Well here we are the semester is over, and summer is winding down. The sheep have traveled and eaten their way across the campus, revisiting their favorite places like beside Winter pasture. I can believe just how much Jett has grown! She and Lil Boy have kept a healthy body score between 2.5 at the lowest and 4 at their best.
I have learned how to judge the body score of my sheep thanks to a handful of rather old British books and some Youtube videos.
I have discovered that sheep are adventurous eaters and seem to be into trying anything once. They do pick favorites though, Lil Boy loves burdock, and Jett really likes bittersweet. The strange things was that they would only graze right up to the fence when other options were beginning to run out. They did a good job maintaining the fence row when pushed a little, but it also depended on the plants in the fence row. For example; in the herb garden the fence was being overtaken by bedstraw, which when young is fairly palatable. When the sheep went through a second time and the bedstraw was mature, they didnt try to eat it until other options were beginning to dwindle. The same thing happened in the second tour near Winter, the Canada thistle was palatable when young, but when mature the sheep wont touch it. As I watched them forage I noticed that they would usually start at the top of the plant, and then leave it alone after a bite or two, then return to it after doing the same to most or all of the other plants in the area, almost like they were regulating how much they were eating of any one plant. I also noticed that on richer foods like clovers and vetch, my sheep got soft stools, and their body score went up after a few days on the richer fodder.
They seemed to keep the best weight (around a score of 3) in areas with a lot of diverse vegetation like in the herb patch. Their body score was stable there and they got to eat a wide variety of plants, and Lil Boy ate a few caterpillars....he actually sought them out and ate them....not sure what that was about.
I did some research on the 12 most common plants that I was finding in the plots and found that all in all, plants that we consider weeds are actually quite nutritious for sheep. Some of the plants had been seeded there, but most were wild.
I also looked at the nutrient requirements for sheep and found that it varies with weight, and stage of gestation. This research was very helpful to me in figuring out the needs of my sheep and whether or not so called "marginal" pastures could sustain them. It would appear that a whether and a young yew can subsist quite well on marginal pasture, however during gestation and lactation that may change. I am going to keep grazing my sheep around the campus and watch what they do as the seasons change.
