I’ve had sheep - actually, let me rephrase this - Sami and I have had sheep since she was in vet school at Davis. Close to 30 years. We started off raising a handful of feeder lambs, as well as an injured ewe that newly-minted Dr. Macon nursed back to health. In 2005, we bought 12 Barbados wethers and grazed 10 of them on brushland and grassland near Colfax (2 of them escaped into the American River canyon - we heard reports of them from rafters and river-swimmers for several years). In 2006, we bought 27 ewes and 30 feeder lambs and grazed them at Loma Rica Ranch between Grass Valley and Nevada City. Early in the second decade of the 21st Century, we tried to make a go of it raising sheep full-time - our ewe numbers approached 300. Drought - and the economic realities of scale (we were far too small to make a full-time income from our sheep) - forced us to downsize to a part-time operation. In 2021, we bred around 90 ewes.
About 7 or 8 years ago, we partnered with my friend Roger Ingram on our part-time sheep enterprise. Roger was the livestock and natural resources advisor for UC Cooperative Extension when we started our partnership; I hold that position today (and have since Roger’s retirement in 2017). Our roles in the sheep business have evolved with our professional responsibilities, too. Over the last five years, Roger has done the bulk of the electric fence building and grazing planning. I’ve been responsible for irrigation, lambing, and financial management.
This year, with the pandemic hopefully winding down, Roger decided he’d like to do more traveling and less fence building. His decision coincided with changes in our fall forage supply. Fall is a critical time in our operation - it’s breeding season. The conversion of a local farm that we typically grazed in October to housing put a 30-day hole in our forage supply. The expected loss of another irrigated pasture within the next several years will impact our summer grazing. Based on all of these factors, I decided to downsize our operation while buying out Roger’s interest in the business. All of that culminated this week.
A week ago, we weaned our lambs. Based on weaning weights and the number of lambs weaned per ewe, this was easily our most successful year. Despite the challenging conditions in the first three months of 2022, we felt like we were hitting on all cylinders. We had an arrangement with a fellow targeted grazing operation to sell them our ewe lambs and a handful of ram lambs. We thankfully worked out an arrangement with another local producer to buy our feeder lambs. And a third business (also local) agreed to buy the ewes we planned to sell.
This morning, the last of our feeder lambs and ewes loaded into someone else’s trailer. At the moment, the entire Flying Mule Sheep Company inventory consists of 55 running age ewes, 5 cull ewes, 2 rams, 7 replacement ewe lambs, 1 ram lamb, 15 feeder lambs, and 2 livestock guardian dogs. And starting this week, they’ll be entirely my responsibility. Roger will help out when I need to be out of town, as well as at shearing and other key times - but I’ll be the guy moving fences, changing water, and checking sheep. Just like I was in 2006.
But unlike 2006, today I’m a much better (although still learning) shepherd. I’m more efficient at building fence and moving irrigation water. I’m a better judge of forage and sheep health. I’m using border collies (which we didn’t start doing until 2008 or 2009). I’m better at managing my time - and the business.
I’ll admit I felt a bit sad seeing the ewes we decided to sell leave the ranch. I also felt sad seeing Dillon, one of our livestock guardian dogs, go. But I’m comforted knowing that our sheep and Dillon went to friends who value our work at developing locally adapted sheep and trustworthy dogs over the years. The past week has been both busy and stressful for me, but I’m excited to settle into a new routine. And I’m happy to still be in the sheep business - even if it is part-time.
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