Relaxing with Sheep

A few pictures of Heidi and Zeus with their sheep. 

Schommer Pond Area

We moved the Georgia ewes and ewe lambs (31 of them) to a new area today, the Schommer pond area.  This is on the eastern side of the oaktree field, an area that has not been developed very well yet.  I enclosed it with about a dozen net fence sections and electrified it.  Also made introductions between Hero, guarding these sheep and Apollo and Aurora who are nearby.  Here are some pictures:

On the trail:

We arrived:

Picture time with the guard dogs:

Jeffrey, Apollo, Jackie, Aurora and Hero. 

Apollo and Hero.

Moving Sheep

After grazing for a few hours on the radish and oats, Jackie and I move the ewes and lambs back to their overnighting field where they have hay and supplement tubs.  These are a few pictures of the move.  Heidi and Zeus help, sort of. 

Radish

The Daicon radish, also called the "tiller radish" because it makes a large, long root that opens up the soil, is also a very vigorous grower.  It is one of the cover crop forage plants we are experimenting with.   In the northwest blueberry field, after a summer crop of cowpeas, we planted a mixture of radish, oats and hairy vetch (a legume).  The radish came on strong and is starting to shade out the others, so we brought the sheep in to graze it down a bit. 

Here is Heidi and a closer look at the forage.

A closeup of the radish plant showing its large root coming up out of the ground.   These are actually good to eat.

Fall Planting

Today, I finished planting cool season forage for the sheep.  Today's and yesterday's planting used a new seed spreader that Jeffrey helped me setup on the Gator. 

Here, in the east bahia field, I am planting a mixture of Durana white clover a chicory.  The seed is very small and my seed drill would tend to get it too deep.  It wants to be near the surface no deeper than 1/4 inch.  First I dragged the chain harrow around with the tractor,  then spun out the seed using the Gator, making multiple passes from different directions to try for a uniform seed distribution.   Then dragged the harrow around again to help settle the seed into the soil.  

A closer look...

The sheep with lambs are in the middle field with Heidi and Zeus on Guard.

Sheep have eaten most of the summer forage and are on hay and supplement tubs while the cool season crops come in.