It is really working!

last year I wrote about how I was going to confining the sheep to small paddocks and move them every day or two. Before I moved them I would though out some grass and clover seed so they would trample it in seed they browsed off the leaves, weeds and what little there was for native grasses. The reasoning I had for doing this was to put the nutrients on the ground were the trampled in seed could use it. The sheep would also do a better job cleaning up the brush since they were under pressure from the other sheep to get what they could before someone else did, so they were less picky. Here are a couple pictures of how it is going.
This picture was taken 11-10-2009, it was just after the loggers left. here is the post I wrote about it in http://uponthehillfarm.blogspot.com/2010/02/foster-farm-finds-home.html

















This picture was taken last June. you can see the Timothy coming up, it looks promising! At this point the sheep had been over it 2 times and I had thrown out seed once in the spring. This is a spot that stays moist longer than most of the clear-cut so the grass is doing the best here compared to the entire clear-cut. below is the link to the post. http://uponthehillfarm.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html
















This was yesterday May 26th 2011. The Timothy and red clover are so thick I am concerned about letting the sheep have free choice of it since I worry they could bloat. As I said this is a wetter area so the grass is coming in best here but the rest of the clearing is definitely growing grass.




















I am moving the sheep almost every day now. Lambing is almost done and now we will be busy keeping good grass in front of the ewes and lambs. This year we weighed all the lambs when they were born so we will be able to track the pounds gained per day for each lamb which will help us choose which animals to keep for breeding and which go to market. I am not going to say anything that will jinx the situation but so far so good :-)