Once a Sheepman...

Photo by Marie Malloy - taken during lambing 2022!

Last week, I completed a survey about sheep production that asked, "how long have you raised sheep?" I had to stop and think about it. Sami brought home a ewe that had been injured by a dog during her final year of veterinary school (1994, I believe). For the next several years, while we lived in the town of Penryn (west of Auburn), we raised a handful of feeder lambs, mostly for ourselves. We continued raising feeder lambs once we moved to Auburn in 2001. In 2004, we purchased a dozen Barbados feeder lambs and grazed them in Colfax. In 2005, we purchased a small breeding flock (27 ewes) and increased our purchase of feeder lambs (I think we bought 30), and ran them on pasture near Grass Valley. And we've had sheep throughout all of the intervening years - I guess that makes 2023 the 30th year that we've raised ovines. And over that time, raising sheep has become both a part-time vocation and full-time avocation. I suppose you could say that I self-identify as a sheepman, even though I make most of my living doing other work. I'm a shepherd, in my own eyes, and (I think) in the eyes of others.

Even before Sami's cancer diagnosis, I had been considering some changes to our sheep enterprise. After buying out my partner Roger and operating (mostly) by myself during the second half of 2022, I was kicking around ideas for simplifying the sheep business to allow more time for visiting our daughters; for camping, hunting, and fishing; for potentially developing a small-scale portable milling business. Through all of my self-examination during the fall and early winter, however, I couldn't quite bring myself to sell all of our sheep. Despite the fact that sheep (in any number, really) require some level of daily attention, I knew that even if I wanted to create more time and space for these other things, I wanted sheep to be part of my life.

After Sami's first surgery, when we learned that she had some form of brain cancer, I forced myself to take a harder look at the sheep. I decided to try to sell some of the ewes before they lambed to reduce the amount of time I'd need to build fence. When Sami had her second surgery in mid February, we were only a week away from lambing season - not an ideal time to try to sell sheep. Instead, I decided to take a friend up on his offer to take my ewes for the spring - to lamb them out, graze them on his targeted grazing projects, and send them back to me around weaning time.

Despite the disruption of multiple surgeries (and recoveries), several week-long hospital stays, and the initiation of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, however, I knew I needed to keep some sheep around for my own well-being. By the time we shipped the bulk of the ewes to Fresno County, 12 ewes had delivered their lambs. I picked out a handful of additional ewes that I knew to be good mothers and who looked to be pregnant, just so I'd have some new lambs to look forward to. As of this week, all but 1 of the 15 ewes I kept in Auburn have had lambs; one might be open.

Lambing is usually my favorite part of the sheep year, even though it's also the busiest. I love the twice-a-day walks through the lambing paddock. I love all of the new life! Even when things are difficult (poor weather or bad dystocias), I can count on lamb races to make me smile. But this year, with all that's been going on, I mostly find myself going through the motions of lambing. Thankfully, none of the ewes we kept has had any problems - and despite the cold and wet weather, all of the lambs are doing great! But I will admit, I'm glad to be done lambing this spring.

Over the course of my career, I've been privileged to know a great many sheep folks (men and women). The common thread, I think, is that sheep are in our blood - maybe in a way unlike any other type of livestock production. When we travel, we seem to seek out other sheep folks - no vacation is complete, really, unless we've seen sheep. Maybe it's the fact that sheep are easy to keep in small numbers, and easy to graze without a great deal of infrastructure, but even the "retired" sheepmen (and women) I know tend to keep a few around. We tell ourselves, "They're just for keeping the weeds down," or "I'll send them to the sale the next time someone goes," but I think we simply can't help it. Once a sheepman, always a sheepman.