Ten Commandments for Raising Healthy Sheep

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VI. KEEP MEANINGFUL RECORDS

It's impossible to maintain a high-quality, productive flock of Sheep unless you keep accurate and meaningful records. You need to know the first day your ram was put in with the ewes, for instance, so you can be ready for the birth of the flock's first lambs. It's best, also, to keep a separate chart for each ewe: Include her yearly wool and lamb yields... her offspring's weaning weight... and how long each youngster took to reach selling weight. In addition, you should keep track of all veterinary care given your flock, in order to know when to give follow-up wormings and vaccinations.

VII. PROVIDE ADEQUATE SHELTER

Sheep are born with a thick, free-of-charge wool coat that insulates against both direct heat and cold... so a simple, three-sided, roofed shelter will be adequate to protect your flock during most any weather conditions. The sheep "house" should be big enough to include four to six square feet of living space per beast, plus room for some separate lambing pens as well.

If you're faced with the very serious problem of local stray dogs or other predatory animals (our Kansas State University flock lost six lambs to a coyote in one night!), your sheep will need a strong protective enclosure to stay in at night and during lambing season. And—even if your only problem is keeping your woolly critters away from Aunt Hildie's petunias next door—you'll need sturdy fencing around your sheep pasture.

You might choose to build a double-stranded electric fence (run the bottom line 12 to 15 inches above the ground and the second wire a foot higher than the first) or, instead, to construct a wooden fence (make such a barrier at least 39 inches high... because sheep can leap!). On the other hand, you might find it easiest to simply hang a standard 12-inch-grid wire mesh fence. If so, be sure to run a strand of barbed wire—about as tight as the thumb string on a five-string banjo—right along the ground (to discourage prying noses)... and add one or two more lengths of the prickly wire above the grid fencing.

VIII. FEED THE CRITTERS CORRECTLY

Sheep require protein, vitamins, carbohydrates, and minerals—just as humans do—but the ruminating animals can utilize raw cellulose materials that you or I could never digest... and therefore are able to get all the nutrients they need from nothing more than fresh hay, grasses, and browse! This incredible ovine digestive ability means that—except during times like breeding season and winter when the animals need extra protein—your flock can convert some of the lowest-cost food sources available into useful meat and wool.

And when you do need to add extra "vitality" to a sheep's diet, you can simply feed the critter some good grain (or a protein supplement such as soybean meal). However, the amount of extra victuals needed will depend on the quality of hay or pasture the animal is already ingesting... and that quality can vary widely.

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