Criteria for Raising a Flock of Sheep on Grass

Raising a flock of sheep starts with the selection of ewes that will make up your breeding stock.

Ewes need to be able to make use of the grass food available to them. If they are gluttons they'll run out faster and cost more to feed all winter. If they need grain in order to maintain weight they'll feel the pinch on grass.

Typically medium sized ewes will be efficient on grass and feed resources. Larger ewes (above 180 pounds) often require more food to maintain good condition yet they don't raise any more pounds of lamb.

Ewes need to be hardy. A flock of sheep is relatively easy to maintain during the grass season however the main concept of a grass based flock is keeping the ewes out on pasture during the winter feeding season as well.

Ewes should be good milkers (not heavy milkers) with tidy udders who can raise lambs without needing extra feed stuffs. Focus on heavy milkers is not ideal in a grass flock as heavy milkers are not efficient animals. Good milkers will raise a hefty lamb without trouble.

Ewes being raised on pasture need to lamb without assistance and have excellent mothering skills. More often than not members of the flock will lamb when you're not there so it's best if they can manage on their own. The ewes mothering skills will assist with lambs getting to their feet soon after birth.

The selection of rams should receive equal consideration. Having a ram from a grass based background is important. The rams should have been allowed time to reach maturity on grass, not pushed on grain.

Being allowed to reach sexual maturity at a natural rate is highly important to the hormonal development of the animal. If the rams can grow up and flesh out on grass you know they'll be okay for your grass flock.

The rams should not be so large the prove to be inefficient feeders or throw lambs too big for easy birthing by the ewe.

It is hard to find rams raised on grass as more and more producers have moved toward production systems that have greatly diminished the access sheep have to their natural grazing environments. Show winner rams are abundant and sometimes I wish we were in the market for those.

Just because you want a grass finished ram doesn't mean you'll sacrifice good conformation qualities either. Rams and ewes in any flock of sheep still need to have good conformation no matter how they are raised.

The rest of the flock of sheep will consist of the offspring. Throughout the year of production these will be referred to as:

Lambs - young offspring, male or female. We take note of ewes that give birth to vigorous lambs that always have a belly full of milk and keep up to the ewes movements.

Ewe Lambs - immature female lambs some of which you may select as replacement ewe lambs for your flock.

Ram Lambs - immature males who have not been castrated and have not seen their first breeding season.

Wethers - castrated male lambs, typically the animal sold to market (equivalent of the steer in cattle).

With raising a flock of sheep on grass you want lambs that hit the ground running so to speak. Many births will take place without the resident shepherd in attendance and the longer it takes for lambs to get up and get going the greater the chances of them being discovered by predators.

If your selection criteria for ewes and rams is decent you stand a better chance of having decent offspring as a result, provided of course that health and nutrition are being taken care of. This will also put you in good stead when it comes to selecting replacement ewe lambs and ram lambs to allow you to continue to grow your grass based flock.

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