Sheep - Nature’s Multi-Taskers

by Denice Rackley

Life seems to move in a circular pattern. What was the “IN Thing” 15 or 20 years reappears. Ok, maybe the ‘in thing’ appears with a few tweaks. It’s interesting that as regenerative ag takes hold, we are circling back to the ways of our grandparents. This time -  we have technology backing us up.

Nothing new exists under the sun. Isn’t that how the saying goes? Industrial agriculture that has told us to get bigger, plow up the land, remove the trees, buy faster, larger equipment, plant massive acres to one crop…we are finding out that bigger and newer isn’t all good.

 Remember driving through the countryside; windows rolled down smelling fresh cut-hay, seeing a few cows, sheep, pigs, and horses hanging out under shade trees near a red barn? There was typically a large vegetable garden full of bright red tomatoes, yellowing stalks of sweet corn by the house, and chickens running about in search of unsuspecting insects to gobble up. Turns out all those livestock had a purpose that benefited the family and the land.

 Sheep for instance… OK - I know what you’re thinking. Sheep – no way. What did the western cattle ranchers call sheep? Range Maggots, I believe was the endearing term.

 As it turns out, sheep are nature’s 4 legged multi-taskers. They are weed eaters, wildfire preventers, grass recyclers, crop aftermath cleanup crew, and fertilizer spreaders.  Sheep produce milk, meat, and wool. Typically they raise twins while working for us.

 Did you know that you can add sheep to a grazing cattle enterprise without needing to reduce your stocking rate? Sheep can take care of those weeds cattle leave behind.

 Purdue University states that sheep are 26 percent more efficient than cattle at converting forages into marketable products. They convert forage into protein- meat and wool. They can thrive on forage-only diets. Grazing, feeding themselves for much of the year, regardless of your location, make sheep ideal additions to nearly all ag operations.

Return On Investment

 The initial investment into sheep and the needed equipment is significantly less than for most livestock. There is sufficient variation in sheep breeds to suit any location, management style, and market. Lambs can transition from birth to fat in a few months, even on just forages. The return on investment is often higher and sooner than with cattle.

 Grazing allows 80 percent of the nutrients to be cycled back onto the land. Incorporating sheep into an ag operation can benefit cropland, soils, and existing pastures.

 Sheep are nature’s weed eaters. Yes, they actually consume more species of weeds than goats. Sheep naturally reduce the use of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers. Grazing sheep reduces soil erosion by reducing the need for tillage. Grazing also increases soil organic matter and soil carbon levels.

Sheep grazed on one side of the fence

Using sheep as mobile harvest units can decrease fossil fuel use, decrease equipment costs and repairs, and even lessen pest damage to crops. Sheep grazing alfalfa before harvest has been shown to reduce insect damage, and wheat grazed by sheep has a lower sawfly population. link

An added benefit to having sheep graze crop fields is that the manure left behind doesn’t contain weed seeds. In comparison to other animal manures, sheep manure tends to be the highest in potassium. Sheep manure is second only to poultry manure in nitrogen, potassium and sulfur content, making it better than dairy, beef, swine and horse manure as a slow-release nutrient source. The high sulfur content is beneficial for maintaining  soil acidity. (see Table 1)

 Sheep & Cover Crops

Cover crops are being employed in crop fields and pastures since they bring so many advantages. They break up compaction, add nutrient-dense forages, and extend the grazing season. Cover crops provide erosion and weed control on cropland after harvest,  help retain soil moisture, and enhance the organic composition of the soil. The problem for row crop producers using cover crops is that most cover crops need to be removed before a cash crop can be planted. Sheep might just be the answer there as well.

Managed grazing of cover crops has been shown to have no detrimental effects on the following year’s harvest. The grazing of cover crops allows permanent pastures to rest and extend grazing into late fall and possibly winter. Cover crops provide inexpensive, high-quality forage, allowing for grain-free finishing of lambs.

Sheep are the perfect harvest tool for these cover crops. Using sheep to terminate cover crops by grazing causes less soil compaction than cattle because of their smaller size.  A flock of sheep can be easily transported to and from fields. Portable electric netting can also be added and moved quickly, allowing grazing on what had been open fields.  

 Recent Research

Montana State University has been looking into how to raise food more economically while using environmentally sound techniques in a multidisciplinary study called, “Reducing tillage intensity in organic crop systems: ecological and economic impacts of targeted sheep grazing on cover crops, weeds and soil.”

 photo courtesy of MSU

The multidisciplinary project team includes members from the agronomy, weed ecology, animal and range sciences, community development, political science, entomology, soil science, and agricultural economics fields. The research compares three treatments: Tilled Organic (TO), Grazed Organic (GO) and Conventional methods to a 5 crop rotation — winter wheat (2 years), lentils, safflower/clover, and clover explains research associate Devon Ragen. In the conventional plots, herbicide is used for weed control and cover crop termination, with reduced tillage when necessary. In the TO plots, tillage is used.  In the GO plots, sheep are used to terminate the clover cover crop and graze weeds.

“For the cover crop termination research, yearling Rambouillet wethers were used to terminate a winter pea crop the first year and sweet clover the second year,” said Ragen. “On average for the two years, wethers gained about 0.4 lbs/hd/day. The goal for this project was to terminate the cover crop more than grow the sheep, so we could have seen even better gains if the sheep hadn’t been left on the plots as long.”

Sheep Perfect Addition to Organic Farms 

Anton Bekkerman, associate professor of Ag Economics, states that the organic farming market is the fastest growing food market in the United States. He predicts Americans will spend $50 billion on organic food in 2017. One Achilles heel to organic farming is soil erosion due to tillage, says Perry Miller, MSU professor of land resources and environmental studies. “We’ve designed a system that lets us engage grazing to reduce tillage by more than half,” Miller said. “The option used to terminate cover crops, without using machinery that harms the soil, is grazing sheep. The sheep were able to perfectly prepare a seedbed, and no tillage was needed before planting winter wheat.” 

Patrick Hatfield, MSU professor of Animal and range science, says, “Using sheep as the central tool in an integrated system like this is unique because it looks at agro-ecosystem management from a holistic perspective. Our study is unique in that it’s bridging farm systems and ranch systems in an enterprise-level manner and finding very real economic and agronomic benefits.”

The team took advantage of the availability of wheat stubble fields in a side project called “Feedlot on Fields.”  Lambs were fed finishing rations on the wheat stubble fields in the fall. The conventional method is to place lambs in feedlots.  “We placed feeders in the fields and offered either an alfalfa- or barley-based diet,” said Ragen. “The lambs applied manure-fertilizer directly to the fields. On the grazed organic plots, if we have a failed system, weeds overcame the crop for instance; we have used the field as a forage source for the sheep so it is not a total loss.” MSU Research

Partnering livestock & crop production

Ragen said that preliminary observations have shown researchers some of the advantages of integrating livestock into organic farming systems, but that integration of sheep or other livestock into farming systems may not completely eliminate the need to use tillage and herbicides.

photo courtesy of MSU

“We are not asking farmers to become ranchers or vice versa, but hoping that farmers and ranchers can form partnerships. My belief is that as development encroaches on agricultural land, we are going to have no choice but to integrate farming systems with livestock systems, and I hope both farmers and ranchers will see and understand the benefits of doing so.”

Grazing sheep on farm fields has multiple benefits. Not only will the soil benefit from reduced tillage and the incorporation of sheep manure, but the use of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers can be reduced. These benefits lead to reduced equipment cost, less fossil fuels use, and healthier soil. All this is possible while the sheep benefit from additional pounds of gain from grazing cover crops, failed crops, and stubble fields.

The author wishes to thank the MSU research team working on the impacts of grazing sheep in organic crop systems study with a special thank you to Devon Ragen and Jasmine Westbrook.