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This might be a little personal, and feel free to say you don't care to share... but do you have any kids/step kids/ grandkids/nieces/nephews/adopted kids/"mentored kids" to carry on your legacy? Learn all the things you have accomplished in life and the life skills you have????
I would have loved to have had family/close friends or SOMEONE who took me under their wing and taught me a 10th of what you are capable of doing..... with the eye to carrying on the legacy into the next generation...
I know you have employee(s) but you have such a wonderful life... and no, I know it is not perfect and has it's share of problems.... it would be a shame for it to not be carried on....

My son does a few things differently, but basically is carrying on what I learned and did, mostly through trial and error and learning from others since I did not grow up in a directly related farm family... but sadly he did not marry or have kids, and don't know where it will go from there..... guess I will be long gone and won't worry about it...
 
Hereford2 said:
What we do to teach our goat's to come in at night, is when we get them, we keep them locked up for the first week, and every evening we give them a little grain , so they get used to eating grain in their shed in the evening, then when you turn them loose they will come up every evening hoping for the grain and they get shut in, that way your not having to chase them down.
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I thought of doing the same thing. getting the goats to return to their shed at night would work for us, we have coyotes, an occasional wolf and black bears. what type of grain and what amount do you feed them each night. any other tips you can offer a newbie to goat raising?
 
DNelson said:
I thought of doing the same thing. getting the goats to return to their shed at night would work for us, we have coyotes, an occasional wolf and black bears. what type of grain and what amount do you feed them each night. any other tips you can offer a newbie to goat raising?
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Hard to beat shelled corn. They seem to pick up every grain of the corn. Doesn't take much at all to get them interested. Maybe a few oz each time. There is a lot of grains in a pound of corn.
 
I missed the start of this post. Sheep and cows eat different forages, they also eat the same forages. I know and work with producers that do raise both. However, most producers, producers I know and producers I work with choose to raise one or the other. What happens when someone chooses to raise both is that the two kinds of livestock are raised to complement each other. Yes, the producer could raise more beef if they just raised beef or they could raise more lamb/mutton if they just raised sheep, but by raising both, the producer is able to raise 1.25 to 1.5 times as much total animal weight than if they raised only one or the other.
 
I have had sheep for a long time and do not understand the comments on how they destroy the pasture. They are more demanding of attention than cattle, but easy to care for if you keep foot rot out of your flock and have a working solution to the predator problem.
As I cut back my workload, I have cut way back on numbers to about 15 ewes that generally have about 25 lambs each year (Hampshire wool sheep). I depend on cows to graze the large majority of the farm.

I rotate them in three or four pastures nearest the house, largely because they keep the pastures looking good, trim and weed free. Also their light weight and avoidance of mud prevents all the packing and rutting of the soil that cattle cause in the winter or wet weather.
The grass actually improves under the influence of the sheep grazing and often appears much like a manicured lawn.

It seems that grass is improved by rotating between cattle and sheep, Overgrazing by either is bad,
 
Logan52 said:
I have had sheep for a long time and do not understand the comments on how they destroy the pasture. They are more demanding of attention than cattle, but easy to care for if you keep foot rot out of your flock and have a working solution to the predator problem.
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A lot of it can be location. There is a difference in range land, or even pasture that has multiple plants growing, and a pasture of only a few selected species of plants in them.
Sheep are far more selective grazers and will continue to eat a favorite plant down to nothing , when other plants are still available in high numbers and quality.
Raised sheep for years . Raised ramboulett , Columbia and fins until the wool check didn't even cover the shearing bill. Then went to Suffolk but eventually went to all cattle because they paid the bills better.
Spent hours and days in the saddle moving sheep as far back as I can remember. Making sure they didn't over graze a particular plant or area.
Spent a couple days a year loading wool bags into trailers . Almost all the locals that raised sheep belonged to the wool growers association and would all sell their wool together. Received better prices that way.
 
Logan52 said:
I have had sheep for a long time and do not understand the comments on how they destroy the pasture. They are more demanding of attention than cattle, but easy to care for if you keep foot rot out of your flock and have a working solution to the predator problem.
As I cut back my workload, I have cut way back on numbers to about 15 ewes that generally have about 25 lambs each year (Hampshire wool sheep). I depend on cows to graze the large majority of the farm.

I rotate them in three or four pastures nearest the house, largely because they keep the pastures looking good, trim and weed free. Also their light weight and avoidance of mud prevents all the packing and rutting of the soil that cattle cause in the winter or wet weather.
The grass actually improves under the influence of the sheep grazing and often appears much like a manicured lawn.

It seems that grass is improved by rotating between cattle and sheep, Overgrazing by either is bad,
Click to expand...
Our daughter's teacher brought the Ag students to our place after a rain (it was closer to town) and he showed how the footprints of the cattle had water stored in them, like little reservoirs. It was very interesting.
Sheep are hard on pastures because they have upper and lower teeth (like horses) so they can eat right to the dirt (like horses). They do take management, as you stated. We had a sheep/cattle rancher friend who ran in huge pastures in arid range country in WY. You couldn't tell where the sheep had been because he was of the mind that he raised GRASS. He was a great stockman. The sheepmen around him...their sheep grazed into the dirt.
Cows, of course, only have bottom teeth in front, so I think that is why they are easier on pastures.
 
(Faster horses) Sheep do not have teeth like horses. They have teeth like cattle.

I have learned from this thread. Evidently sheep can be hard on grass out in the arid west.
In humid Kentucky I have found them to be beneficial to pastures.

I thought people had just seen too many old westerns about the range wars between cattlemen and sheepmen.
 
Logan52 said:
(Faster horses) Sheep do not have teeth like horses. They have teeth like cattle.

I have learned from this thread. Evidently sheep can be hard on grass out in the arid west.
In humid Kentucky I have found them to be beneficial to pastures.

I thought people had just seen too many old westerns about the range wars between cattlemen and sheepmen.
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It's all in the management of the livestock or the management of the range/pasture, whatever the case may be. Cows can be beneficial, sheep can be beneficial, cows can be devastating, sheep can be devastating. Locations change, management changes, grazing species change. Effects of good or bad management, whichever is applied, doesn't change.
 
Western sheep think of flocks numbering in the thousands. Old days standard was a sheep wagon parked at the water hole. Sheep are brought into the water hole and bedded down for the night close to the wagon. In the morning they were herded out to graze. They stay in that location until camp is moved to the next water hole. You can bet that the area around the water hole was over grazed.
 
collegeboundgal said:
we have cattle, sheep and goats. just recently added the sheep and am having predator problems with the lambs. Going to have to address that problem if I keep them on.
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As @DNelson suggested, a great Pyrenees would work, but be sure and get it from a reputable breeder specifically taylored to guard dogs. Additionally, keeping a donkey with the sheep works as well.
 
Mark Reynolds said:
It's all in the management of the livestock or the management of the range/pasture, whatever the case may be. Cows can be beneficial, sheep can be beneficial, cows can be devastating, sheep can be devastating. Locations change, management changes, grazing species change. Effects of good or bad management, whichever is applied, doesn't change.
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Maggots can be beneficial as well. Very beneficial for healing wounds ect.
But it doesn't change the fact that they are still maggots.
To this day most sheep grazing allotments have a full time herder to manage and move the sheep. Cattle allotments are almost the exact opposite. Very few have full time herders .
Even the same allotments that changed from sheep to cattle have required less intensive management. Time and effort cost money. Sheep will always need more intensive management vs cattle.
Can they be beneficial absolutely but they are still sheep. Just like a beneficial maggot is still a maggot.
 
Rmc seems to me to be a little harsh, but maybe he has a point.

One thing that strikes me is the difference between cattle people and sheep people, Just go to the weigh in line at any stockyards. The cattle people drive big duelly trucks with huge trailers, some looking like they just came off the lot. Sheep people drive old rusted trucks with home made trailers that look to be unsafe for the road. I have witnessed some really comical attempts to get sheep to the sale. One time a tongue to a trailer came apart and it took volunteers from the crowd that gathered to climb on the back end and balance the trailer to get it connected again.

I fear my operation leans a bit more toward the sheep side of things, but my pastures weathered this little drought we are coming out of in good shape. (and at least they are paid for)

My observations only pertain to my part of the country. It may be different elsewhere.
 
Hereford2 said:
What we do to teach our goat's to come in at night, is when we get them, we keep them locked up for the first week, and every evening we give them a little grain , so they get used to eating grain in their shed in the evening, then when you turn them loose they will come up every evening hoping for the grain and they get shut in, that way your not having to chase them down.
Click to expand...
what do you have for fencing to keep goats in the pasture? We have good barbed wire and some e fence. if they are trained to return to a barn at night for grain do they tend to stay in the pasture if they have enough brush and weeds to eat?
 
DNelson said:
what do you have for fencing to keep goats in the pasture? We have good barbed wire and some e fence. if they are trained to return to a barn at night for grain do they tend to stay in the pasture if they have enough brush and weeds to eat?
Click to expand...
If it will hold water it will hold goats. If trained to grain they will normally run to the barn.
 

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