[Jacob-list] hay/fleece

[Betty Berlenbach]

Hi, All, 

Up here in Vermont where it is pretty cold while they are in drylot/winter quarters and eating hay, I feed them on the ground, one flake every five feet, as many flakes as I have sheep.  Each eats on a separate "plate", mostly served on new snow each day, but at least on frozen ground, there is no real parasite problem, and very little hay in fleeces. They can look around while eating, but the next sheep person is five feet away, so they don't drop hay on each other much.  My rule is if I see more than 10 pieces of hay in a fleece while peekking in the bag and moving the fleece around a bit, I don't sell it raw.  and I get around $10-$12 per pound. People often comment on how clean the fleeces are.  Mostly, that is because I have a sweeper on shearing day who keeps the plywood clean, the fleece is immediately put on a skirting table and my team of skirters pick out what hay they can in the three minutes or so before the next fleece is ready (and they are very good!), and largely because of the way I feed out hay.  By the way, I do worm about a week before lambing or at lambing, if I don't get around to it, and then again when they come off pasture into winter quarters, and only on individual bases where needed in between, which is rare.  When I've thought there was a problem and had fecals done, they've always come back negative.  I rotate pastures.  And don't coat the sheep: too much work, and I think they look ridiculous coated, and feel they must be mortified to appear in the coats. (I know, I'm anthropomorphizing and they probably don't give a fig...but they are also often in woods and sticker bushes and I worry about getting caught because of the coats.  
 Betty, in Vermont,who now has a blog, thanks to help from Walter and Linda.  See Betty's blog at http://sheepwoman.wordpress.com.
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