Want to make money with sheep? Greg gives full year of management practices.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 มี.ค. 2020
- Want to make money with sheep? Greg gives full year of management practices. Check out our website greenpasturesfarm.net for my books that detail how to make a full time living on your own farm. Sheep are the lowest risk, lowest maintenance, easiest keeping animal that you can raise on your farm.
Greg Judy is a national treasure. The grandfather I never had.
I will never make any money raising sheep or for that matter ever owning one so why do I watch your videos Greg??? Must have something to do with positive encouragement!!
We all need encouragement Ken, thanks for watching!!
Never say never :)
I guess it's just in our blood, even if we never have the opportunity to act on it. It makes me feel better just engaging in fantasy homesteading. Who knows? Maybe in the Millennium?
I just leased my first 10 acres day before yesterday. I got six stocked ponds on it, and the fences are in bad shape. Anyways once I get my fences up I'll start getting livestock. Thank you for inspiring me and getting my ass motivated.
6 ponds sweet. Maybe catfish farming lol.
Congratulations! Documenting your experience from the start would be invaluable to others out there. Don't be afraid of making mistakes and making them public!
hows the farm now?
For the last 2 or 3 months we were training sheep to one wire subdivision inside the electric netting. Now they just stay inside in one single wire. Electric netting is retired. We do have guard dogs to do so, otherwise i don’t recommend one string. It was lot of labor with the netting, besides we have tons of acacia farnesiana so it just make things go harder. I just want to thank Mr Judy, I followed every step. He’s my mentor and hopefully, his teachings will prevail for next generations.
I am so grateful for this video today. This is our first winter with sheep. Thank you for making it seem possible while working off farm and without owning the land.
Much love to you Greg. You are truly a blessing🙌
This is so good Greg!!!
Thank you for sharing your process with sheep. So much of it is just common sense ... IF you have enough information to make sense of it! Thanks again!
Another very interesting lesson! Thank you again for your time , it’s so relaxing watching your videos!
Your writeup in my SGF that just came was sparkling with encouragement. Fencing by headlamp, I'm impressed. I thank you sir
Thank you, Greg.
Great video, looking forward to more sheep content
I enjoy listening to these types of videos inside the house. That way I can listen to it on my way to work and not worry about missing something that you are pointing out in the pasture lol. Great job I love the videos about to go by my first flock of hair sheep, and sign my first grazing lease.
How did it go?
Greg, Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge. Ive been looking into sheep for a little while know and just found your video and im glad i did. You a genius with this stuff!
Great info because we are looking at getting sheep.
Thanks Greg, we're just getting started with sheep this year.
I am making the move to 86 acres in Pennsylvania. Your videos have been a true inspiration in me making this decision for myself and my family. Thank you.
Love your videos Greg.
I know nothing about raising animals. But what you said makes a lot of sense. Thank you for passing your knowledge to us.
Absolutely love these videos about the sheep and have watched all of them in your library.
These will be my livestock of choice in the near future and I try to absorb every little morsel of info you offer.
Thank you for sharing, I cannot find any content on YT that compares to yours Mr. Judy, keep em coming.
I appreciate you taking the time to make these videos. Its very helpful. Im in Missouri also but southern Missouri. Looking to get into sheep to help me reclaim 16 acres of logged land thick with brush brambles and broomsedge. Hoping the polywire system works out for me.
Thanks for being you
Thanks... from New Zealand 🇳🇿
Enjoyed this video. Thank you Greg.
so mad i made the decision to go to the second grazing school a few days ago but i am in NYC and everything has put all future plans on the back burner for so many of us. i am definitely going next year.
Thanks Greg, very informative
Greg is exactly correct on all this. I’ve been doing these same things for 8 years and my methods have condensed to exactly these same methods. I’m in South Carolina so my rams go in November 1 for April 1 lambs.
Do you have any problems with inbreeding? thanks
@@jimbuford4147 no I haven’t. I change rams ever about every two years and haven’t had a problem.
Can you explain this like I’m an idiot lol 😂
What do you mean bring in the rams.
Are they else where the whole time?
This was awesome thank you!
Very informative. Been on my land a few years now. Looking for more info on sheep and this is good info. Thanks
Good to see you Sir! Planning for starting in Pakistan and hopefully will benefit from you! Thanks
Justin Rhodes brought me here. It was a pleasure to visit your operation on his channel. Thanks for starting and sharing this channel; subscriber now!
Welcome to our channel!
Excellent video, thanks for the tips
The best video on lamb husbandry right here
Excellent! Thanks, Greg/
Thanks so much Greg! I love all this information on sheep. Would love to hear more!
Absolutely correct, I can testify to the work load from moving electric netting. I have 16 from Greg's flock and run 6 lengths of netting and a solar charger. The netting is awesome but it'll kill ya moving it all the time. I do it but I'm an idiot, lol. I also utilize polybraid and reels and I am using those more and more all the time. I just don't have enough sheep to feel comfortable taking any risk losing one. Greg's guard dogs are awesome, I have two of those as well.
Brent Good to hear. Was thinking about netting for our goats, but will consider Greg’s method now.
@@BC-yv8ew Don't get me wrong, the netting is great...I feel safe with it because I don't feel my perimeter fence is good enough yet. Pretty sure my dogs would keep the flock safe in a single wire but if they ever got out of that I fear they may just disappear. So I get along with the netting until I get my outer fence done this spring. Even inside the perimeter fence I'm concerned, if they get loose on the whole farm it's over 350 acres and a lot of tall native grass, it may take me a while to locate them. Weaning off to a single wire is about as much a matter of me weaning off the dependability of the netting, lol.
BC how many goats do you run? What kind of operation with them do you have? I don’t know anything about goats, but I’m not afraid to learn.
@@Digger927 I know this post of 2 years old but worth a try. What does your perimeter fence look like or did back then? I have a similar situation and using netting. I plan to move to wire may even do 2-3 strands to start but plan to have 4-5 strand HT perimeter fence in before I do so.
@@Kylejohn33 perimeter fence was mostly 5 strand barbed but two sides of the farm were old and shoddy fence. Some I replaced with high tensile, some I went back with new barbed. I have over 200 sheep now, bought in another 35 last year but the rest is all increase.
Really informative.
Thank you.
I'm just now seeing this. Seems like valuable information.
Thank you so much for taking the time to do these video could you please put together a video the same way only for cattle and if you have point me in the right direction thank you
thank you
Greg - just a point re crutching (From Wales - so not hot) we do not crutch pre lambing - never found it needed unless theres a special case. never found an increase in flystrike from it. But id caveat that our weather and temps probably has alot to do with it - hence why they do it Australia.
We had a surprise lamb born on Valentine’s Day . 10ish degrees . And she lost half her ears from the cold .
We weren’t expecting it , so soon as I saw it put it right in the house warmed it up and go it dry .
I’m just glad I was taking boiling water out to them during the winter first thing in the morning . It’s a miracle .
Sounds like the perfect farm animal.
I agree it's easy to over think lamb's. Been there are done that so many times.
I can remember, after my grandfather had his first heart attack he was laying in the hospital bed while my dad was with him. Grandma said to my dad repeatedly: "don't forget there is a ram lamb still in the flock, don't forget to get it out!". My dad was like "dad, your dying and the last thing I'm worried about is the ram lamb in sheep!". That winter we lambed out 30 ewes in the worst possible conditions and my grandfather was alive to see it! 😆
Wow, he was a very concerned farmer. My kind of fellow, would have loved to meet him! Tam, thanks for sharing that great story with us.
The beauty of the natural timing of winter births of wool sheep, with tails, is that there is no fly pressure at all. So even without crutching there is limited risk of sheep getting fly blown. At least in colder climates. I'm in Tasmania so wool sheep are more common than hair sheep here.
Thanks Greg for answering all my questions in my email on this video!
I have been doing g sheep three years. Coyotes pasture going to seed toenails worms and markets are the stress of the job but the lambing and interaction as a shepherd cannot be surpassed
HiGreg, first of all great video really loaded with great advice I wanted to ask for a bit of help. I am based in england and I am looking to get started into sheep farming for meat. i am originally from a small place called kosovo which is in the balkans and I as you mentioned in the videos the muslim market is huge especially during ramadan. back home people slaughter anywhere from 600+ lambs for their religious celebrations. what I wanted to know is the basic which are the following :
how much land will I need for mainly grass fed sheep.
and how much on average will I need to start off my flock including equipment barn etc.
I know it's a hard question to answer as each regions are different.
I'm looking to get started with about 30 ewes so I wanted to know how much land will I need to have them fed most of the year from pasture ?
and is there any hair sheep bread that you could recommend for meat .
thank you and god bless
Thank you so very much for the sheep vid!!! Shared it all around to interested forums/groups. Love how you shepherd! Questions abound, though....do you ever have problem lambing and, if so, how do you handle that out on pasture? Do you interfere or just let things happen? Do you let the dogs clean up any dead lambs? Rejected lambs....what do you do with those and how do you identify which ewe rejected her lamb in a group that large?
Nature takes care of lambing on our farm. Any ewe that does not have lambs at the end of lambing season is culled. Matching your lambing season with nature is a huge deal. Warm weather and green grass, let the sheep take care of themselves.
Hi Greg, thanks for putting this up. I am wondering how long your lambs take to finish? You mentioned Easter and Ramadan, but that is through April...are you butchering lambs right before they are one year of age (11 months).
I looked for a book authored by you on "just lambs and everything you need to know and do," didn't see one. Please write one as I would love to do this just for land management and meat only for my family.
Hello Mr.Judy
At the the end of this video you mentioned marketing the Sheep. I have looked through the play list for sheep and a few others for that marketing insight with no luck. Please if you would update us as to your insights. You mentioned muslims and that's all well and good. Are there other markets? Export? Thank you for your valuable time.
Greg, could you do a video on "contract grazing"? All I have is cheatgrass, very short CSA, good for about 3 weeks of grazing. So is the grazier the landowner or the stock owner?
Great video Greg! Very helpful! What mineral do you give your rams while they are separated from the ewes and while in the silvopastures?
They get a plain sheep mineral, not the 16 hole choice cafeteria style. The ewe flock gets that one.
Great video, learned a lot.
Commenting to clarify something.... As a muslim I can tell you a majority of us eat castrated lamb, mutton, goat or bull. Infact they are preferred for the taste. Its just a small minority of muslims who don't eat meat of a castrated animal (shafi sect) which hasn't been castrated while very young.
Thanks for clarifying that, I had no idea that was the case.
@@gregjudyregenerativerancher My pleasure. Really appreciate the content you put up, just recently came across it on youtube. I raise a small number of fat tailed sheep every year as a hobby and for personal consumption. Its very interesting for me to learn how people raise their animals in the west.
I’m not in livestock but would love to be. And may even have it thrown in my lap so I’m trying to get ready. However at this point I don’t even know how to identify the types of forage, grasses, weeds trees etc that I run into 😂 I have a long way to go. I wrote down alot of what you said and saved the video as well. Is there a year breakdown for the cattle operation as well? Regardless I will be watching alot of your videos! Take care and thanks again
This was really helpful... thanks so much! I'm transitioning out of dairy goats into hair sheep (hopefully!)... I'm in my research phase while I wait for my prospective lambs to be weaned. I'm really really glad I ran across your content! I feel like I'm learning from the best. Blessings to you & Jan!
Twins in Cattle=Bad, Sheep=Good.
That is an example of advice you like to hear that you may not think to ask of when talking to someone who has done it already.
Keeping the rams in with the ewes throughout the winter, how hard is it to separate them out when you finally decide to do that?
Greg, will you change your rams every year, or doesn't it matter, if they breed their own offspring occasionally?
South West Iowa, 40 acres of Brome grass. Dormant for over 20 years. It has a working well. What do you think about Brome grass?
BTW, been watching your videos for over a good year now. Thank you so much for sharing your love for the land and pastured livestock.
Brome Grass is pretty good grazing in the growing season. It does not make good winter stockpile. It also does not have as strong of dense sod under it like fescue does. It turns brown in the dormant season, fescue stays green.
(TQSM) Thank You So Much!
Greg, what would be the easiest way to transition the acreage from Brome to Fescue
Depending on your seasons I’ve heard that fescue works decent with frost seeding (broadcasting before last frost) but it’d be worth talking to a forage consultant in your area.
You might be able to get hay with forage variety seed heads inside to add to your winter forage
Hi Greg, I can’t thank you all enough for all the information you share with the world it’s invaluable!
I plan on leasing at least 50 acres this year and getting some cattle!
The only thing I can’t figure out it stocking density.
I want to mix Gabe Browns high diversity cover crop gazing fields. Focusing on soil quality so I can keep a input free field going for a lifetime.
My goal is to trap more carbon in the soil than the cows release. Or get as close to that as I can.
All the information I find is on conventional grazing with grain.
Is there a good estimate to how many cattle per acre you can stock safely with good rotational management?
My best guess is 2 acres per cow with the information I could find.
If you live in the USA look up you're local County Extension on internet. Can also try your local / state Department of Agriculture website. They will have stocking rates for your county and in some csses different areas of the County for all different livestock.
Grazing density is highly dependent on the health of the soil right now. It probably won't hurt to start with 500 lbs of cow per acre, or about 2 acres per cow. I think if you test your soil and use Greg's method of buying hay from outside and unrolling round bales (or spreading square bales), you will increase the health of your soil until you can sustain 2,000 pounds per acre.
Thanks for the video! What is a good way to separate the rams? I currently have about ~4 acres fenced around with 5 strand barbed wire and a barn with a bay that they can enter. Should I fence in a new section somewhere where the rams can go after breeding? Can it be just an acre that is part of the 4 or do they need to be further away from the ewes?
Make it a strong woven wire fence wherever you put it.
Interesting
You don't use barns? So they sleep in snow? dogs are with them outside all night in winter? I think you have sone windblocks or tree clumps. Do you use trees so that the sheep can get in shade during the summer? Maybe put up some wood wind blocks that would provide some shade. Also, trees or that kind of structure gives shade that moves with the sun through the day so that the ground still gets some sun to burn parasites.
Greg, for those that can't get the Rams far enough away from the ewes to keep them, can it work and pencil out to buy Rams for the breeding season and sell them when they are taken out of the flock at the end of the breeding season?
Absolutely, sell them when your done with them.
So what if your getting into a production of feeder lambs? Or feeder lambs on a grazing cycle? I live in Wyoming
What do you think of llama as a guarding livestock animals instead of dog? Thank you for your inspiration.
Not common in Missouri but donkey is a great guard animal
♥.♥
I don't understand English so i don't understand your says. We have livestock and we have sheep and lambs(Lambing). Please tell me do most American or European ranchers use CIDR for lambing or not?(I do not speak about artificial insemination, but only about using CIDRS and then using rams for mating)
What’s the best sheep for making shearling coats
Tell us about bare minimum thats needed when one is starting to raise sheep with tight budget.
What breed do you recommend for a guard dog?
Thank you Greg - can you tell me. When you're got no back fence and the new Mammas are hanging back - do the guardian dogs keep an eye on them or are they on their own for that time? Thank you
The guardian dogs are keeping an eye on them at all times.
I like your guard dogs. Can you please put me on you list for your dogs.
.. Question .. Can Anyone tell me Why this Video is "flipped" or "reversed" ..? .. The text on his cap and the buttons on his shirt are "backwards" .. Thank You ...
Hey Greg! I guess I missed your rest period. I think parasite management is probably one of the most important issues with small ruminants. I was wondering how long your rest period is for the growing season and the dormant season? What rest period is the threshold during the seasons to break the small ruminants parasite cycles? Thanks
I think he likes 30 days for the pasture to rest so that the clover grows and releases seeds to grow more clover, but he said that 14 days might be good enough for the grass to grow. Also, if you see the tips getting sharp on the top of the grass, then it might be ready because you don't want grass to waste growth on making seeds. I'm not sure if he mentioned a connection between parasites and pasture rest time OTHER THAN you don't want the sheep eating too low to the ground, eating the grass down too low, because the parasites hide down by the dirt, and you don't want the grass to die. Further, if it looks like there is plenty of grass but the sheep aren't eating it, and maybe they are eating certain spots down to the dirt, then they need to be moved because the other grass has probably been fowled by the sheep trampling their poop all over it. That sheep poop will have the worm eggs and other parasites in it. So, moving the sheep once or twice a day gives them fresh grass with less parasites. Cows and sheep break each other's parasite life cycles. I'm not sure if chickens or rabbits help with this, other than chicken scratch the poop into the ground to help work your soil for you.
Does the hair sheep do well during the winter, are there other things you do for them? How tall is your stand of forage for winter grazing?
Hair sheep do better in the winter than cattle do. Our forage is as tall as we can grow it with the amount of moisture we may receive in the fall.
I have a 700 acre tract on my farm that I’ve let go due to rocks. In 18 years it’s pretty filled in with cedar and autumn olives. I was considering goats first and then hogs. I prefer sheep to goats and saw a video of yours claiming sheep eat brush also. It seems sheep require more maintenance, management and protection then goats. I have not investigated investment potential between goats and sheep. I have coyotes also... what kinds of dog breeds work best? What does the daily maintenance of sheep and dogs look like? Can you use a donkey like some use for cattle?
Sheep are much easier to keep in then goats most of the time. Our sheep are the lowest maintenance animal on our farm. They are rotated every two days to a new pasture. Goats and sheep both need protection from predators.
@@gregjudyregenerativerancher does a donkey work in place of dogs or 1 dog? Or are both the best option or just a dog
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I am a subscriber. What month do you separate the rams? How far away do you have to keep them from the ewes?
He puts rams in on December 1st, removes rams July 14th or so. That years Ram lambs are castrated at same time. He keeps rams in a silvo pasture 3 miles away from ewe flock.
Thanks for the information where you located at
Mid Missouri
If your stocking rate is X (on a yearly average), what percentage of X do you like to go into winter stockpile with to ensure you have enough forage?
Abt 3 pound hay per sheep per day that they will need fed, ..... If you can get 2 grazes of your fields how much winter is left into thaw? May only need a week may need 2 mos
If your just getting started would you get a guard dog first?
You need some way of protecting your sheep. Either electro-net or a guardian animal.
Do you keep the rams in the flock from December to July, I’m confused
You are correct. Rams come out first of July, go back in with ewes December 1st. This prevents winter lambing.
What about using a llama as a guard animal? Do they work well with grazing sheep?
We use dogs, they work tirelessly protecting our flock.Don’t try to fix something that ain’t broke😊
Greg ewes teeth
are your ewes lasting longer because they have fresh pasture with longer grass
rarther than set stocking on short grass . Worn teeth is usually end of the ewe
We have ewes in the flock that are over 10 years old and going strong.
You say to leave the mothers alone, but does that apply to the birthing? Do you monitor the birthing for complications? Do you interfere if one is having trouble?
Our ewes have never needed help lambing.
How do you not do any hay? Do you have grass in the winter too?
Yes we are still grazing winter stockpiled grass along with unrolling hay when we need it.
I'm curious if anyone has experience sheep grazing solar farms through the winter. I know it is done in the summer, but I'd like to hear if anyone has winter solar farm grazing experience. We're in northern IL, so we do get a bit of snow.
Have you tried it?
@@grantstacy1084 Nope, the solar farms that were proposed in this area 2 years ago still haven't been started. So no chance to try yet.
I was given two ram lambs, bottle fed them, but didn't have the electric net, so my wife sold them to get them off her porch. I'd like to know more about running them behind cows, in front of chickens?
I'm not crazy about sheep, but it would be nice to have something to keep the weeds down.
I need to catch up on your videos.
As you mentioned, on 5 acres, having some sheep and raising a steer for beef; what order would you rotate them, or would you keep them all grazing together (the steer and the sheep)?
All together in one group, flerd!
@Greg Judy Regenerative Rancher thank you! Do you ever breed & sell lgd's pups or recommend a breeder?
We sell pups, that is one of our farm businesses. Right now we do not have any available
Winter there isn't no pasture?? Because of snow?
Livestock can dig fine under snow.
How much do you sell your sheep for if I wanted to try some
Any concern with inbreeding, assuming the same rams are breeding the ewes?
It's not inbreeding it's purification of the gene line
Can you run your cows, sheep and goats all at the same time
Sheep and goats share the same parasite. Parasite numbers can get very high grazing the 2 species together. If you moved them daily onto clean recovered pastures, they would be fine grazing together.
Hej Greg! I live in Finland, would this system work for us?
It works universally
Do the guard dogs also herd?
Only when danger is near, they will round the sheep into a circle.
Can you keep your rams and bulls together in the same Pin or separate pasture
Kberry1249 sal A few videos ago, he talked about his “flerd”, his mix of a sheep flock and cattle herd. Depends on the time of year, so worth going back to see the other video.
@@SoilMatesofGeorgia I'm talking about does he Keep the bulls in male rams together when it's not breeding season hes never explain how he keeps his male animal separate from the female animals
Kberry1249 sal I was thinking of this video, th-cam.com/video/WFW3_dLMfyE/w-d-xo.html, around 15:18, he says he mixes in his bulls with his sheep, but you are correct. He doesn’t cover his ram separation in that. He had an old video showing adding his rams back to his flock, but that was a while ago and I didn’t go back to look for it.
The rams are put in with the ewes December 1st. The rams are removed from the flock July 14th when we castrate all the young ram lambs. The rams spend the summer 3 miles from our ewe flock on another silvo-pasture farm that they are rotated on with 1 polybraid wire. If the rams can smell, hear or see the ewes, it takes a fortress to keep them from breaking out and getting in with them.
Hi greg how many months do the rams stay with the females for reproducing
Turn them into the ewes December 1st, take them out July 7th. This prevents winter lambing and it also keeps us from having two separate herds during this period. Heck they have bred the ewes, just leave them in with the ladies!! Life is good on the farm when we don’t make more work for ourselves for no good reason.