Today we are going to discuss body condition scoring in sheep. As someone who is breeding sheep, it is important to be able to know what sort of condition your animals are in at various stages of production—and what condition they should be in. If your sheep is either too fat or too thin this…
How To Recognize Sulfur Deficiency In Plants
Do you have plants that look yellow despite fertilizing them? Do you have legumes that look nitrogen deficient? Does your vegetable garden or pasture just seem to fail to thrive? If so, your plants might have a sulfur deficiency. Today we are going to take a closer look at sulfur deficiency in plants, discuss how…
How To Build A Portable Shade Structure For Your Sheep
If you read our articles on barber pole worms, then you know that proper rotational grazing can significantly reduce the worm burden your sheep are exposed to. Realistically, rotational grazing can be tricky to implement for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is shade and or shelter constraints. So today we are…
The Best Passiflora For Pollinators
Many people are interested in planting wildlife friendly gardens. Often, one of the main things that people focus on is planting pollinator friendly plants. These pollinator plants are wonderful sources of food not only for honey bees, but also for a myriad of native bees that provide us with valuable pollination services. So, for those…
How To Recognize Photosensitivity In Sheep
Her head is red and swollen, her eyes are puffy, red and closed, her ears are droopy and she is itching her face excessively. What’s going on? What is this? Diagnosis: Photosensitivity. You must act immediately One afternoon we went out to check on our dairy sheep and discovered that one of them had a…
Everything You Need To Know About The Insect Scale
Recently we received a question from someone about what to do about a severe scale infestation on some magnolias in their yard. We thought that it might be helpful to share that information with you. There are a variety of different scale species and scale affects a variety of ornamental plants such as hollies, boxwoods,…
Culicoides Hypersensitivity: Sweet Itch Doesn’t Just Affect Horses
Do you have a sheep that has developed bald patches on their belly or sides during the summer months? Or patches of thickened bare skin they itch and itch and itch, often until they produce raw bleeding spots? Despite having these odd itchy spots, you can find absolutely no obvious reason for the irritation. Did…
How To Help Plants Blackened By Sooty Mold
Help! Its unsightly. It looks like a horrible disease that is suddenly covering multiple plants in my garden. Its even starting to show up on my patio furniture. You have just described sooty mold. Thankfully it is a non-harmful condition that will resolve it self when the root cause is eliminated. So what is sooty…
Cobalt Deficiency: Anemia Isn’t Always Parasites
If your entire flock of sheep are chronically anemic, it could be a cobalt deficiency. Not too long ago, our entire flock of sheep had severe anemia, as in they could drop dead any moment FAMACHA scores. Yet fecal egg counts repeatedly came back with low to no worm count. We dewormed our sheep anyways…
The Best Heat Tolerant Greens For Summer Salads
The weather is getting hot, so we thought it might be a good time to highlight some of our favorite heat tolerant greens for those summer salads. As you might know, most typical salad greens are cool weather, short day crops. They do not perform well in intense heat, and the long days make them…