and Some Shepherding Experiences and Practical Advice! 
Consider the following questions before purchasing your sheep:

1.    Are you free each and every day to care for your flock?  Having sheep is a lot like having
children and they will need you care and attention every day!

2.    Do you have friends, family or neighbours who would be willing to help you and learn about being shepherd?  If not, consider what you will do when you are sick or want a vacation.

 3.    Can you afford to get started?  If you are starting with breeding stock, you won’t see any profit from your efforts until the first shearing season or until you raise your first group of mature sheep for meat purposes.  Budgetting and planning are a must for this venture.  Include unanticipated medical costs as a contingency.

4.    Are you a patient person?  Sheep can get sick and need your patience and lots of attention when this happens.  

5.    Are you willing to keep irregular hours during lambing season?  If you plan to raise and breed sheep, much like obstetrician you will be on call for twenty-four hours during this experience.

6.    Are you squeamish?  You may need to help lambs birth and this can be a messy prospect for the faint of heart.

7.    Is your family comfortable and able to handle the death of an animal?  If you have young children, livestock can be a powerful tool to teach children about the cycle of life.  Are you able to invest the time to talk to your children about death.

8.    Do you have the resources in your area you need? If you are raising sheep for wool can
you shear them or have you found someone who can?  If you are raising sheep for meat is there an abattoir in a reasonable distance?

9.    Do you have adequate space to pasture your flock? Sheep need room to graze and be
outside.

10. Do you have adequate shelter for your sheep?  In colder climates sheep need a comfortable place to sleep on chilly evenings and shelter from storms.

11.  How will you deal with a difficult animal?  If you are keeping a ram, they can be aggressive sometimes.  Some ewes are even strange creatures.  Just like people sheep come in all
personalities!
Ask the Expert – The Good Shepherd

THH:  What advice would you give to someone just starting out as a shepherd?

Janice:  Read lots.  A great book that has helped me numerous times is the ‘Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep’, by Paula Simmons and Carol Ekarius.  Read it cover to cover and it will come back to you when you need it.

Help out on a sheep farm. If you are intuitive and practical, it's not hard to learn as you go. I started out pretty much green and now people phone me for advice at lambing time, it just takes time and experience. I'm still learning, every lambing season I learn something new.

Get to know someone who can give you advice.  You will depend on their wisdom greatly.

THH: What do you think is a good number of sheep to start with?

Janice:  Start with a small flock of mature, experienced ewes. I'd say 3 or 4 is a good number for a starter flock.

THH: What general advice would give regarding maintaining the health of their flock?

Janice: Observe your sheep, know their habits, and spot problems before they're life threatening.  One thing I've learned about sheep is that they don't have much of a will to live, once they're looking sick, they are like goldfish - not often successfully treated. Most of being a good shepherd is just being there, being observant, and intuitively knowing when to interfere and when to stand back.

THH: Which of your sheep was your favourite and stands out the most in your mind?

Janice:  My favourite sheep would have to be Granny, such a gentle and soft eyed old creature, part of my original 10 ewes.   She was a ewe that loved to let all the lambs bounce up and down on her thick fleece, never getting pushy at the feeder, or fighting to be the lead ewe. The past 3 years I had to help her stand in the morning with a belly full of lambs, and her tendency to have triplets meant I had to make sure I was there at lambing. I always needed to untangle them and give her old muscles a helping hand bringing them into the world. Sadly, last fall I had to finally let her go, not wanting to have her suffer another winter carrying triplets with her increasing arthritis and inability to keep weight on. I remain inspired by her gentle presence.
THH: Who was your least favourite sheep?

JANICE:  My least favourite sheep was definitely Brutus, a ram I kept as a lamb, born to a grouchy old ewe. That should have clued me in.  As a single he grew fast, and not being related to my flock (the ewe was part of a group I bought elsewhere), I decided he would be a good replacement for my aging Rambo who was a wonderful ram, but old and getting to cripple manage breeding season.   As a lamb Brutus seemed friendly, but as he matured, he got more and more aggressive and couldn't be trusted. If I was 30 seconds late with his hay after he heard the barn door open, he would pound a 50-gallon drum in the corner of his pen and the whole fenceline would reverberate.  I took to packing a big super-soaker type squirt gun and aimed for his eye or up his nose if I had to go in his pen. The final straw was when he took apart 30 feet of rail fence and an expensive gate, broke 6-inch posts and 4-inch rails split in half.  Luckily he never managed to do me harm, and after breeding season last year I sent him to slaughter and retrieved him as 30 pounds of ground ram-burger and 50 pounds of sausage.  Life is peaceful now here on the farm.

THH:  Why is shepherding the life for you?

Janice:  I have realized that I thrive on rhythm, not strict schedules.  My reason for getting up in the morning has come to be feeding livestock, answering the call of other creatures' dependence on me.  Being able to make decisions based on the weather and not the stock market, and getting up when I wake up, going to bed when I'm tired is a life I love. Not having to punch a time
clock but being able to accommodate and adjust my schedule to the tasks at hand, make shepherding not only an occupation, but my passion.

THH:  I have said it before, and I will say it again.  Janice, you inspire me.  You are 'The Good Shepherd'.  If you want to learn more about Janice and keeping sheep, click here for more words of wisdom.  Thank you Janice for your insights and dedication as a Shepherd.  Your work is important in helping provide organic and real food for people in your community.

 


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