9 Lessons of a Shepherd Intern

#9-It is possible to back up a large truck with a sheep cage in the back down a very narrow dirt road without bringing harm on truck, person, animal or environment (you do end up with sweaty palms though).

#8-Setting up electric fence in parched, rocky earth takes a long time, a mallet, a good hat and some personal fortitude.

#7-A tired shepherd and a determined intern can lift a large, sick ewe up a hill and into a truck - just barely.

#6-An unexpected ladybug colony at first appears creepy, but makes your heart smile when you realize they are gentle ladybugs and not giant, pinching ants.

#5-Blackberry bush stalks continue to reach out to rip your skin and clothes to shreds, even after sheep have relieved them of their leaves.

#4-Crowding sheep remind me of what it feels like at the Outside Lands concert.

More than one similarity to sheep

#3-Very important - DON'T open the gate unless you know the plan or Dan the shepherd tells you it's ok.

#2-If you open said gate without a plan or ok and sheep make a run for the hills, two clever border collies and a confident shepherd can fix your mistake pretty quick.

#1-Farming is an incredibly difficult profession that at times offers very little reward.

This weekend felt like a dose of reality to mix in with my idealized farming ambitions. Farming is physically, mentally and emotionally taxing and doesn't always provide the financial return desired for time, effort and labor put in. I can't help wondering, am I cut out for this? can I be successful at this? should I scale down my aspirations?

By late summer most small farmers in this area are run ragged from a long, hot season of watering, feeding, protecting and harvesting whatever their farm is producing. We can show our support for them by buying from them at farmers markets, sure, but what are some more ways we can show support and appreciation for our local farmers? The Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op has a program to raise money for local producers and to preserve future farmland; it's called Once Farm at a Time. If any farmers are reading, what are some ways in which you would appreciate support from your community?

I didn't realize sheep were so flexible...

Farming requires a great deal of flexibility as I have mentioned before. A farmer can't get too attached to a place, way of doing things or a particular outcome because inevitably something uncontrollable will change everything and adjustments have to be made, sometimes very quickly.

Sheep scientists

I saw this illustrated again this weekend when I met up with Dan. We drove to Highland Farm, a tree farm in Colfax. Dan, along with Allen, the owner of the farm and Roger, the UC Davis livestock extension agent, assessed the property and vegetation to see if it would support 300 ewes through breeding season.

Dan had planned to have these ewes much closer to his home farm on an irrigated pasture. He discovered however, that the pasture was not going to be able to support his ewes, much less enable them to gain weight through breeding, so he had to find an alternative pretty quickly.

I wouldn't mind having my meals here

Highland Farm it was; Dan is friends with the owners and had previously been interested in grazing their property. After a bumpy tour up and down the ridge and about ten million 'begger's lice' later the three men decided there was enough vegetation and variety to support the ewes at least for a couple months though maybe not through the entire breeding season. I could see being forced to be flexible is not so bad if you have good friends who are willing to feed your sheep! Actually it works out well for Highland Farm as well. Instead of having to manually remove brush that is a fire hazard, the sheep will clean it up.

As I mentioned, we are preparing for breeding season. When breeding ewes, most producers want the animals to be on a rising plane of nutrition (gaining weight) because this increases the likelihood of twins. This management technique is called "flushing" and is the reason Dan keeps his ewes on rough feed (like star thistle) most of the summer. It is desirable for the ewes lose some weight during the summer because they are not producing milk for lambs and they are not breeding or pregnant. But in preparation for breeding, which will begin October 1st, they need to be on feed that will allow them to start putting weight back on (but not too much weight, a fat ewe doesn't breed well).

Lambs hip deep in pasture

The management of the ewes is opposed to the lambs, who have been on lush pasture since they were weaned in May/June. For the lambs going to market, the idea is to get them gaining as much weight as possible as fast a possible, so they can be finished and sold at the market as they are a Dan's main source of income. It turns out to be a constant test of flexibility, keeping all the sheep on the right kind of feed during different times of the year, a difficult task for someone with nearly 500 sheep who only owns 3 acres of land!

My ewe lamb (posing with her best side I guess)

And a final note, Matt's market lamb is doing well, he weighed 76 lbs at last weigh in and is gaining about a 1/4 lb per day!  And my ewe lamb has been separated from the market lambs, she gets to stick around and probably bred next year.

I used to think picking starthistle was bad...

...and I still think it's a lousy way to spend a summer morning. But did you know that if accustomed to it and given little other options, sheep eat star thistle for breakfast, lunch and dinner this time of year?!  The seed heads are high in protein when most other free-range sheep feed is too dry to be provide for their nutritional needs. If you are not familiar with star thistle, this is what is looks like up close:

This is what an entire hillside of it looks like:

And this is what sheep who can absorb the protein from star thistle will do to it! 

Brown = grazed star thistle, green = new paddock

When I was young and an "indoor girl" I was occasionally required to weed a hula-hoop sized section of star thistle from our water deprived yard during the summer. Oh the pain, agony and complaining this chore inspired!

Now I volunteer to tromp through a field of waist high barbed weeds and bang electric fence into hard, crusty earth on the weekends. Oh how things change, how we are led to places we never imagined in our youth. Who would have thought such a heinous childhood chore would now incite smiles at a difficult task well done?