For the last 5 or 6 years I have been raising market lambs. I discovered very quick
ly that a pasture based system was what I wanted to use to raise them. The problem was that I didn't really own any pasture. I had a little grass but not nearly enough to raise the 8 to 10 lambs that I consumed every year so I was left having to borrow pasture. For the past few years my sheep have been transient. I can not say that this experience has been a waste. I have learned a lot about sheep management in a grass based system. Some pastures have been better than others – all have been greatly appreciated. Last year I even switched to pasture lambing where the lambs were born outside on pasture in late spring. It was a great success and this winter the sheep will be kept on pasture thought the winter. I have learned enough though all this that I have decide to have a go at raising lambs on a bigger scale than just for my own freezer.
Last August I finally bought the farm, well kind of. I bought the land that will be the farm. It is a 43 acre woodlot on the top of a big hill in Poland, Maine. This is a beautiful piece of land that used to be part of a farm back in the 1800s. It is lined with bold stone walls, has a view of the surrounding mountain tops and it even has a spring, did I mention this land is in Poland Maine i.e. Poland Spring? The one problem was that it is a woodlot, not a pasture.
11 acres of the land has since been clear-cut and it is sitting frozen solid waiting for spring when it will be scratched up, fertilized and seeded. I have decided to not stump the area but to let the stumps rot instead. This is an idea that my friend and successful dairy farmer thinks is not the correct way to move ahead. This guy definitely knows his stuff, he is still in business so he is doing something right, but the bottom line is I just do not have the money. I would love to have a nice tillable field that I could plant a nice clover timothy mix and not have to spend years battling the native species of brush but I have to build a barn, drill a well and put up fences and my dollar is only going to go so far.
I know that a woodlot can be turned into a pasture without being stumped because the settlers did not have excavators. I will have to use the same tools that shaped the plains of the Midwest, the grazers. I have done a lot of research (a phrase that congers a queer look from my dairy farmer friend) and in short if I fertilize and lime the soil to what grasses like, plant varieties of grasses and legumes that grow quickly in the climate I am in, and use the sheep to “mow” the area, the pasture will develop. The big negative to this is it will take a few years before it is a productive pasture, 20 before all the stumps are gone if they are left alone. Last month I bought the lime, fertilizer and seed that I will use in the spring to start this process.
The time to plant grass is months away, I am having a hard time being patient. Lambs aren’t due until May, It seems like I have been planning forever and spring is still so far away.
ly that a pasture based system was what I wanted to use to raise them. The problem was that I didn't really own any pasture. I had a little grass but not nearly enough to raise the 8 to 10 lambs that I consumed every year so I was left having to borrow pasture. For the past few years my sheep have been transient. I can not say that this experience has been a waste. I have learned a lot about sheep management in a grass based system. Some pastures have been better than others – all have been greatly appreciated. Last year I even switched to pasture lambing where the lambs were born outside on pasture in late spring. It was a great success and this winter the sheep will be kept on pasture thought the winter. I have learned enough though all this that I have decide to have a go at raising lambs on a bigger scale than just for my own freezer.Last August I finally bought the farm, well kind of. I bought the land that will be the farm. It is a 43 acre woodlot on the top of a big hill in Poland, Maine. This is a beautiful piece of land that used to be part of a farm back in the 1800s. It is lined with bold stone walls, has a view of the surrounding mountain tops and it even has a spring, did I mention this land is in Poland Maine i.e. Poland Spring? The one problem was that it is a woodlot, not a pasture.
11 acres of the land has since been clear-cut and it is sitting frozen solid waiting for spring when it will be scratched up, fertilized and seeded. I have decided to not stump the area but to let the stumps rot instead. This is an idea that my friend and successful dairy farmer thinks is not the correct way to move ahead. This guy definitely knows his stuff, he is still in business so he is doing something right, but the bottom line is I just do not have the money. I would love to have a nice tillable field that I could plant a nice clover timothy mix and not have to spend years battling the native species of brush but I have to build a barn, drill a well and put up fences and my dollar is only going to go so far.
I know that a woodlot can be turned into a pasture without being stumped because the settlers did not have excavators. I will have to use the same tools that shaped the plains of the Midwest, the grazers. I have done a lot of research (a phrase that congers a queer look from my dairy farmer friend) and in short if I fertilize and lime the soil to what grasses like, plant varieties of grasses and legumes that grow quickly in the climate I am in, and use the sheep to “mow” the area, the pasture will develop. The big negative to this is it will take a few years before it is a productive pasture, 20 before all the stumps are gone if they are left alone. Last month I bought the lime, fertilizer and seed that I will use in the spring to start this process.
The time to plant grass is months away, I am having a hard time being patient. Lambs aren’t due until May, It seems like I have been planning forever and spring is still so far away.
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