Відео

Thanks Jack!😀

You’re spot on! Thanks🤠

Thanks for the sub!

They’ve always done great this way! One thing we’ve noticed is the JS compost holds so much more water than the regular soil we have to be careful not to overwater

@@birchfieldfarming i will have to warn my niece about this, thanks for the tip!

That’s awesome. Just curious, how often were you deworming your Dorper sheep? Thanks for watching!

I don’t think you dairy folks ever sleep🤠

@@birchfieldfarming clocked in most of my life from age 11 on at 3:15, 3:30 or 4 am. I wake up "early" without the alarm. Now that the dairy cows are gone, i'd love to sleep in til 5 or 5:30 am. I used to show up and check on night crew at any hour. Thanks, now is late enough to forward to nephew!

​@@birchfieldfarmingsent to both kids!

@@user-kv2pt4lu9y hope they get some maters! 🍅

Seriously! Year’s almost half over, Mr. Ben!

Yeah, I’m getting this question a lot - keep an eye out for a sheep marketing video soon👍

Thanks Jon!🤠

We feed from our feed schedule the full daily amount once in the AM just after moving. Hope that makes sense. I think we’re up to just over 20 lbs a day for our 100 at about 4 weeks old. My goal was a dressed bird at 9 weeks between 4 and 5 lbs, and we hit that pretty consistently.

Well, hopefully you continue to be very successful, Kirk. Blessings and prosperity to you, Sir.

@@birchfieldfarming love your videos. So raw, and real.. thanks for stepping down off the high horse and just being real! I subscribed. Learning the do's and dont's from you! also, your intro's with HIS word got me good! 💗💗

@@Willyb0yThank you for this encouragement

Direct to consumer - Yeah, def not putting a sign out front and expecting to move sheep. I get paid to market my sheep - you just watched it.

That’s awesome, thanks for sharing your experience. We will have to look into KNF!🤠👍

For sure…hey, I was thinking of you yesterday. Our 13 day weaning was a fail. Ordered weaning rings. We’ll give it a shot. Thanks again for your advice. (Only thing worse than weaning a calf is doing it twice🤦🏻‍♂️)

I struggled a bit with putting this out there b/c I don’t want the perception to be that these animals are rowdy or aggressive, they’re not. Your comment makes me feel a little better with my decision to show the reality. Yeah, ground beef is in our future.

Animals are unpredictable. All broken/chipped bones that i have had were due to cattle impacting me or the livestock trailer door. Machinery failures are another farm danger. An uncle was paralyzed in 1954 or 55 from stering wheel falling off and he went with it and was run over by the tractor.

@@user-kv2pt4lu9yWhew, certainly can be dangerous out here

Yeah, that bull did not attack. He was just moving away from Big Pat, and I was in the path. These Devon are very docile, just challenging when breeding season rolls around. Yes, I will always favor sheep. Thanks for the comment, Ben.

Thanks, Stuart!🤠

Yeah, it’s a great strategy for just starting out though. Rent some ground, get some early cash flow going and learn from the folks you’re renting to at the same time. Buy your animals and build, slowly reclaiming ground as you need it.

Minks are tough to stop, and what’s so frustrating is they don’t even eat what they kill. I’ve heard good things about the Belties! Guy north of us crosses his with Angus for a pretty good beef animal. You’re fine with an intact male, and so am I. My mistake is multiple full grown bulls now. Yes, sheep much easier!🤠

That’s awesome!🤠

Interesting…if I might ask, was it wool or meat he was pursuing?

@birchfieldfarming Meat primarily, but they did have some wool herds. The market absolutely melted for both after 79 for a fair period, and many sheep farmers lost everything in the early 80s.

@@silvermaples-rhodestomarke5318 I was not aware of this. Thanks for sharing.

Ha!…Pat does indeed run the show. Been pleased with the lambs, thanks👍

I don’t believe I did. Fed it straight

@@birchfieldfarming awesome I just fed my bottle calf some Gatorade. He’s been rough lately but today he’s looking decent. I know he needs electrolytes though

Zone 6 here around Cincinnati. Annual rainfall is around 35” but I always tell folks to check with other farmers or extension offices in your area for stocking rate. Start with the more conservative set-stock rate and work up with rotating from there. Take care.👍

Always love the folks who don’t watch the whole video❤️

@@birchfieldfarmingI watched it. The subject said "profitability", but it was about growth rates in a world where you start off with a handful of animals yet your land is huge, which is not realistic at all. Your sheep farm ended up four times as large as your cattle farm! You could make a video that would have way more real-world value just comparing a stocked sheep vs cattle farm of several sizes. I think sheep should have some good profitability gains (if you can market the product) but this video isn't helpful for figuring that out.

@@grasspunkIf you watch the video, those are OUR starting numbers. We have 60 acres and started with 4 cattle/4 sheep. The purpose of this video is to highlight general trends, which I emphasized. Be well out there.

@@birchfieldfarming I was sucked in by the "$4.2 mil vs $536K - Sheep vs Cattle Profitability on Grass" title. I genuinely wanted to learn about sheep profitability. The spreadsheet you built to get these numbers has you running a 436ac sheep farm vs a 118ac cattle farm in a scenario that a farmer would not run. I'll stop here because this is your channel, I've made my point and I wish you the best.

@@grasspunkOne other thing to consider that can be overlooked is the possibility of other productive uses for the land while building a flock or herd. For instance, it does make sense for some landowners to own several hundred acres and not run a single cow or sheep. Plenty of landowners actually prefer ownership rights to land but not to actually work it, as in the case of cash renting. This is how we started and are even continuing. Cash flow upfront, build and reclaim workability as you scale up. Most of our ground was being row cropped. I still bought it without owning a single animal, as I could see the potential. Just something else to think about.

Thanks for your encouragement, Robert. Glad you’re finding value in the content.

Yes, a sawzall was one of the first tools we tried, and it was horrible. It just doesn’t work, and I’m not really sure why. Backwards, inverted electric chainsaw is the best I’ve found.

Yes, we have used our same ram back over ewes. Linebreeding will magnify traits both good and bad. After a few generations, we introduced a 2nd bloodline ram.

@birchfieldfarming thanks for responding. Watching your channel is so similar to what my family is doing, but you all are a couple of years ahead. Thanks!

Okay, thanks for stopping by👍

Thanks for the insight, Tom!

Thanks, Jon!🤠

They just opened one here. Red tape like you can’t even imagine.

​@@birchfieldfarming They don't make it easy to get rich...it takes work and pushing through the red tape paperwork.

@@PANTTERA1959was listening to an interview just today with Joel Salatin talking about circumventing - I guess there’s a whole movement down south that labels as “pet food” and another out west that set up an actual 503c and claims a religious exemption to sell her products saying it’s her religion to stay healthy, so folks “join her church” to purchase raw farm products. Hard work, sure…but maybe we just haven’t been creative enough.

@@birchfieldfarming That's Great. Love it.

Thank you!

Without knowing any details here, I would say no that’s not common. That first year can be rough but you should def see production that second time around. My email is in channel description if I can help.

@birchfieldfarming I didn't see the email. I'm new to this. My 3rd lambing season. Each 24 month old ewe comes from a different mother. Each of those mothers gave me twins each lambing season. Only grass and hay fed no worming. I did have a 12 month old that did lamb this season. I watched both ewes get bred but I had a buck goat that was trying to keep the rams off the ewes.

Yes, there is a difference. My understanding is the regular Red Devon were developed more for the beef, whereas the American Milking Devon were the original animals brought over in the 1600’s used for triple purpose - meat, milk, and draft. I believe there are registries for both. I don’t personally know of anyone selling in Michigan, so I’d start here: reddevonusa.com

Yeah, prayed hard thru that one…we ended up in the basement and rode it out…barely missed us just South! About 2” rain, just went out and no damage, animals looked good. Those poor baby meat birds huddled up. The door to the chicken tractor was open but no damage. Praise God! Thanks for thinking of us! Congrats on lambing! That’s a great crop for first year!!🤠🍻

Free protein is awesome!🍻

Correct, breeding stock sales - sheep vs cattle then on to meat lbs, then $

Is this the Josh Hamilton that was crushing homers in the MLB a few years back?…cause you just crushed another one here. Excellent points (and I’m seriously related to him btw)🤣

@@birchfieldfarming Lol no, but I have gotten that question before. Thanks for the reply, just started with St. Croix and about to start with South Polls this October. I’ll have to evaluate the demand for good quality sheep for all these homesteaders/farms that are driving up the demand for sheep vs cattle.

@@jmhamilton87I’ve heard good things about the South Polls🤠

…I’ve heard a single doe will yield more meat in a year than a cow. Gosh, don’t get me started 🤦🏻‍♂️🤣

Good info here, thanks! I have a local friend who tans hair sheep hides as well, most certainly an art! Had a call a few years back from someone in the piano business - I wish I could remember what exactly he was doing…hair sheep hides for the piano somehow. Also exciting to hear about someone tapping into the expanding market in wool.🤠

…Out of curiosity and for our viewers, a big draw to hair sheep, specifically St Croix, is their parasite resistance and ability to thrive on 100% grass with zero dewormer. Have you found a wool sheep breed that is similar in that regard? TIA

That is a fair point and I’m not aware of any wool breeds with as high of parasite resistance as St Croix. With rotational grazing and good flock management, you can reduce issues. There will be trade offs based on individual goals- just really think about individual goals and possibilities when making decisions. I just bring up the point for consideration because most folks in the regenerative community especially on UA-cam don’t promote wool. It’s not that I don’t like my hair sheep, but I do appreciate the fiber as well.

@@Nicole-pg3mrAbsolutely, and thank you for sharing your experience and perspective.

Yes and the real tricky part about it in farming is everybody’s context is different! I covered many of the assumptions in that original sheep video, but indeed there is certainly more to it than in my 13 min video. I want to instigate and stir up the goodness of God in my own and others’ lives, and I can see it clearly with the multiplication on grass. Let’s at least attempt to put in place systems of blessing apart from the current, deleterious system, so that we may be life givers in the struggle just up ahead.

Would like to see your analysis. Fencing costs surprised me for the small area we’re looking at enclosing.

@@CoolBreeze640Yeah, feel free to screenshot any of the spreadsheets. We had perimeter fencing in place when we purchased our ground, and (for the purposes of this analysis) there wasn’t really much difference between our cattle and sheep interior fences to make paddocks (2 hots). The only real difference is during lambing I prefer to run hot electronets within the paddocks to contain lambs but that’s certainly not a necessity. Again, many costs I’m not including here, the take-away being hair sheep are many times more profitable than cattle on 100% grass and are a wonderful blessing on the small farm.

I couldn't figure out how to attach the spreadsheets I used, but you can find them if you google it. One of them is from the University of Maryland and called a "Sheep Enterprise Budget" in that spreadsheet you can enter the cost of fencing and many other expenses.

Yes, everyone's context is different. You did a great job. I enjoyed the video and it is informative. Thank you.

Ah, thank you for the correction…and for the encouragement!😀

Thanks, Stephen…Hey, hopefully we can catch up this week! Let me know a good evening.👍

That’s a fair critique on perhaps more of a niche market with the breeding side. Again, focus is on “general trends” here.

🤠🤠🍻

Selling straight off the farm. We get calls primarily thru our registry and word of mouth, but folks like Greg Judy have really put hair sheep on the map in the past few years. Interesting to hear about your mutton experience. I’ve heard there’s a right and wrong way to cook it - does that matter much?

Grampa came home and never ate spam or mutton again. 🙏

@@matthewaamot2961 🤠👍

We should have a few to sell, yes. Will be ready mid-July.

@birchfieldfarming we have katahdin and are thinking of mixing with st. Croix to see if we can make the genetics stronger. Or do you think it is best to stay breed specific?

⁠@@lauraandrade7909St Croix will bring more parasite resistance. I believe St Croix are part of your baseline Katahdin mix already. I think our rams would do good work over Katahdins. As of now, we have a few available, but ewes are sold out. Thanks!

@@birchfieldfarming how do we get on a list for when you are ready to sell.

@@lauraandrade7909I’ll add you now. An email at birchfieldfarming@gmail.com with contact info would be helpful, so I can circle back in July. Thanks again!

Maple syrup is def better than green plants!🤠

Bottle calves are the most profitable beef production system. Cow/calf operation is the least efficient beef production system.

​@@user-tt1yh5xm7dbottle calves right now are $8-10 lb. $250 in replacer then high input grain for next 4 months. Bottle calves are good way to lose money and you can make more selling calves