Are you sick of dragging hoses and carrying water? If you’re like us, the answer is a resounding YES! Have you have frequently wished you had automatic waterers? But also felt like upwards of $1k per waterer was unaffordable or unjustifiable? Particularly if you’re rotationally grazing and need waterers in many locations throughout your farm….
Category: Homesteading
Using Jump Gates To Help Your Livestock Guardian Dog
If you have a livestock guardian dog, or are thinking about getting one, you may know that the logistics of getting everything to work can be tricky. One issue you may come across is how to give your dogs access to different areas of your pastures without letting your livestock run loose wherever they want….
The Best Round Bale Feeder For Sheep
In a previous article we wrote about the no waste hay feeders we use with our flock. These feeders were designed to hold small amounts of hay like square bales or hay that we peeled off of round bales. But what if you have enough sheep and equipment to warrant the labor savings of feeding…
Slashing Your Feed Bill With Locally Sourced Feed
I’m sure you probably already know that feeding livestock can get expensive. This is particularly true if you are feeding high production animals that cannot perform off hay or pasture alone. A small flock of sheep eating 1-2lb/head a day of grain will burn through a 50 lb bag of feed in no time. What…
5 Minute Sheep Milk Hot Cocoa
If you’re like us, you grew up drinking hot cocoa out of a packet, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you’ve never made hot cocoa from scratch using something as rich and creamy as sheep milk, you’re missing out! Homemade hot cocoa only requires a few basic ingredients, and takes a only a…
What To Look For When Selecting A Dairy Katahdin
A question we see posed fairly frequently on various forums and Facebook groups we are members of is about milking Katahdins. People often ask if they can milk Katahdins. Of course the answer is yes. However, Katahdins are meat sheep. Saying you can milk them doesn’t tell you much about how to find one suitable…
How To Use EBV’s To Improve Your Flock’s Performance
If you’ve been hanging around our website for a while or have been in the process of researching Katahdin sheep to purchase, then you’ve probably run across acronyms like NSIP, or EBV’s. NSIP stands for the National Sheep Improvement Program. EBV’s are estimated breeding values. We have alluded to them being valuable tools for selecting…
Terminal Sires Can Maximize Production and Profit
Recently our blog posts have been focused on topics surrounding adding new breeding stock to your flock. So today we thought we’d touch on the related subject of terminal sires. Terminal sires can be very useful depending on what your breeding goals are. However, they are something that a lot of people may not be…
Quarantine: An Important Protection For Your Sheep
In a previous blog post we discussed selecting breeding stock. Today we are going to discuss the next step. Quarantine. When you bring your new prize ram/ewes home, they should go straight into a quarantine pen far away from all your other animals. It doesn’t matter how healthy you think the new animals are or…
Easy Homemade Sheep Milk Ice Cream
One of our favorite uses for sheep milk is ice cream, or more accurately iced milk. Sheep milk is plentiful going into the hot summer months and ice cream is a quick, easy, delicious snack to make. Sheep milk is high in solids, and as a result it makes a healthier ice cream than cows’…