Congratulations! You’ve taken the plunge and bought some sheep! Sheep are one of the most rewarding farm animals as they can be very gregarious and can provide so many products and services for a farm – wool, milk, meat, field maintenance, brush and weed control, to name the most common. Here in British Columbia, sheep were even used for a period as weed eaters for the silviculture industry. (more on that in a future post)
How to care for your sheep?
Sheep are easy, but they do require care. Their main needs are:
- Clean, dry shelter (don’t believe that “sheep carry their shelter on their backs” stuff)
- Clean water – sheep, like you, will not drink dirty water unless they’re dying
- Nutritious food
- Shearing and foot trimming
If you provide these three things at all times, your animals will live long, healthy lives, and you will likely never need to call a vet.
Shelter
Shelter for sheep comes in all sorts of sizes and shapes, from open-sided buildings to those that look like horse barns with stalls. We use a repurposed greenhouse during the winter months for our sheep, and they love it. What you use will depend on your circumstances.
The main things to consider in providing shelter will be that it is dry, with lots of ventilation and light, and clean. Most people provide straw bedding and either change it daily or put new layers of dry straw on regularly to keep the sheep warm and dry and healthy.
Clean Water
Clean water is the thing that is most commonly overlooked by sheep owners. Sheep aren’t like chickens, dogs, or other animals that will drink out of a dirty puddle. They seem to know instinctively that dirty water can infect them with parasites and bacteria, and will refuse to drink it. Keeping their water clean will create some work for you, but it is worth it.
You will want to encourage your sheep to drink plenty of water. Like humans and other mammals, drinking plenty of water keeps their bodies healthy. We even place the salt and mineral feeder next to the water to encourage the sheep to consume plenty of both.
Note: This is a poorly understood part of sheep husbandry – I have even seen notes in more than one book claiming that sheep don’t need to have water provided as they can get it from the grass they eat. It is true that they won’t drink much if the grass is wet and green in the spring, but you should provide it anyway, at all times. As soon as the temperature rises, or the grass gets a bit drier, or their stool gets a bit loose, or many other circumstances arise, they need a drink no matter what, and it needs to be there for them.
Nutritious Food
Sheep are herbivores and most people know they eat grass. But they also eat leaves, twigs, branches, and many other plants. When given a lot of space to roam, they will browse through the different zones taking a bit of everything that they need and making a balanced diet for themselves. On modern small farms, we provide:
- Good quality hay
- Small quantities of grain or textured feed
- Salt and minerals
Generally, the higher the quality of the hay you provide, the less they will waste, and the healthier your animals will be. For our area, we feed each sheep daily:
- about ½ lb of textured sheep feed,
- 5 lbs of good quality hay, and
- offer free-choice cobalt iodized salt, both loose and in a block, and a specialized sheep mineral mix
Watch for my future post about what type of feeders to use!
Foot Trimming and Shearing
Like many animals, your sheep will need to have their hooves trimmed. Ours sheep have their feet trimmed twice a year when they are sheared, it’s an additional service that our shearer offers. If you neglect to trim your sheep’s feet when they need it, they could be vulnerable to foot conditions, some of which are very nasty, so it’s very important to trim them regularly.
Shearing is necessary either once a year or twice a year, depending on the breed. Most breeds just require it once a year, usually just before summer, but some breeds like Icelandics are sheared twice a year, in spring and fall. More on shearing in a future post!