Happy New Year - Sheep New Year, that is!

Sheep-raising, like most agricultural endeavors, follows the seasons. In the Sierra foothills, where we graze sheep, our best forage is in the springtime - and so we match our production system to the grass. In other words, we time our management calendar so that lambs are born when the grass is growing rapidly - we match supply with demand in our system. Since sheep are pregnant for 145-155 days, and since we want our ewes to start lambing when rapid grass growth begins in late February, we turn the rams in with the ewes around October 1.

For us, the act of putting rams with the ewes feels like the first day of a new Sheep Year. The lambs born in 2017 are weaned; most of them have been sold. After weaning, the ewes go back onto dry forage for the summer. Around September 1, we put them on irrigated pasture and feed them grain to "flush" them - to get them ready for breeding. And yesterday, we put the rams back with the ewes for 6 weeks of ovine procreation. Happy New Year!

Here's a short video blog about what the last couple of days have entailed: