As many of you already know, we manage our vineyards using a philosophy based on organic and sustainable farming. A recent addition to the vineyards, our sheep epitomize this commitment to progressive farming. They add diversity to our agriculture, perform the valuable task of keeping down unwanted vegetation and help improve the health of one of our most valuable assets – the soil. They are also fun to have around.
The ‘Medlock Ames sheep program’ is transitioning from our renting sheep to building a herd of our own. We had a flock here for about 3 months - Old English Southdown Babydoll Sheep that we have rented from Canvas Ranch. The sheep ate a little more slowly than I had anticipated, and they couldn’t keep up with the rate of weed growth over the whole ranch, but when they were confined to a small, one acre area, they left the grass as manicured as a golf course, and they are very interesting to look at. Their eyes are other-worldly. If they had been shorn of their wool, I think they would have eaten with more gusto, but as they were not ours, we weren’t allowed to do this. So….after this successful experiment we decided to bring in our own flock.
The variety we’re using is called Katahdin. It is a hair sheep which means it grows wool during the winter but it sheds this wool during the Spring – no shearing necessary in order to attain maximum grazing ability! Katahdins have proven to be hardy, have good parasite resistance (helps us avoid the need for toxic parasite controls which is very important for our organic objectives), are good mothers and produce excellent quality meat. Looks like we’ll have around 30 resident sheep here by the end of the month. We’ll be carefully controlling their grazing to not only help control vegetation, but also to improve soil health, reduce compaction, reduce our use of equipment and fossil fuels and maintain healthy sheep.
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