A Sheep's Progress

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Here's a very nice illustration of our flock of sheep and lambs and how much they eat.

You may know that sheep are very efficient eaters. They eat weeds and grass with gusto, as you can see from these photos. They were taken from one end of the field over 6 days! Look at the grass itself, not the sky, sheep or herders hut. You can see that it disappears over that time.

This was a freshly grown 5 acre field with 56 ewes on it for 6 days. It had been planted with our winter cover mix, including daikon radish. The photos were taken by Deck student Kara Spell every day as she went to get the mail. Thanks, Kara!

It brought to mind for me a violent sheep-related history of ranching in the American west. During the establishment of the western states, there were clashes between cattle ranchers and sheep farmers, known as the Sheep Wars or Range Wars. There were at least 5 violent clashes during the years 1870 to 1920, and 54 lives were lost.

The two sides fought over grazing rights and water access on public lands, including in Oregon. This was a time before the federal government had any local representatives to manage the use of its land. The ranges were open, with no fences, so it allowed for conflict between competing groups.

From the Oregon History Project:

By the late 1890s, growing tensions between cattle ranchers and sheepmen over control of the open ranges led to a series of disputes known as the “range wars.” Cattlemen themselves held sheepmen in contempt for two specific reasons. Unlike cattle, sheep will eat weeds, also known as forbs, in addition to native grasses. As a result, the sheep stripped a landscape of its plant life, leaving nothing edible behind. Additionally, the equestrian culture of the cattlemen viewed sheepherders with disdain because the herdsmen tended animals on foot rather than on horseback.  The expansion of wheat farming in Central and Eastern Oregon during this same period exacerbated competition for the range lands.

The solution came about when the government intervened with a leasing system for public grazing, ending the open-range era.