Posts Tagged: sheep
Webinar: Sheep shearing and basic care 101
The University of California Hopland Research and Extension Center (HREC) will offer a sheep shearing and basic care Q&A via Zoom from 3 to 4 p.m. May 7. The session will include advice from experienced shearers, flock managers and fiber experts.
Presentations and discussion will focus on shearing that limits stress to both the sheep and shearer. We also encourage your questions regarding sheep handling, husbandry, flock health, running a mobile shearing service, ethical shearing, grazing for fuel reduction and climate beneficial ranching practices. This webinar will take the place of the planned Sheep Shearing and Basic Care 101 immersive workshop planned at HREC in Spring 2020.
Participants in the webinar may also be interested in learning more about the class planned for 2021. Due to these unprecedented times, you do not have to have been registered for the Sheep Shearing 101 class to attend this Q&A session.
The session is free, but registration is required. Click here to register for the webinar and to share your questions.
Speakers:
Ruthie King
King is a shepherd focused on intensive rotational grazing for soil building, ecosystem restoration, fuel reduction and nutrient/water cycling. She raises Icelandic and Targhee sheep and sells meat, wool, and pelts through direct marketing. Services she offers include sheep shearing and contract grazing.
Alison Smith
Smith is the shepherd of the flock of over 200 sheep at the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center. She also supports research and extension at the site.
Trevor Hollenback
Owner/operator of Hollenback Shearing, Hollenback has been professionally trained and employed as a shearer in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, and Austria. His primary focus in shearing is limiting stress to both the sheep and shearer.
Rebecca Burgess
Burgess is the executive director of Fibershed, chair of the board for Carbon Cycle Institute, and the author of “Harvesting Color.” A vocationally trained weaver and natural dyer, she creates hands-on curricula that focus on restoration ecology and fiber systems. Burgess has built an extensive network of farmers and artisans in the Northern California Fibershed to pilot an innovative fiber systems model at the community scale.
Livestock grazing helps California tackle wildfire
California is searching for solutions to the wildfire crisis. Livestock ranchers believe they can help.
At the 14th Annual Rangeland Summit in Stockton in January, more than 150 ranchers, public land managers and representatives of non-profit organizations that work on land conservation gathered to share research and experiences that outline the value of cattle and sheep grazing on rangeland.
Since California was settled by Europeans, cattle and sheep have been an integral part of the state's history.
“Cattle can control brush,” said Lynn Huntsinger, UC Cooperative Extension specialist at UC Berkeley in a presentation on brush management. She discussed research she conducted in the early 1980s to understand the role of cattle in Sierra Nevada brush control.
“We need to make livestock into firefighters,” she said. “Constant, deliberate, targeted grazing is needed for fire management.”
However, thick, overgrown brush requires intensive treatment that cattle can't handle on their own.
“You have to start from a good place,” Huntsinger said. “Start early, such as post fire. Plan when you have a blank slate for the forest you want.”
The tragic loss of homes and lives to wildfire in the last few years has increased the public demand for answers and action. However, the reasons for greater frequency and intensity of wildfire are not well understood.
“Is it climate change? Past decisions? Land use? What can we do about it?” asked UC Cooperative Extension specialist Van Butsic. “Research.”
At the summit, Butsic presented the results of his recent research to determine whether ownership has an impact upon whether land will burn. He and his colleagues studied the burn histories of forest and rangeland areas that were matched with the same characteristics, except in ownership.
“We controlled for all factors – slope, elevation, the likelihood of ignition,” he said. “We found that on forest and rangeland, federal ownership led to .3 percent higher fire probability. Ownership is dwarfing the impact of climate change.”
There is still much more research to be done.
“We can't say the impact of grazed vs. ungrazed land,” Butsic said. “We also need to look at fire severity as well as fire frequency.”
The UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Modoc County, Laura Snell, shared preliminary results at the rangeland summit that provide information for landowners making decisions about returning livestock to burned areas.
She and a team of colleagues studied the fire history of U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management rangeland in Lassen and Modoc counties where fires had burned through 5, 10 and 15 years before. The dataset included information about whether the land was “rested” for two years after the fire, or whether livestock were returned to graze soon after the blaze.
The scientists set out to determine whether fire intensity and climate at the site (measured by soil temperature and moisture) had an impact on the future diversity of plant species and growth of cheat grass, an invasive species that animals don't like.
“No matter what we did, graze or not graze, after 15 years, the species richness stayed the same,” Snell said. “Grazing was not the driving factor.”
The results are also important in terms of fuels accumulation and the prevention of future wildfires.
“Federal land managers have typically used a policy to rest the land for two years after a fire. During the interval, the fuels sometimes burn again and livestock producers have to wait another two years,” Snell said. “Our research showed you don't necessarily need to rest the land after the fire.”
Two ranchers who were recently impacted by wildfire presented their experiences and perspectives during the rangeland summit.
Mike Williams of Diamond W Cattle Company had livestock on 6,500 acres of leased land in Ventura County when the Thomas Fire ignited on Dec. 4, 2017. Over more than a month, the fire burned 281,893 acres and consumed 1,000 structures.
Williams had stockpiled feed on certain pastures by limiting grazing, which during the fire turned into hazardous fuel.
Adam Cline, rangeland manager for the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation Preserve in the Capay Valley, had a similar experience when the County Fire burned more than 90,000 acres in western Yolo and eastern Napa counties in June and July 2018. To reserve feed for later, Cline had left 2,500 pounds per acre of residual dry matter on grazing land as a drought mitigation strategy. He said he plans to reconsider this grazing plan.
“Now, cattle feed looks like a lot of fuel,” he said.
Raising sheep and goats for fun and profit
A 4-H sheep or goat project has something in common with ranchers raising animals for a living. In both cases, one objective is profit.
“Profit is not a dirty word,” said Dan Macon, UC Cooperative Extension assistant specialist in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. “How many of you are using fair animals to save for college or buy a car? You're in business.”
Macon spoke at a Sheep and Goat Workshop June 13 for 4-H members, FFA students and local sheep and goat producers, organized by UC Cooperative Extension livestock and natural resources advisor Devii Rao. About 30 of the workshop participants represented the industry, 70 were young producers and family.
Macon discussed the direct and indirect costs of rearing animals, the optimal timing for breeding so lambs and kids will be weaned when grass is naturally abundant, and tactics for protecting sheep from predators.
“I call this, ‘Big dogs, hot fences and fast sheep,'” Macon said. “Someday I'm going to write a country song with that title.”
The big dogs are guardian animals that are not socialized to humans, but rather kept with sheep from the time they are tiny puppies. Donkeys and llamas can be effective guardians if the predators are coyotes and dogs.
UCCE advisor Roger Ingram covered the opportunity to manage rangeland with a flock of sheep or herd of goats. The concept is “targeted grazing.”
“Think of yourselves as grass and brush farmers with four-legged combines to harvest,” Ingram said.
He advised animal caregivers to learn to identify plants, as some are good for the animals, and some are not. For example, poison hemlock and milk weed are problem plants for certain animals.
Ten-year-old 4-H member Cody Watson attended the workshop with his grandmother Susan Gardner.
“Raising animals teaches responsibility and accountability,” Gardner said. “The kids learn where food comes from.”
Gardner was a 4-H member as a child, but when her children were growing up, she didn't have the income for property to house animals.
“It's fun,” Tobia said. “I'm there with all my friends.”
Madera farmer says feeding sprouted grain to sheep improves milk quality
“I think that's a big advantage if you don't have a lot of land,” the farmer said. “You can produce a tremendous amount of feed in a very, very small area with a very little amount of water.”
However, UC Cooperative Extension alfalfa specialist Dan Putnam noted in the story that the system may not pencil out.
"If you really apply a little bit of economics to it and animal nutrition to it, it doesn't appear quite as promising as one might think," Putnam said.
There is no question that animals find the sprouted barely delicious. Online videos show cattle and horses "gobbling up sprouted grain like a vegetarian at a salad bar," Putnam wrote in a 2013 blog post that asked Does hydroponic forage production make sense? Things are not always as they seem. Animal ration calculations are based on dry matter since water is provided separately.
"A feed with 90 percent water (such as sprouted grain) has considerably less 'feed value' than something with only 5 percent water (such as the grain itself), on a pound for pound basis," Putnam's blog post says.
Feeding sheep sprouted barley makes sense to Mario Daccarett, the owner of the Golden Valley Farm. He said cheese made from his sheep's creamy milk is sold in places like Whole Foods.
"They have our cheese there and they tell me that our Golden Ewe cheese is the best for grilled cheese sandwich ever, and they have over 500 different varieties of cheese there," Daccarett said.
The farmer feeds his sheep one part oats and hay and one part sprouted barley.
“You do the math and you say, 'Well, yeah, it might not work,' but once we started doing it we found out that sheep tend to eat less, more nutrition, more enzymes,” Daccarett said. “So they become more efficient.”
UC sheep shearing school prepares students for gainful employment
“I tell my sheep shearing students, ‘You'll never be unemployed,'” said John Harper, UC Cooperative Extension livestock and natural resources advisor in Mendocino County. “And you'll never be poor.”
Shearers can earn $50 to $100 per hour, Harper said, and can start a business with a $3,000 investment in equipment.
“If they can learn how to shear sheep correctly, it's a great little business to get into,” Harper said.
The need for skilled sheep shearers in California and other parts of the nation has prompted the UC Hopland Research and Extension Center to host an annual sheep shearing school, where a diversity of students are introduced to a trade that allows them to work with their hands, out-of-doors, when and where they want.
Although sheep shearing is traditionally a male occupation, Harper said he encourages women to take the course.
“Women have a lower center of gravity. Strength is important, but so is hip rotation,” Harper said. “The sheep's skin is very loose and the blades are pretty powerful. The female students tend to be more cautious and we see fewer nicks.”
Beatrice Thomas, 41, is a typical student.
“I came to sheep shearing by way of dance and the arts,” Thomas said.
She left her Bay Area desk job about a year ago. “There wasn't a mind-body connection,” she said. “Forty hours at a desk, my body was aching.”
But sheep shearing was a completely different experience.
“This doesn't hurt the same way as sitting at a desk, because it feels vital. Every move is important. There's a dance. There's a rhythm. My whole spirit lit up,” Thomas said.
The 5,200-acre Hopland Research and Extension Center is home to a flock of about 1,000 sheep, which provide opportunities for scientists to study their role in land management. They also serve as a ready supply of animals for prospective new shearers to learn the craft.
“We teach students how to shear in a way that ensures the welfare of the sheep, produces a quality wool clip, and keeps the shearers safe,” Harper said. “We received a grant from the National Sheep Industry Improvement Association to purchase new shearing equipment. This allows the students to learn with brand new, state-of-the-art combs, cutters and hand pieces.”
The annual sheep shearing school at Hopland is the only intensive five-day course in the United States, said Hannah Bird, community educator at the research center.
“It brings people from all over the country and sometimes outside the country,” she said.
The week together helps build camaraderies amongst the newly trained sheep shearers. Hopland sheep shearing alums have created a Facebook group to stay in touch and refer jobs to one another. Several previous students are making a living a sheep shearing. One is Stephany Wilkes, a 2013 sheep shearing student who now runs her own sheep shearing business from San Francisco.
“People always ask me, ‘How can you run a sheep shearing business and live in the city?'” Wilkes said. “But there are actually a lot of sheep in the Bay Area, in Marin County, Solano and Yolo. I shear in Hayward and as far south as Gilroy. I go can go anywhere a car can.”
Lead instructor Gary Vorderbruggen said a key to sheep shearing success is a calm demeanor.
“Sheep don't need to be riled up. If you can be calm, and be safe, you will gain speed with experience,” Vorderbruggen said. “It's no different than a dance. It's like a square dance, except you're doing that square dance with an unwilling partner.”
Joining Harper and Vorderbruggen instructing the class in 2016 was Trevor Hollenback. He was first exposed to sheep shearing when visiting a friend's sheep farm in Austria.
“I realized this is a really skilled craft. It's amazing,” Hollenback said.
Hollenback quit his desk job and traveled to New Zealand for training, then returned to the Austrian farm for more practice. Back in the United States, Hollenback opened his own business and began shearing sheep in California and Arizona. He was tapped to be the instructor at Hopland because of his formal training in New Zealand.
“One of the most important things that the students can take away from this course is going to be sheep handling, how to move the sheep around, how to control the sheep on the board,” Hollenback said. “A lot of students came here with very little background in livestock. Footwork, positions, getting the pattern down – all the finer points in shearing – that comes with practice.”
The week-long sheep shearing school at Hopland will be held again in spring 2017. The class typically fills up within two hours of opening registration. Register interest on the UCCE Mendocino website to be notified when registration opens.
View scenes from the 2016 Sheep Shearing School at Hopland in the video below: