Pasture Drift Lambing
At Alexander Sheep Farm, we have been successfully lambing on pasture for decades. Pasture lambing reduces the overhead of an expensive indoor lambing facility. It saves a lot of labor. Most importantly, it greatly reduces our feed expenses. We time our lambing to correspond with the greatest forage growth for our very late gestation and lactating ewes. Here in the Finger Lakes of NY State the spring flush of growth is late May and early June. Much of the danger of extended periods of cold rain on newborn lambs has passed. By lambing in the later spring, our market lambs do not reach desired weights until winter, when prices are traditionally much higher than in the fall.
In the past, we set stocked 30-50 ewes to each of our paddocks. The rationale behind this practice was to disperse the ewes, thereby reducing the likelihood of multiple ewes lambing overnight in the same area, resulting in mismothering issues. After lambing, tails were docked, and the small groups were merged into one large mob, and rotational grazing began. However, by set stocking, in addition to poor grazing management, we were infecting the entire farm with barber pole eggs and larvae. It became necessary to drench ewes and lambs every 30 days as the season progressed. Because of developing parasite resistance, this was not sustainable. We realized that we needed to incorporate grazing management with our lambing to minimize the use of drenches.
For the last few years, we have switched to running the lambing ewes all in one mob and moving them forward twice daily. Since I no longer must walk the entire farm to check on lambing, the one mob can be observed more frequently. This system is similar to drift lambing practiced on large range operations in the western US. Instead of herders, we use a temporary electric fence. As lambing occurs, the mobs are divided into three groups.
1. The front group consists of pregnant ewes yet to lamb. They are moved forward every 12 hours to a new paddock. The ewes that have recently lambed in the last 12 hours stay behind with their newborns in what becomes their own paddock for the next 12 hours to bond with their newborns.
2. The last group of ewes with older lambs born since the beginning of lambing are moved up and mixed into the third paddock of ewes with lambs from 12-24 hours of age.
3. The back fence of that now-empty last paddock is taken down and set back up to form a new paddock in front of the leading group of pregnant ewes, creating an empty paddock for the next movement cycle in 12 hours.
The groups of sheep are only on a paddock for a total of 36 hours, so they stay ahead of the parasite cycle and are not grazing any regrowth.
I use 3 strands of polybraid on mini reels and O’Brien step-in posts for my temporary paddock fences. To move the sheep, I raise the polybraid, and the ewes come through to the next paddock. Maintaining a very hot fence is important. I keep a couple of lambing jug panels handy, not for ewes that have lambed but to confine any granny ewe attempting to steal a newborn lamb. As lambing progresses, the front group of pregnant ewes gets smaller and eats less grass, leaving more behind for the growing group with lambs at their side.
Before lambing, ewes are identified with a paint brand when receiving their CDT booster. Soon after lambs are born, dry, and bonded with their mothers, they have navels dipped, eyes are checked for entropia, an ear notch system is used to indicate twins and genetic background, and the lambs are sprayed with the mother’s number (blue for ram, green for ewe to make drafting them easy later). I mark triplets or lambs needing special attention. During extended periods of cold rain, I use disposable plastic rain coats on newborn lambs if they are at risk. I try to minimize disturbing the sheep and creating chaos with unneeded interference. Any ewes whose lambs need assistance nursing because of balloon teats or pendulous udders are marked for culling after weaning. This situation has now become rare.
Well-adapted sheep are necessary for a pasture lambing system. Ewes with strong mothering ability and tough, vigorous lambs that are up and nursing in minutes are essential. For these reasons, I raise North Country Cheviots that are traditionally lambed on pasture and excel in grass-based operations. The flock has improved epigenetically to adapt to our northeast environment and low-input management over the decades. Since we have been doing this for over 30 years, problem sheep have been largely eliminated. I have recently introduced imported Scottish Hill Type genetics from a farm where the animals are not intensively managed. I seek out rams from flocks that perform well in conditions similar to but tougher than our own.
Pasture drift lambing works well in a low-overhead, low-input, low-labor situation. Our system uses regenerative grazing practices and provides good parasite control while improving grass production and the soil. Having productive sheep adapted to our environment and management practices is the key to our profitable operation. I have uniform groups of proven ewes, replacement ewe lambs, as well as breeding rams available to serious producers. Please feel free to comment or ask questions.
