Developing the grass in your yard for increasing free ranging nutrition

[Beekissed]

I'd have to re-fence, to the tune of about $10k. I got the horse fence up, and that is all I'm doing! lol

What kind of fencing do you have for the horses?

 

[Kassaundra]

Posting so I can find this when I have enough brain power to read it

 

[SunnySkies]

What kind of fencing do you have for the horses? 

Horseguard. I LOVE it. Best fence I have ever had. Easy to maintain. Way less expensive than woven wire, board fencing and any other options available in my area, not to mention much, much safer. But it will not keep in small livestock, unless I modified it, and I am not interested in doing so. My primary interest is horses,

 

[Beekissed]

Hair sheep are my favorite livestock to raise, second to chickens. Easy, fun, fulfilling and they pay for themselves over and over, much like the chickens.





Here at the self-feeding station in winter quarters...didn't have to lift a hay bale all winter and the waste was so minimal that I wanted to sing!




First lambing, good mother, easy peasy....she was really milky and was the one that convinced me that pure Kats were the way to go if I wanted to develop a meat sheep that could be milked also.

 

[Beekissed]

Horseguard. I LOVE it. Best fence I have ever had. Easy to maintain. Way less expensive than woven wire, board fencing and any other options available in my area, not to mention much, much safer. But it will not keep in small livestock, unless I modified it, and I am not interested in doing so. My primary interest is horses,

I can see that. I'd think that electric netting paddocks would be the way to go on sheep in that kind of pasture...just a slight investment in a couple of paddocks worth could be easily moved and rotated all over your area that needs mowed. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! They have built in push in stakes, two people can move the fencing easily and the grounding is in the bottom wire on the fencing, so no need for ground rods and such. Work well on simple, small solar chargers.




A hundred foot of the Premier is $142 and free shipping and the fencing last up to 10 years with good care.

 

[Aphrael]

Yep, that's what they are for! I had Katahdins and Kat/St. Croix crosses but really prefer the Kats. They have a sweeter meat than the woolly breeds..no lanolin or strong flavor. They put on as much meat as any other breed, more so than many. The great thing about hair sheep breeds is that they do very well on brushy scrub and actually prefer it in their diet, along with the graze...I always kept some woodier hay and all my cornstalks to feed in the winter, along with their regular hay, so they could get what they needed when they were confined to the winter quarters.

They are easier to contain then goats also due to their flocking instincts. Naturally hardy, fatten well on grass and browse, easy birthing, good mothering, shed their wool so shearing is not needed, parasite resistant. Because they don't have to have their tails docked, they have a great market in the Muslim communities, much like the goats and so are now commanding more attention at the livestock markets than ever before. Their shedding of wool, heat tolerance and parasite resistance are other reasons many are switching from wool breeds to the hair breeds, particularly in the south.

Around here a grass fed meat lamb brings high dollar if you have the right market. I saw a group of six Kat ram lambs go at market for $1200 the day I was there...they were beautiful. They were not castrated, tails were natural and their size was perfect for butchering.

Don't make the mistake of feeding hair sheep on grain based feeds as they are not suited for it and it really affects their natural hardiness and parasite resistance. They fatten just fine on grass and hay based diets, just a longer grow out than woolly lambs fed grain based feeds.

Thanks so much for the info!

I read hair sheep and my mind instantly went to hair=fiber. I didn't know there were sheep with shedding hair instead of wool. Those will be something to look into and compare to the spanish goats I've been thinking of getting once I can fence.

 

[Beekissed]

Goats are such a difficult animal to contain properly that I couldn't see having them. I had to work all day for long hours and the boys were still in school, so the animals were left unattended for several hours a day...you really can't worry about the animals getting out all the time in a situation like that, so I got the sheep instead. They have a very high flocking instinct,meaning they stay together and if one accidentally gets out for some reason it will try and try to get back IN to the rest of the sheep, not the other way around. I've never had one get out, though my fencing was very old cattle fencing that even a blind sheep could have gotten out of if she had so wanted to do so. That's one of the reason I so love these sheep...so easy to take care of!

They also bond to the shepherd so well that they are easier to work with than goats. Goats bond with the feed bucket and whoever is carrying it...with these hair sheep, they wouldn't do anything for anyone else but me no matter how much food that person may have. They have bucket love but not so strong that it overrides the shepherd love. I really like that about them!

Anyhoo...having the hair sheep really helped me condition my pasture at that place, I didn't have to use the old John Deere for a couple of years and all that grass was converted to meat. Running the sheep and chickens together was a perfect situation...and when I would look out and see a chicken riding on the back of a sheep it was priceless!

I had one chicken that liked to warm her feet up by sleeping on and riding around on one of my sheep...such a funny friendship to watch. This sheep was rather flighty, so it surprised me to see her stand still for a bird flying up onto her and riding around.

 

[centrarchid]

At work we have at least as many goats as hare sheep (katahadins mostly) and they can be contained by electrified netting quite well. Several herds are maintained around my lab and they seldom escape. Escapes are almost always result of caretaker error. Buck herd is a little more problematic in testing testing fencing.

 

[Aphrael]

Goats are such a difficult animal to contain properly that I couldn't see having them. I had to work all day for long hours and the boys were still in school, so the animals were left unattended for several hours a day...you really can't worry about the animals getting out all the time in a situation like that, so I got the sheep instead. They have a very high flocking instinct,meaning they stay together and if one accidentally gets out for some reason it will try and try to get back IN to the rest of the sheep, not the other way around. I've never had one get out, though my fencing was very old cattle fencing that even a blind sheep could have gotten out of if she had so wanted to do so. That's one of the reason I so love these sheep...so easy to take care of!

They also bond to the shepherd so well that they are easier to work with than goats. Goats bond with the feed bucket and whoever is carrying it...with these hair sheep, they wouldn't do anything for anyone else but me no matter how much food that person may have. They have bucket love but not so strong that it overrides the shepherd love. I really like that about them!

Anyhoo...having the hair sheep really helped me condition my pasture at that place, I didn't have to use the old John Deere for a couple of years and all that grass was converted to meat. Running the sheep and chickens together was a perfect situation...and when I would look out and see a chicken riding on the back of a sheep it was priceless!

I had one chicken that liked to warm her feet up by sleeping on and riding around on one of my sheep...such a funny friendship to watch. This sheep was rather flighty, so it surprised me to see her stand still for a bird flying up onto her and riding around.

I would love to see that. It sounds too cute.

 

[Beekissed]

This one isn't mine because every time I'd try to slip outside to snap a pic of it, they'd come arunnin' and the chicken would be dislodged from her perch! These are pics off the net, so it must be more common than we know!