to do it to get a gain from it?
Hay can go directly on the ground when you have snow or very cold weather. You wouldn't want hay on the ground when it's wet or warm. It will spoil faster.
Watch my video about pumpkin dewormer. I've changed my tune a little bit about that.
czcams.com/video/K47W49KKkP4/video.html
@@homesteadingwithPJ Thank you. I'll take a look. The explanation was also helpful and made sense.
How much land do you keep your sheep on? This video you say 3/4 of an acre and others you say half? We have always kept chickens your videos made me wanna try sheep. I did not think I had enough land on only on an acre. Videos are great and informative
Thanks! My entire property is only 1.25 acre, and my pasture is a little more than half that property, so that's why the number always changes! I would guess we have near 3/4 acre and with a mob grazing set up I can keep 4-5 ewes year round.
If you haven't seen my video on backyard sheep watch that one. Good video for people who want to make it work on a small scale.
@@homesteadingwithPJ thanks I’ll check that one out
That was a great video, fun to watch. Who knew, lambs like pumpkin pie!?
Right?!
Thanks for your time and for your great videos! We just brought home our first lambs (2 dorper males that we're raising for meat) and want to raise them grass-fed. I've been wondering, is alfalfa considered grass-fed? Also, do your sheep have any issues on 100% alfalfa? I read online that sheep shouldn't get alfalfa but I guess dorpers do well on it (our breeder also fed alfalfa). We don't have pasture (we live in the desert in AZ) and will be feeding hay.
Congrats that is so cool. If I was starting over I would do the same, finish some rams before just jumping in head first into breeding them.
The grass fed label only implies that the animal ate grass during the first part of life, but was finished on grains. Grass finished is the true "grass fed" label that matters.
That said, I believe alfalfa fits under grass fed. A pasture should have a wide variety of forage for sheep anyway. Timothy, fescue, clover, ryegrass, and even alfalfa (ideally more than what's listed here).
My sheep are fine with alfalfa, however I would prefer to feed them a mix of alfalfa and grass. But I haven't had any problems with 100% alfalfa. Try to purchase earlier harvests to prevent mature alfalfa feed, which can give them more gas than a younger crop.
Thanks so much! I will try to find another grass hay to mix with our alfalfa.
@@homesteadingwithPJ true. We lost sheep to bloat before. Sigh. Got any further tips for that?
Floating a ball in your waterer will help keep any ice easy to break.
Brilliant! I will do that next year!
If you feed them old produce like squash or pumpkins... do you have to do a weight conversion since the pumpkin is more dense than the hay they eat normally? And will squash or pumpkin seeds mess them up or have to be removed?
I'm also curious if there's a difference on how their health improves/stays/etc on comparisons of once a day feeding to twice a day feeding?
Thanks.
I don't think a sheep will "overeat" pumpkin or hay. So I don't worry about rations.
Also, the seeds are what have the anti-microbial properties, so the more gooey seeds, the better!
You do rotational grazing? How is that possible on your acreage?
We basically had (we've moved since then) two small paddocks, a front yard, and a second tier of the backyard. And then we would split the main pasture into two halves. This giving us about 4 paddocks.
What are your sheep for? Meat/wool? Pets?
Meat and breeding stock sales.
My neighbor wants to give me a special needs lamb. Can I house her in my large chicken coop over winter?
Perhaps, but I would worry about two things:
1) It depends on how much chicken poop there is. I love deep bedding chickens through the winter, just adding more and more brown material into the coop as the winter months go on.
2) You gotta make sure there's no way that lamb can access the chicken feed. They get into that, and acquire a taste for it, you'll have a sick lamb before you know it.
If it were me, I would pass on it. A bummer lamb is a lot of work, especially if you don't have other sheep.
@@homesteadingwithPJ Thank you so much! I’m going to pass on it.
Omg please wear a hat so ypu do not freeze.
Also thank you for the videos.
Looks like your subscriptions are racking up. You should be a “Grand Channel” soon!