The sheep are a Dorper/Katahdin cross which are hair breeds, not wool breeds. Photo by Marie Mehlhaf.
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The Farming Families Magazine | www.agemedia.pub | July 2022
value of life-long learning and experts such as Gabe Brown and Joel Salatin further inspired them. Matt and Marie’s primary focus is to further develop their sheep and forage-focused operation. “We do high intensity rotational grazing,” Marie said. “So the animals get just part of the field for a day or two. They eat everything down at the same rate, kind of like when buffalo would graze across the prairie. They would stomp it down, eat everything and then move on. Then the grass gets time to regenerate.” When Matt first had sheep, he lambed in January and February, but tended to hit the market low when the sheep were finished. When the couple bought their farm, it didn’t have good lambing barns. “So we simply had to do it when the weather is nice. That changed our lambing cycle to the middle of May. The lambs are finished about January or February. That’s almost getting into the Easter market. So, in theory, we hitting the market at a better time,” he said. “We rotationally graze all summer and into the fall until the pasture is pretty well played out. Then we'll wean the lambs and put them on feed. Our system is not built out yet where we can finish lambs on grass – especially in a dry year. It’s still a lower input setup on the lambs than if we were to lamb in the middle of winter and just put them on feed all the way through,” he said. Sheep and goats graze together, but as a rule eat different things in the pasture. The goats like to graze higher, eating
