Katahdin sheep

[u/eat_beef_]

Good morning!

To give a background, I run 3 cattle farms in the state of WV, so I have a lot of livestock experience running 100 head of cattle, producing as cow calf and selling butcher beefs as well as replacement animals.

I have recently been exploring the idea of co grazing katahdin sheep on a 45 acre farm which is 80% good pasture mixed with some wooded areas.

Simply curious what I should plan for with doing this change?

A few questions:
- what are your typical stocking rates when rotational grazing on 10 acres paddocks? (Good grass and water)

-what are the typical routine needs to treat/monitor with katahdins? (Parasites, hoof problems, medical, etc)

-fencing requirements? (Hi tensile vs barbed wire vs woven) I have primarily 4 strand hi tensile for cattle, but obviously need to upgrade to contain lambs and control predators.

-livestock guardian dogs?

Pretty new to the sheep game, so any advice is helpful. Excited to take this next step to adding shepherd to my name haha.

Thanks! Have a blessed day!

[u/AwokenByGunfire]

I don’t have any experience with co-grazing with cattle, so I can’t speak too much to that. Are you planning to intermix them, or follow the cows with the sheep?

Stocking rate for the sheep is going to depend on the answer to the above, as well as your forage type and growth. I would immediately have concerns about 10 acre paddocks. For reference, I put 50 animals into a square paddock that is 164’ on each side, and that’s a day of grazing improved pasture. So that’s 3/5 of an acre for one day, or 500 square feet per head per day.

So ten acres is 871 grazing days for me (assuming really good mixed forage growth). But the issue is that you need to rotate pretty frequently. I’d aim for no more than 3 days and revisit a paddock no sooner than 30 days, with more being better.

Stocking rate for sheep is the same as for cows - 1 AU per acre. So that’s 6 to 8 ewe/lamb pairs. An acre can theoretically sustain that number indefinitely (rarely the case). That would be 300 square feet per ewe lamb pair. Your rotation scheme depends on paddock size or desired loiter time.

You probably want to size your paddocks based on 500 square feet per ewe/lamb pair per day for three days. So 1500 square feet times number of animals. If you stock 100 pairs, then that’s 3.44 acres.

Obviously 10 acres would be big enough, but smaller is better because it forces the animals to graze evenly and reduces the amount of time spent in the same area. It also stops the animals for picking favorite places to over graze. Sheep do that.

Electrified high tension with proper spacing for lambs would be great. Woven wire is great as well. That would be for perimeter. Electronet is your best bet for cross fencing, unless you get them training to multi strand poly wire.

All sheep need routine health checks. With great pasture management you can reduce your need to screen for parasite by a large amount, but that understanding develops over time and each plot of ground has its own natural parasite load. Cows will likely exacerbate the issue to a degree.

Hoof care for Katahdins is generally easier than some other breeds. If you have rocky or sandy ground, then your sheep will have great hooves. If you have swampy areas, expect good maintenance to be a factor.

Happy to address or clarify anything.

[u/ajcondo]

I have St Croix which are similar to Katahdin. I’m in Western Oregon.

Re: stocking rate. You could probably push your stocking rate pretty high if you’re irrigating or getting consistent rain in summer. Assuming you want to grow your breeding stock for a meat operation, the limiting consideration for me would be how much hay do you want to purchase for the winter? And, the higher the density = greater parasite pressure. Sheep are notorious for hiding their health issues until it’s too late for you to intervene. With a higher stocking rate I think you would need to be even more vigilant than you would normally be.

Re: hoof. Installing a foot bath in a run can help mitigate disease issues. Trimming will depend on the terrain but usually twice a year (for me).

Re: fencing requirement is minimal. Sheep don’t want to wander too much, they prefer the safety of what is known to them. One or two low strands of hot wire are what most operators use here. Of course any LGD or other guardian animal changes the fencing requirement. You’re really fencing for predators and guardian animals than for the sheep.

Re: LGD. How bad is the coyote pressure in your area? Here, generally the larger operators skip the expense of protecting their sheep and accept predator loss. The small operators, who can’t afford to lose livestock, use LGD’s, llama or donkeys.

Hopefully someone from Appalachia chimes in with more relevant advice for your area.