Regenerative Ag Stories on the Grazing Grass Podcast

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0:00:00 - Cal
Welcome to the Grazing Grass Podcast, Episode 127.

0:00:05 - Jessica
If the learning curve is steep, you're going to make mistakes, and try not to be too hard on yourself.

0:00:12 - Cal
You're listening to the Grazing Grass Podcast, sharing information and stories of grass-based livestock production utilizing regenerative practices. I'm your host, cal Hartage. You're growing more than grass. I'm your host, cal Hartage. You're growing stronger communities and a legacy to last generations. The grazing management decisions you make today impact everything from the soil beneath your feet to the community all around you. That's why the Noble Research Institute created their Essentials of Regenitive Grazing course to teach ranchers like you easy to follow techniques to quickly assess your forage, production and infrastructure capacity in order to begin grazing more efficiently. Together, they can help you grow not only a healthier operation but a legacy that lasts. Learn more on their website at nobleorg. Slash grazing. It's n-o-b-l-e dot org. Forward slash grazing.

On today's show we have Jessica Newman. She is on sharing about her sheep operation utilizing Texel sheep, which is a wool breed. We spend most of the episode talking about her sheep. Then we talk a little bit about our Dexter cattle. For the overgrazing section, we discuss the off the farm job with the farm and managing that. And for the bonus segment for our grazing grass insiders, we talk about sheep AI and for those insiders. I'm still trying to get that all going. I apologize it's taken me this long, but we will have it going soon.

Before we talk to Jessica 10 seconds about my farm, we went through our sheep other day to look at them. It's summer so it gets hot and dry and that's when some worms or parasite issues showed up. So we went through and checked them and I wormed a few lambs. And what we did this is the first time we've done this, trying to keep them separate. But I got an ear notcher and I ear notched the end of their ear so I know they've been wormed, because if they've been wormed we do not keep them. But I would like animal to sell, so I ear notched them on the end. I also went through the ewes pretty rough.

Anything that had a bag I didn't like or didn't shed as good as I wanted or whatever other thing it may be. And I've got a load of ewes that I'm going to take to the cell barn. Our flock has a good number. We don't really want to increase it. So we thought about selling a few ewe lambs and we may still do it, depending on our numbers. But one thing I do not want anything that's got any kind of problem. It's basically one strike and you're out If I worm you, you go to the cell barn. If you don't shed, you go to the cell barn. Bad bag you're in the cell barn. Just takes one thing and you're out. Because I want a low maintenance, quality sheep flock. So that's been happening on the farm. But 10 seconds about the podcast really don't have much to share. Today we are working on some new merch be dropping soon and that's basically it. Let's cut through the chase and go talk to Jessica. Jessica, we want to welcome you to the Grazing Grass podcast. We're excited you're here today.

0:04:06 - Jessica
Thanks so much, cal. It is a pleasure to be here, really looking forward to the conversation.

0:04:13 - Cal
Wonderful. Let's get started by talking a little bit about yourself and your operation.

0:04:19 - Jessica
Absolutely so. Yeah, my name is Jessica Newman. I am a first generation farmer located in Northeast Pennsylvania, so we always joke that we had bitten hit New York. So we're five miles from the border and yeah, so very close. We typically go grocery shopping in New York, right you? Just everything close there. So we are in what's called the endless mountains of Pennsylvania. We're only about two, well three hours west of New York city and about an hour south of Ithaca, new York.

So again, it's really in that far Northeast corner of Pennsylvania. So the farms actually. It's funny, we live in this valley where the Chemungan and Chichagun rivers come together and they form and really flow out through the Chesapeake Bay. So we actually I currently live in town and it's on a peninsula that comes down as the two rivers meet and then flows south, but the farm is on some of the mountains that create the valley and so in town I think it's 800 feet above sea level and at the farm we're like 1400.

0:05:33 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:05:34 - Jessica
So we do. We definitely have a little bit of a climate change from town to where the farm is, so I don't live on the farm. I bought the farm now in 2014 and it was just some grass. A local guy was selling it. It didn't grow up here. My folks had moved here for my dad's job and my mom needed some, had some health concerns, and so I moved up. I was working in Tennessee at the time and I moved up here and really had been getting more interested. I've always had a little love and interest in agriculture, but I'm a nurse by trade and still work as a nurse full time, so it's been fun to tackle the farming side of things and lots to learn. But growing the farm from scratch and nothing is has some unique challenges. Uh oh, I'm sure.

0:06:29 - Cal
So when you bought the, that land, I think you said 2014 was that the reason you bought the land.

0:06:35 - Jessica
You thought I'm going to get some sheep or something and do a farm yes, so, and actually we ended up um calling it south view station, um, because I was. We're going to have sheep here, and in Australia they call their like big properties we don't have that big but they call them stations instead of ranches or farm, and there's so many places around here that are called farms, like everything but farm, and so it just felt like I don't know boring.

0:07:04 - Cal
Something a little more unique.

0:07:06 - Jessica
Right and sheep-centric. We do have cows, but, yeah, primarily sheep, and so that's the name.

0:07:15 - Cal
So were sheep always something you thought you mentioned? You had this drawn to the farm. Was sheep always the animal that really drew you in?

0:07:26 - Jessica
So, funny enough, when I was younger and had a little bit of experience, I thought I might go and be a vet. We had my parents.

Let us do a 4-H cow when, I was like eight right and the local dairy down the road. Let me borrow this atrocious calf who was horrible. She was horrible. She drugged me down one side and back the other. I still liked it so I guess it didn't turn me off and yeah. So really my experience was with a couple ponies and some cows. I volunteered at my local vet clinic and got a little bit of taste of some domestic animals, but not really farm livestock.

But, as I got older I just thought about like sheep I'd never met. In all honesty and transparency, I'd literally never met a sheep. I did not know that I would really like a sheep. I just had this inkling, sneaking suspicion, and I guess I know myself well enough. It's true.

0:08:25 - Cal
Oh well, sneaking suspicion, and I guess I know myself well enough, it's true. Oh well, very good, I knew. When I was in high school in FFA I showed dairy cattle. I would see the people showing sheep and how much work they put into their sheep and pig people put in a lot of work too, but the sheep really did because they do they build them a round pin and do so many jumps to build muscle and then the amount of shearing they did for their sheep you know they were always shearing and shaping their sheep Tremendous.

I was so glad to have dairy cattle because I was like, well, I washed them and now I trimmed the top line, maybe a little bit on their legs, so they look thinner.

0:09:06 - Jessica
Like we're good to go.

0:09:08 - Cal
Yeah, I was always amazed at the amount of work they would put into sheep, which, interesting enough, you know, now I've got lots of sheep but I don't have to shear them. Yep, but you didn't go that way with your sheep, so you get your land. Yeah, that's just a teaser, for just a little bit you got your land?

0:09:30 - Jessica
Were you ready to put animals on it? No, so the very first trip, and actually I'd still to this day chuckle that. Bless his heart. Like the gentleman who I bought my first set of seven sheep and one ram because that's all I could afford he was, he is amazing. To this day has been an amazing mentor, which I know you don't always find, and I feel super blessed to have had that. But I swear he thought when he dropped his sheep off that day into electric netting and there was nothing basically else on property that he was probably committing them to certain doom. But he's been pleasantly surprised. As he's told me more than once, I didn't kill off all the sheep.

0:10:15 - Cal
Oh, that's great.

0:10:17 - Jessica
Yeah, no, we had to. We put in some perimeter fence on the main farm property. So I have basically 30 acres of grass and 10 of woods that are that I own and we put some perimeter fence around the grass of that and have added like a smallish barn with kind of some dedicated sacrifice areas for like winter, which we can talk a little bit more on. We've got about a 40 degree grade on our land so it just slopes down like a giant rectangle from top to bottom. So we probably grazed around 26 acres on that wall call home property. And then actually my neighbors saw what we were doing and they have about another 40 acres of grass that I grazed, and then even the neighbor at the bottom of the hill I grazed about three-ish, three and a half acres for him. That connected to all of the properties. So that's worked out nicely.

Hopefully something long-term is you know what I? I wasn't praying for that one, but we're rehabbing those pastures back from being once a year mulch paid, which really meant that it was just goldenrod and pigweed or hogweed, if you've heard of that, and just milkweed, so much so that there was actually looked like reeds had been laid out on the ground because of the goldenrod that just fell every year in the snow and just built up like layers of goldenrod stock. So we're really the last three. We've been grazing there three years and we've really we've been working on that. But yeah, so really we put in, had to put in a well, electric pole, the fence, the barn area and so a little bit of everything. But I got the sheet before. We had pretty much any of that.

0:12:07 - Cal
Oh yes.

0:12:09 - Jessica
May or may not have been the smartest thing I did.

0:12:11 - Cal
We won't ask my wife to come on and tell you how smart I was with different things when you got your sheep you got your, yeah, with your electric netting. You got your sheep and you had electric netting there. Did you go into it thinking we're going to rotate these daily?

0:12:31 - Jessica
Yeah, so I had like probably 95%, I feel like, of the grazers anymore we'll say like they got. They heard about Joel Saladin. They really, you know, were introduced to agriculture maybe that way or to rotations that way. So I was a little bit. I understood some. Hey, we should move these creatures around, right, it's good. Even on the 26 acres at that time, basically eight sheep did not do a lot for me Right yeah.

It. Just you weren't able to really even move them around fast enough to probably make a dent in the pasture. But so there was a lot, of, a lot of higher grasses throughout the year. I worked a lot in pulling milkweed because initially I thought people shouldn't eat it and so we just by hand, like trying to get it out of there which is effective, menial but effective and remove the milkweed. But I really learned that for the most part that she handled it fine. But don't do that In the new pastures I graze. But yeah, stuff really started to move them around, just using what we could as we could, and then they'll come back in the winter months to the sacrifice areas.

We are really wet, we have very heavy clay soil and it's been a challenge and actually with the steepness of our grade, I'm hoping over time here to add in some a little better water infrastructure. I've got water, some frost-free hydrants and then I've got two waterers that are underground, like Ritchie waterers, that are in the barnyard for the winter so they don't freeze, and those work nicely. But the challenge is really extending the grazing season for me. You basically in the spring up until a certain point and then in the fall. You aren't driving anything out on that. No tractor, no truck Like you are not. You ain't getting up those slopes Like you get out there. We've stuck cars out there, we've got the trackers stuck out there, because once you slide like the slick soil, it just you'll just bend.

0:14:38 - Cal
I mean with the change it doesn't matter.

0:14:41 - Jessica
So that's that's interesting. If I'm going to do hay out on the pasture, like, it has to be out there by September. If it's not, you ain't getting it out there because it will rain and start muddy and forget it. So there's a lot of that pre-planning that's just over time. I've had to figure out, okay, what's going to work, or if the year is just not a good year and something breaks down, I'm like man, I'm like we're hosed.

We're not going to be grazing out Like I thought we were going to, because it's just right now that part is not really feasible. So I'd eventually like to run some water lines to make the ladder grazing, cause that's the limiting factor right now for the later season grazing because I can get the bales out, usually pretty, um, consistently, but trying to get water. Once it starts to freeze up here by November it gets cold enough. Um, it's hard right now.

I uh, jokingly, I say that I farm with a little garden tractor, really. So I have a small John's here like 400. It just has a little garden tractor, really. So I have a small John Deere like 400. It just has a little 52 inch mower deck and it's just a glorified bigger lawnmower. And so I haul actually like a little water trailer that I put a few 55 gallon drums on and so we haul that for all of our water and like I put like trash cans in the back that have like mineral on there and it just comes off. Like I put like trash cans in the back that have like mineral on there and it just comes off the general um trailer to haul everything around and that's how we get water to everybody as we're going um to the places that we're still up um their um water tubs out there.

Oh, yes, so. So right now I have total 10 adult cows and then some young'uns, and and then I have about a hundred sheep now. So that's like size wise where where we're at.

0:16:33 - Cal
So maybe give people a sense of progression that seven expanded really well.

0:16:38 - Jessica
Yeah, yeah. Actually, just going back to that seven, it is. It's like chicken math You've always heard of chicken math.

0:16:45 - Cal
That seven it is. It's like chicken math. You've always heard of chicken math.

0:16:49 - Jessica
Yes, it really is.

0:16:51 - Cal
Add two more and pretty soon you've got a dozen. Then it just goes crazy. It does With the sheep.

One thing I know you mentioned when we're getting started it's often a shoestring budget. It's something we're trying to do, but the problem I see so many people do they bring in too many animals and then they don't get to know their land and they're over grazing from the get-go. And in fact there's a new gentleman that owns land next to me and I talked to him the other day and he had three cows and he bought like a dozen more. And I talked to him the other day and he had three cows and he bought like a dozen more and he's like I got lots of grass.

I said he says how many cows should I get? And I said I wouldn't buy any more.

0:17:32 - Jessica
No more.

0:17:33 - Cal
I said, yeah, this is the best time of the year. This was a couple months ago, in May. I said you will not have more grass than you have right now, so you need to not stock for May, you need to stock for.

0:17:50 - Jessica
August or the winter.

0:17:50 - Cal
And he's oh okay, I won't buy any more. Then I'm like, yeah, let's just stay in Pat and see what we've got there. So just getting started with seven gives you that opportunity to see how your land does and not overgrace. But it's really tough because I know for me my wife says it all the time I jump in the deep end. So I don't want to buy two, I want to buy 30.

0:18:14 - Jessica
Right, right, and I think it's pros and cons right.

So most of us slowly funded like a growth just with working off farm and then slowly, just like being able to add things as we could, and there's really, like you said, the pros and cons. Right, it's beneficial to not sometimes dive in so full that you end up kind of making a fatal error, in a sense that you're. Then you're really struggling. What do I do? But from a business perspective it's really challenging to start slow. You show year after year of loss, for the most part, I mean, unless you are in a very, a really great market, like you have an excellent business plan where you may be able to still show some kind of profit.

I always tell people like we've been to ranching for profit and have done some business work and but it's really challenging.

And I know they always say well, you have to calculate your opportunity cost for those people that have family property, especially when don't just take it. But I think there's something to be said that it's really hard to make anything, to have to build everything right, like how long are you going to face out that building without showing a negative right? Because you basically would have to slowly, incrementally, put your infrastructure together to not show a law, you know, for the multiple front years when you are just trajectory vertical on a business like that and a farm where you're going from zero, that I think that's really challenging and something that's not always thought about. Maybe from people thinking about like that business plan, I mean, it is one thing to say, hey, I'm sitting on a nest egg that's making money and, yes, every year I should set aside money for if I had to purchase more, if I had to pay rent or like all those things Like it's one thing to say that, but it is something totally different to like really be scraping that together.

So I think from a business perspective it is challenging to start small and then just let the flock grow or let the herd expand and, you know, be like when are we getting beef? Seven years from now, six years from like? When is that going to really happen?

0:20:37 - Cal
Exactly yeah.

0:20:39 - Jessica
How many are you going to keep back for breeding stock that means you still don't have anything to sell so that you can expand your herd more, so that you have more to sell in five years, right, those are like. All of those questions have to be answered and thought about.

0:20:55 - Cal
Oh, yeah, sometimes going hog wild solves you from well, yeah, because you get the benefit of numbers you bring in, you make a little bit of money each animal. So if you have higher numbers of animals, that total gross is much better. But yeah, there's pros and cons to both ways. I'm a big fan of Mike Michalowicz.

0:21:20 - Jessica
I'm sure I said that wrong.

0:21:21 - Cal
Who wrote the book Profit First as well as almost 100 other books, it seems Maybe it's only 10.

But he is very adamant in there that your business has got to make profit day one. And I have a little side business in addition to the farm and that thing still needs to make profit and make profit. And it's tough to do that initially with the initial cost of farming if you want to own animals. Now one way you follow Greg Judy's model where you lease the land and you do custom grazing. That model makes it a little bit easier to get in and make some money immediately.

But if you're trying to own some livestock and you don't want to go that route, yeah, you've got to shove some money in there before and it's going to be a little while before you make it.

0:22:12 - Jessica
And even then I understand and I do think it is a great model to do that, like leased land and cheap custom grazing.

I think that's an amazing opportunity. I think there's a couple of things like got to know people like in the area. Like you gotta be an established person in town, right? Nobody's gonna be like what the stranger that showed up down the street wants to take your cows Like nobody, right. And then I think you really have to be able to. You have to. You have to know how to graze and how to manage those animals, which, again, are you going to learn all of that on somebody else's animals and convince somebody that they should take that risk on you if you don't know?

So it's a little kind of do you do some on your own? Do you just purchase some stockers in and like monkey around the first couple years and get established Again? I think it even that takes a little bit of a. You got to have some run ramp right, because it's easy to say if a dad or cousin or guy down the road that's seen you for all your life was willing to give you a try on 20 dairy heifers, a try on 20 dairy heifers.

But I think it can be really challenging too, and I think you also have to be and not everyone is for some people I think it's fine and it doesn't make a difference, but for some people I do think there's a methodology of stockers feed into agricultural kind of niche that not everyone wants to support, like, at the end of the day, what are your support through stockers? You're supporting feedlots, then supporting, like, just mass produced beef which, again, I'm not saying is hands down. Nothing should never be done, but I also think you have to know that and be. That has to be within your sphere of yep, I'm good with that and again, it's not. It won't be for everybody.

0:24:09 - Cal
And you point out a couple of things. You got to have some knowledge there, some relationships, network, and then how does that align with your beliefs? Yeah, I think I've mentioned this on the podcast before. My dad put in burlar houses and we raised chickens for a little while, which is very anti what my beliefs are, but at the time it made money and that's what we needed.

0:24:31 - Jessica
Right, exactly, it's a tough call there. It puts food on the table, yeah.

0:24:36 - Cal
Yeah, so sometimes, yeah, I in fact the episode coming out, coming out. Well, when this episode comes out, the episode will have been out like four weeks, but this coming week we have a gentleman on and he suffered the same thing because he did some broilers houses and he's trying to do it more regenerative now he's. Yeah, there's that conflict in there, so it's an interesting discussion.

0:25:00 - Jessica
I think we just all have to work through that.

0:25:03 - Cal
Yeah, I think so, and at the end of the day we don't want to be money driven, but at the same time we've got to be able to make profit and if you have the off the farm job, it really assists you in building that infrastructure and getting going better. But it's a tough call and each person has to make their own call at that time.

0:25:25 - Jessica
Yeah, it's really true. It's really true. And try not to let that off-farm cripple the business. Help it limp along.

0:25:34 - Cal
Right, right, because at a certain point you need the farm to stand on its own legs, even with the off the farm job. But yeah, it's something to work through job. But yeah, it's something to work through lots of steps in there. Now, when you decided to get sheep, did you know you'd already said you were drawn to sheep? Did you already know what breed you wanted to get or what type you wanted to get, or how did you figure that?

0:25:58 - Jessica
out. That's funny. I wouldn't have said berry, initially I was. I knew I wanted a wool breed actually, which is funny. But I wouldn't have said very initially I was. I knew I wanted a wool breed actually, which is funny. But I don't knit, I don't do any fiber arts, like I don't, that's not for me. But I really like that. I like some aspects of wool breeds. I do what they bring for people. I can go into that a little bit more. But I knew I did want a sheep.

That was a wool producing breed and so actually my parents had done cause I was still in Tennessee at the time we were looking through different sheep breeds, what might we want to do? And they actually went to a local state fair and they were like, hey, what about this textile breed? We really we like the look of them. And I looked them up, looked about them and I was like, yeah, I really like this breed, which I know they're not for everybody. A lot of people say they're so ugly, they're cute. I don't think they're ugly. I think some of the, I think some of the gene pool tends to be on the ugly side, but I think there's a lot of that breed that's not so. They're a primary terminal sire meat producing breed. They're very common in the uk, um, one of their top terminal stires in the uk and and so, yeah, that's made our decision there.

We knew we wanted a meat producing animal. We weren't going to be doing dairy primarily um or fiber primarily um, and so come lettuce. I really loved them, their docility, like they're a very calm, kind of personable sheep they're very much like don't come over for, like you know, not all of them, like some of them are a little more reserved, but they'll come over for a head scratch or a butt scratch and they're just. They tend to be a very kind of friendly sheep, which is nice. I don't do animals that leap over fences to get away from me. If you do that, you're gone. We had a few of those. I don't want to die trying to take care of you. So that's what's taking us on the textile road I do have now I have a little bit of a hog project. I have a couple cross sheet that we really just do for our meat animal. I mean we have texels that will not be breeding stock. That also you know, become meat as well.

But and I've actually added last year I added some Romanoff ewes, so they're actually one of the composite animals within the composite for the easy care sheep that are supposed to be very maternal, great producing youth, Because I'd like to have a nice variety within my flock of really commercially producing animals that are producing a little bit of a higher litter size. It's great to have a purebred terminal sire that really you can have that consistency of genetics and be working towards the genetic side of things, which I think is really fun. But you also, again from the business perspective, looking at like, how do you increase turnover and what do you know, what are you going for when it comes to market, marketable animals? And so, um, we're going to be playing with kind of adding, uh, the tech flow of that terminal sire onto the Roman off-cross and starting there and see how we go.

0:29:11 - Cal
With your Texels. What kind of lambing percent do you get out of those? Since it's a terminal sire, breed as a makeup.

0:29:19 - Jessica
Yeah, so I've actually been really playing with that to see what is the possibility. So I've actually been really playing with that to see what is the possibility. So I would say I've typically seen, I would say, a low, like maybe 125. Oh yeah, which I would be really happy with if everybody just had twins. Like I don't need everybody to be having a quick couple of Right, not only for the sake of like numbers and lambing, but especially with textiles, like you'll get massive lamb, especially those singles, because mom can just eat you, I mean in utero, and so lambing has been more difficult when you're talking singles in the purebred world versus being twins.

So I've been trying to play with is it really? Is it my product? Is it really my management of them right? Is it a flushing or a kind of a nutrition standpoint? Is it when we're breeding, so we lamb late, we finish? I've been playing with that as well. This year is the latest I've ever gone, but I we lambed out starting the middle, the end of May, like the 15th I think, was our first lamb of May, and so we're breeding starting Christmas through into the new year, and so is it really the timing of breeding that's causing like maybe the ewes were dropping a lot more eggs earlier in the fall and then they slow down towards the end of the breeding season.

So does that contribute? But I have been playing with that a little bit and trying to better understand the contributing factors for our lambing percentage to see if we can't, if that can't be something that at least on the purebred side that we can really improve, cause I think it behooves us in multiple ways to grow that and to increase that.

0:31:10 - Cal
Now, with your text soap you're lambing into May, you're weaning at, I'm going to say three months, and then at what age are you? Let's see, maybe I need a word that I was thinking about. Slaughter is the end point, but a lot of your animals are going to breeding stock, so you're using your crossbred lambs more for lamb processing and to sell meat.

0:31:37 - Jessica
Yeah, so I continue to grow my business model Right and again. Sorry, sometimes I feel like it sounds wishy-washy, but I've really tried a lot of different, a lot of different ways. So, yes, we're weaning off between eight and 12 weeks.

I'm going to play with that a little. There's some I was listening to another. There's an Irish podcast sheet podcast I listened to and they were really talking about. There's not actually a lot of good clinical research and evidence out there that shows that weaning later is actually beneficial. Instead the lambs are really competing with the ewes for grass and really for us at the driest time to wean is a hard time to wean and affect gain. So the Texel's lambs while they're nursing they're gaining. You hope it's around 0.8 pounds a day, so anywhere between half a pound, and a pound of gain a day is very reasonable.

But when you take that kind of gain and then you throw it onto some like August late August grasses, it tends to face plant. And so again working on what that could really how I can benefit the operation by maybe making some adjustments.

So yeah, so when we wean then the animals are going into their own pool, the lamb pool. I don't castrate the ram, everybody goes in together, lambs and rams. I'll pull off and then we'll start to graze them separately. I've done a hundred percent grass fed. We've had, again based on the type of grass, because I'm not doing I really think you'd be wildly more successful doing like a annual, like cover crop or some kind of planted grass, um, taking those lambs straight onto that. As far as like really productive grass-fed grass finished gains. I think that's the really the best way to go.

I don't think, you know, we always talk about that. I think we feel like we just make it sound like they just, you know, get to their fat and happy giant selves without any assistance. And I found that again something maybe genetically we can continue to refine and grow and continue to build to that animal body type that does still thrive in that. But for me we we've bounced around. Okay, do we provide, say, some soy hull as a non grain based supplement? Do we just do some corn? What financially makes sense? What's best for the animal? What makes sense for when you're still out on grass and moving around? I don't know about you, but like hauling a lot of various things out to the pasture and trying to do other supplementation is get the old fast. But so that's still in refinement. I would say we, we continued, I continued to change that and grow that every year what, what makes sense, but yeah.

so then once really we're to the fall, some lambs will go then for butcher. Sometimes actually any older animals that I found that are not gonna stay, stay part of the flock whether we did sell them as breeding stock for a variety of reasons, and maybe I'm like you know what I just you're not quite living up to what I thought you were going to. Sometimes they'll actually go first for, but because they're bigger, they're older, we still have a pretty good, reasonable local market that we do sell to, not as like farmer's market. I do not see farmer's markets. I do not do farmer's markets, I do not. You can talk about that more later but I don't have the night, at a time or bandwidth to do so. But we do have the ability to market a lot of our lands relatively locally.

And so this year, with the biggest lamb crop I've had, where I'm going to actually do some lamb to the market, like actual, take them to the auction and so we'll keep the cream of the crop on top and then feed and actually I've been working out trying to figure when's the best time to send them. I had the little coach or mentor one time and I was like well, I think I need to get them to. I can't remember why. I told him at the time I was like I think they need to be the 80 pounds and then that's like the best, because the price per pound is, I don't know, 250 or something at that weight. And he was like but is that actually like the best? Does that give you the most profit? I was like I don't know, I guess right, like it's 250 right seems better than like 150 a pound.

Yeah, I was like, yeah, but what's going in to get to that 250, right, which is a totally legitimate question and changed my mindset. So really just trying to price down, okay, so if we wean them at, let's just say we wean them at 50 pounds, right, just for an even number, and like how, what's the price per pound at that point? And then I have nothing else into them. If they just go, what do I get back? Okay, what if I feed them according to xyz and we get them up to 80 pounds, and then what's the price and what I have in them and what's the ultimate profit? To actually determine, like, when should we send the lamb? And so I've been playing with that.

I'm hoping to get them a little closer to a hundred actually for us, oh yeah, and then, and then send them. I think it's actually going to get the be the best profit margin for us for the lamb and that actually will buy us a little more time for me to be, however, when filling out um and and looking. So some will go for breeding stock. Those customers because we lamb really late, um, they're a lot of the breeding stock are actually still their second year. Well, they'll just have turned one um into that first summer.

Um, because a lot of guys like, if they want a lamb like start breeding in August, like my ram lambs are not. Unless you have a very small flock and your sheep are pretty small in stature, they're not going to be ready for you and so I usually I'll sell yearlings for that. You have to take into the cost, like of getting them through their first winter, which is not super terrible. You do have to. Just with cows, I feel like it makes I raise calves later, like calving later makes sense, and then the cows like nurse for six months or even if you do a little bit less, and then you can wean them and the timing in the year feels really comfortable to me, right, like it feels very like natural.

With lambs I find it's a little more challenging. Are you going to lamb earlier? It's like frigid and horrible. We don't live at the farms so I usually tent it during the night because I like to be relative, like I like to still do checks, I'm not a hands off and so I usually will tent during camping and I don't like to tent in March and.

February up here, Like it's not.

0:38:26 - Cal
I'm just telling you right now no.

0:38:28 - Jessica
So even April is very unpredictable for us. You have put a snow, so it's. But then if you, if you lamb earlier, like that, then the ewes have like lower nutrients. You're going to feed the mom, but the lambs will be ready to hit the spring flush that boosts their gain. If you lamb later, like this year, was great as far as getting the ewes basically on grass and, like mid early to mid April, let them have a month of great green grazing prior to lambing to boost their nutrition plane. We hired a lambing to boost their nutrition plane and then we actually lambed on pasture and then just kept on going, which has been great for the ewes and the grazing. But then again you're going to take them off midsummer. The cows do have a little bit more of an easy natural rhythm that that sheep still feel like. If it's good for one one, like either you or lamb, it's not as good for the other, whether it's the market or the animal's nutrition, if that makes sense makes sense to me.

0:39:41 - Cal
And then you get into, beyond the what you're grazing out in the pasture or the stage, the nutritional requirements of that ewe or lamb. Then you've got the market on the other side. That's not nearly as flat as the cattle market. Granted cattle people's out there yelling at me right now that it's not flat.

0:40:01 - Jessica
I get that.

0:40:03 - Cal
But it is flatter than the sheep market because it's really cyclical.

0:40:10 - Jessica
And those price drops.

0:40:12 - Cal
you know I had an accidental lambing crop this year and I weaned those lambs and took them straight to the auction which is not something we do, and actually when I figured numbers we came out really good on that.

0:40:26 - Jessica
Yeah.

0:40:26 - Cal
But, like you said, they were lambing in February, when I normally don't want to lamb, and yeah, some years we have really good weather, some years we don't. That worked out really nice. I was impressed with that, I was not. I wasn't sad about that accidental lambing this year, I wasn't sad about that accidental lambing this year.

0:40:45 - Jessica
Right, it can. It really can be, and I think it does so depend on where you are and what market you're going to too, because it's funny.

We're close to New York City but I was interested in talking to an Amish guy who bought from Rams Off of Me and they're not always, in my experience, the chattiest of my customers right Especially to me but this guy's great, he's fantastic, and we had a really nice conversation and he was saying they just recently had moved from the Midwest, which was where they were living before, and he was like we used to send our lambs all the time and we would get like $3 a pound and we had good market then.

And here he was like I can't believe, like how not great your markets are, which is partly, I think, maybe at times like a sign of the inconsistent and you have a lot more like small farms producing a little bit more of an inconsistent product that then they're trying to your buyers are buying and I'm trying to put together like loads or lots, right, I think that maybe could play a part into some of that lower price. But it was interesting and talking to him about are there ways or things that we can do to improve and change the market locally up here.

0:41:59 - Cal
Yeah, very interesting, jessica. It's almost time we transition to the overgrazing, but I do have a question. Before we get there, I want to talk a little bit more about your breeding stock. You sell those textile rams out. What kind of flocks are they going to? Are they going to other or flocks that are predominantly wool? Are some people buying them to use them on hair sheep, or are they going more into purebred programs?

0:42:28 - Jessica
Really funny enough a variety. So we get I get a fair number that are looking for they have a purebred program of some kind or at least another wool sheep. That may be a crop that they're still producing, market lambs, but it might be another wool sheep, so they're going that direction. But then we also do have customers who say they have Katahd and Yews. They just at least hey, at least if they buy a ram that's wool, there's not as much deal to shear one ram and the lambs are going to lease before it matters whether they're going to be leased or not. Deal Right. So yeah, definitely see a variety there of customers, both for use it's mostly pure for purebred, but for the ram oh, yeah, yeah, well, I, you know I I think I've talked about this on the the podcast before.

0:43:17 - Cal
Sometimes I think about getting a different, more of a terminal cross on my use on my hair. She used whether that's dorper or going with a wool bird, so I have bigger lambs. Yep, it's crossed my mind. I've not done it, but I've talked about it a lot.

0:43:34 - Jessica
I think, as long as you are happy with and you're getting the prices that you're looking for, and your buyer has either a consistent product that they're getting, that they are happy with the meatiness of it, or else it's to the extent where maybe it doesn't really matter so much, I think you have to go one way or the other. Whichever way has their own philosophy.

0:43:57 - Cal
Right, yeah, whatever works into your program or context.

Yeah Well, jessica, it is time for us to transition to the overgrazing section, where we take a little bit deeper dive into something you're doing on your farm and one thing we had talked just briefly before. You have an off-the-farm job and a farm, so let's talk just a little bit about your time management and how you do that, because that can be pretty difficult, and I know you're a nurse. So is that, are you working a regular 40 hour week, like five days of eight hour shifts, or do you have a different schedule?

0:44:38 - Jessica
Yeah, so great question. Sometimes I don't do it well, cal, let's just all be honest right up front. But yeah, so right now I do. It's funny. I work as a nurse in supply chain, which has been a really interesting role. I haven't always. I've worked multiple different jobs at the bedside, working traditional 12-hour shifts to other roles, but so right now I do work monday through friday. The schedule varies a little bit, but eight hour days basically, basically.

0:45:05 - Cal
That's nice.

0:45:06 - Jessica
Yeah, it has its pros and cons. When you're like, hey look, it's going to be thunderstorming every afternoon this week, right when I want to do chores, and you're like dodging a lightning bolt, like trying to get chores done, that's when you're like curses, I wish I could have done chores at 9am.

0:45:24 - Cal
Oh yes, when the weather was cooperating. When you're?

0:45:26 - Jessica
like Carson, I wish I could have done chores at 9 AM, oh yes, but when the weather was collaborating. So, yes, I I do. I do work that Monday through Friday, so at least maybe the weekend, and then for hours. So most nights I get to the farm Depends but around five o'clock, I would say, and so I'll typically do around three hours worth of chores, have fun smoothing and whatever else needs to be done on farm or the day to day, and it is challenging. I think one thing I've had to learn over the time is sometimes you're just not. You're not going to get everything done exactly like you wanted. You're not gonna. It's not going to be perfect or be exactly what you wanted, but you also have to live life on top too, right Like?

0:46:09 - Cal
I don't feel good.

0:46:11 - Jessica
Some days it's someone's birthday party, some days that there's other things in life that are important, that matter, whether that's again taking vacation or family holidays or events. There's things, and sometimes the farm will encroach in a way that it really has to be dealt with as a life or death. But even then, sometimes, okay, what has to be dealt with right now, what's that's just gonna have to wait, whether I like it or not, you know, and that does happen. Like sometimes, you know, I wish like I could always do twice a day checks on everybody right now, but the farm's a good 15 minutes away from my house and so that's 30 minutes round trip. And so there's some days when that doesn't work. You know, like I've got a 7 am meeting I've got to be ready for I didn't get everything done for it in time. That means I need to start working out by 6. Like I'm probably not getting a morning check on that day, like it's not going to happen.

So some of those things, like just balancing that internally, I think sometimes I still have anxiety, not anxiety, but like I'll still have that pull, that fight in myself. Like, oh my gosh, did I do enough? Did I? You know, like if only I'd have been able to do FYZ. But then other stuff, I feel like I've really settled into the routine, like I don't feel bad like taking a vacation, like I don't feel bad, you know, getting off farm or something. It's not like, hey, we stayed here two days and yeah, it would have been nice if we could have done daily moves this week, but that just didn't fit and it's gonna be okay it is.

0:47:50 - Cal
I get in ways I'm a perfectionist and other ways you would look at things and you say there's no way he even cares about that. So you know it's a struggle to get it all done and get in there and one one of the authors is it Tim Ferriss that says you should be able to take a four week vacation?

0:48:09 - Jessica
I think it is yeah.

0:48:10 - Cal
Because you should have your business built that it doesn't need you there all the time. That's a pipe dream right here. Right, right we're not anywhere near that, but we can take vacations and it's really good to get off the farm. And it's funny Some are good about that and some people aren't.

0:48:29 - Jessica
And sometimes it still happens. I'll tell you it was funny. We're actually. I was telling you when we were chatting, right before we started talking, how we'd taken a road trip last year out to see my grandmother in New Mexico, and so we're like driving out west, basically, and I think we're in Illinois.

We're like eight, 10 hours into the first day of driving, right when the kid who watches a farm for me, which I try and set everything up like they're grazing bales, right, like I'd rather pay the cost of pay than have to spend extra time trying to, you know, teach the kid that I have to do it so like we'll do bale grazing and whatever.

And so the rams got in with all the you it's not like, oh no, oh. So at that moment I was like jessa, you can freak out in the car and lose your ever-loving mind, and what's that gonna do you nothing, it's gonna do you no good. I'm like we have lambs. Like if he doesn't get any of them out, if they all stayed in there, okay, well then we're gonna. It's gonna be a wild and woolly lambing season not when I wanted and all those lambs will just go to market because we won't know who the dad is, and it's just gonna be fine like whatever right, like no one died, it's gonna be okay.

Yeah, he was great, like he got them separated. Bless him and um, we only actually ended up with two lambs that popped out a month early um that's pretty good right, all in all, it was fine. It was those moments when you're like does this mean I shouldn't take a trip?

0:50:05 - Cal
no, stuff sometimes just gonna happen yeah, now I got a question for you. You get off work, do you go home and then go out to the farm, or do you go straight to the farm, then home?

depends and the reason I asked you when I had had the off-the-farm job. I'll have the off-the-farm, I'm an OK. I say the in front of everything. When I had an off-the-farm job, we would get home and I'd come in the house to change. And I had to be careful because if I sat down or stayed in one place too long I'm like, oh man.

I don't want to go, that's always tough, yeah, and it's really tough to get out Now. If I would come home and I would just change and head out the door, I never, I don't know that. Tiredness didn't hit me at that time, so it's easier for me.

0:50:59 - Jessica
Yes, I do try to just make it like come home, get the dogs in the car, get a change of clothes and go, because I agree with you. If I let myself settle, I do not want to do it, but it would not be the first.

There has been more than one occasion when I've either gone to the farm and work clothes with like my pants jugged in like muck boot and been like don't get too. Been like don't get too dirty, don't get too dirty Because I have to go straight to work after. I'd be like, do I have ram wool like on me? Oh, yeah.

Bottle feeding babies, getting that done before the work day or vice versa, like sometimes it's like man, this needs to get done. So I'm literally standing in the parking lot at work Like taking off like clothes, like putting on oh yes. So it does happen.

0:51:51 - Cal
I can remember it was. This was like in 01, 02. I just started teaching and I was teaching 4K, so four-year-olds.

0:51:59 - Jessica
Oh yeah.

0:52:00 - Cal
So one day I'm sitting on the rug and we have them sit on the rug at that age and we're sitting crisscross there that was the age that I could sit on the floor without much problem and I start smelling manure. I'm like I stepped in some manure when I ran out to do chores real quick before I went to work and didn't get them cleaned off my boots very yet Yep. Like it happened.

0:52:28 - Jessica
It really does. It does people that don't realize the struggle is real. Or my mom's picked me up from work again, bless her and she's like a lamb. Somebody's having trouble in the pasture and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna take a break right now and bring my boots in the car with you and we're gonna like race to the farm. I'm gonna pull a lamb everybody's alive. Okay, take me back home, take me car with you, and we're going to like race to the farm. We're going to pull a lamb Everybody's alive. Okay, take me back home, take me back to work, and then you're like at work, like scrubbing, plus times off. You know it's so big.

0:52:53 - Cal
Right, yes.

0:52:54 - Jessica
Don't mind me.

0:52:56 - Cal
The good part is that scrubs off easier than pig or chicken.

0:53:01 - Jessica
Those smells really attach to you.

0:53:05 - Cal
Oh, they stay. Well, jessica, it's been a great conversation, but it's time that we transition to the famous four questions sponsored by Ken Cove Farm Fence. Ken Cove Farm Fence is a proud supporter of the Grazing Grass podcast and grazers everywhere. At Ken Cove Farm Fence. They believe there is true value within the community of grazers and land stewards. The results that follow, proper management and monitoring, can change the very world around us. That's why Ken Cove is dedicated to providing an ever-expanding line of grazing products to make your chores easier and your land more abundant.

Whether you're growing your own food on the homestead or grazing on thousands of acres, ken Cove has everything you need to do it well, from reels to tumbleweels, polytwine to electric nets, water valves to water troughs, you'll find what you're looking for at Ken Cove. They carry brands like Speedrite, o'briens, kiwi Tech, strainrite, jobe and more. Ken Cove is proud to be part of your regenerative journey. Call them today or visit KenCovecom, and be sure to follow them on social media and subscribe to the Ken Cove YouTube channel at Ken Cove Farm Fans for helpful how-to videos and new product releases. There's the same four questions we ask of all of our guests, and our first question today is what is your favorite grazing grass related book or resource?

0:54:34 - Jessica
Yeah. So I would say, obviously I am all on the dec decal. I love the grazing grass podcast.

0:54:40 - Cal
I am a huge you you're welcome.

0:54:42 - Jessica
I have a huge podcast um listener. It's great for when I'm out doing chores. It feels like I'm still turning through, being able to get other information. So there's also a really great. I know it's grass related, but just in general, like farm business and profitability. But the Profitable Farmer is probably one of my favorite podcasts as well. It really just has some outstanding business principles. That's absolutely farm focused and it's out of Australia.

It's really similar a lot of principles as as ranching for profit, but I find just the approach is a little different than ranching for profit, which for some people might be be beneficial, or I think sometimes when you hear something coming from a new direction.

It is just different. And then I actually really overcome. Ovi cast the a s and that is a sheet podcast out of Ireland. You don't have to catch their accents, but they actually do have some really great. They were talking even just this week about weaning onto pasture and how they recommend that is done. So just another good resource that might be a little different to some of the listeners.

0:55:55 - Cal
So oh, very good, those excellent resources mentioned. I say that I'm not familiar with either of them, so I will have to give both of them a listen, so thank you for that of course our second question what is your favorite tool for the farm?

0:56:14 - Jessica
gal, I knew this question was coming and I've been like thinking long and hard about it because I'm like I don't want to give some stupid answer. But in all honesty, one of my favorite tools on the farm is my phone and I know that probably does sound stupid, but it literally everything from listening to podcasts while I'm working to I keep my notes, like running notes that I start every year at breeding season, so like marking who looks good, who looks bad, who do. I definitely want to call you know to looking up like a dose of medication. I use that thing for farming and I have even stuff like I love.

There is a Merlin app. It's called Merlin and it's a bird app. I don't know if you've ever used it. I love it. You can. You can record birds in your pasture and they'll tell you these are the birds you're hearing, and you can even listen to all the extra sounds. And so we recorded, like here's all the birds that are on the farm and what seasons do they get here which I know is probably nerdy and stupid, but I still really.

I think there's little things you have to like have the joy in the work, and not everything has to be painful and miserable. And if I like to look at my bird app when I'm at the farm so that I can be like, oh my gosh, look, this is the first time I saw like a wood brush, then I'm going to do it pal.

0:57:42 - Cal
Well, actually on that, I came across this app just the other day. I didn't download it yet because I was looking for something to keep track of all the different species I see on my land. Yes, plant species, birds, mammals I'd love to do insects. Cool, yeah, I was looking for an app that would let me keep track of that so I know what all is out there. I hadn't found one that really does what I want. I use PlantNet a lot for IDing plants.

But I've got a spreadsheet. I've started trying to keep track of stuff.

0:58:18 - Jessica
Nothing is nerdier than a spreadsheet Cal.

0:58:21 - Cal
I love spreadsheets. I love spreadsheets, but sometimes spreadsheets are difficult on the phone. Right, true, that's where I was like I gotta find something. But you mentioned this app and then you mentioned PlantNet that you've used. What other apps do you like?

0:58:38 - Jessica
Those ones are, in all honesty, probably the ones aside from. I use my notes, I use my podcast, I use my PlantNet, I use Merlin, and so those are probably my biggest ones. I wish I could say I use like a ton of other ones, and then I love just being able to take pictures and have stuff documented. Here's where the grass, here's what the graph looks like when we grazed it before we grazed it or after we grazed it.

So again, I know it's probably lame, but my phone maybe secondarily followed up by either my like winter zoot suit or like my headlamp, oh there you go that seemed as fun right, yeah, yeah, the phone.

0:59:20 - Cal
I would be lost without it. In fact, um, I hate to admit this, but I've got an apple watch and I couldn't find my earbuds. I like I've got some jbl earbuds I really love and I don't know. I checked my desk, I checked my chest where I put everything on top.

I checked the shelf in the bathroom where I sometimes empty out my pocket. I carry those earbuds everywhere and I couldn't find them. So I had to get my AirPods, which I don't like because they don't stay in my ear. Good, but then I get over there and I put them in today, and usually I just use one, but I was brush hogging some so I put two in, so I get noise cancelization and one of them doesn't even connect.

I'm like I have not used this enough for it not to work. And then my Apple watch wouldn't let me change the volume on it, so I was just having a tech meltdown.

1:00:17 - Jessica
You were having a bad technology day, man.

1:00:20 - Cal
Yes, I was Like what. I've got to find my good earbuds, I don't know where.

1:00:27 - Jessica
I put them.

1:00:27 - Cal
Sounds like it I'm afraid they fell out of my pocket somewhere.

1:00:31 - Jessica
I lost a fence charger in a pasture for a solid year and a half one time, literally. I think. I walked that field, I in a pasture, for a solid year and a half one time, literally.

1:00:39 - Cal
I think I walked that field.

1:00:40 - Jessica
I was like it is here somewhere it's got to be here. I couldn't find it one. And then last summer we grazed through it the first time and I was like what that's dirt hey it's still water year and a half later man covered by dirt but it worked yeah well, well, great.

1:00:57 - Cal
My earbuds are waterproof, so if I can find, them out in the pasture. They ought to be okay, yeah, we'll see Our third question, jessica. What would you tell someone just getting started?

1:01:11 - Jessica
Yeah. So I would say be gentle with yourself, right. Say be gentle with yourself, right. The learning curve is steep. You're going to make mistakes and try not to be too hard on yourself. Farming with animals, especially even with crops, can be emotionally. Hey, your whole crop got decimated by X, y and Z or you lost a crap ton of chicken or a bunch of lambs or something happened. So you're going to have those emotional kind of toils that you don't always expect either, and I think you just have to be gentle with yourself.

1:01:48 - Cal
I think that's excellent advice because we I know for myself I can be tremendously hard on myself.

1:01:55 - Jessica
Yeah.

1:01:55 - Cal
My wife is all the time. If I just if I spend too long setting down and not that I'm always outgoing and stuff, but if I feel like I've sat down too long, I'm beating myself up about it my wife is you've got to rest. You can't just always be doing something. You've got to take down time.

1:02:14 - Jessica
So I'm trying to do that more.

1:02:16 - Cal
But yeah, you got to be gentle with yourself and understand you can't do everything.

1:02:20 - Jessica
Yeah, I don't like that answer, I know.

1:02:25 - Cal
And lastly, Jessica, where can others find out more about you?

1:02:28 - Jessica
Yeah, so I don't do a very good job on my Instagram staying up to date, but I do like to post videos at times, um, on Instagram stuff. You can find us on a South view station, um on Instagram, or we do have a website, um southviewstationcom, um, so you can always reach out my emails on there and so touch base. I'm really not on Facebook um much for a few reasons, including some personal reasons, so feel free, always happy to connect with people.

1:03:03 - Cal
Very good, we will put those links in our show notes. Jessica, we really appreciate you coming on and sharing today about your sheep. We didn't even get to your cattle or other things.

1:03:14 - Jessica
True, thanks so much, cal, it was amazing. True, thanks so much, cal, it was amazing.

1:03:20 - Cal
Wonderful, thank you, okay, jessica. Yeah, I was sitting here on my notes and I'm like I didn't even get to cattle and I want to talk about cattle a little bit because I think, did you say or I saw somewhere, you have Dexter Cross cattle.

1:03:36 - Jessica
I do I do, yep, I do, I do, yep, I do. So I've got about 10 head of Dexter cows, cattle. Well, I started with. I've done a little bit of everything. I had some red pole I had. Then I had some Angus that I had switched over and did. I like Dexter because I like their small. They get with oh yeah. Like sheet things better and just management so. But most of them right now are crosses, so they're like an Angus Dexter cross. It's nice. I've got a couple Hereford cross calves out of the.

Dexter cross heifers. But I agree with you and looking at that, that general like body type that just loves to eat grass and you know the cows man, if I had enough acreage the cows make a lot of sense as far as like their ease on the grass. They just grow and get fat like nobody's business. But it's more to winter and I don't know about you.

I don't know how you run like your cattle, but for us at least, like it's, in order to do really good grass-fed beef like I think you have to do two years. You really need pretty damn close to two years, and up here at least with the winters it's hard not to feed enough hay like we get wet, know that just it's and I don't have enough land to leave enough standing for enough residue to not have to feed hay right now. That's just my reality and and so it's really it's too expensive, in all honesty, like I'd have to starve, basically like nine dollars a pound beef, to really make a good profit on beef. So I do keep some cows we're like eating beef. I do sell some beef that I have left, but I don't feel like I can really grow the beef, unfortunately.

1:05:23 - Cal
Oh yeah, but your winners are tougher than our winners are. I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation. I know I did. Thank you for listening and if you found something useful, please share it. Share it on your social media. Tell your friends, get the word out about the podcast. Helps us grow.

If you happen to be a grass farmer and you'd like to share about your journey, go to grazinggrasscom and click on Be Our Guest. Fill out the form and I'll be in touch. We appreciate your support by sharing our episodes and telling your friends about it. You can also support our show by buying our merch. We get a little bit back from that. Another way to support the show is by becoming a Grazing Grass Insider. Grazing Grass Insiders enjoy bonus content, monthly Zooms and discounts. You can visit the website grazinggrasscom, click on support and they'll have the links there. Also, if you haven't left us a review, please do. It really helps us, as people are searching for podcasts. If you haven't left us a review, please do. It really helps us, as people are searching for podcasts and I was just checking them and we do not have very many reviews for 2024. So if you haven't left us a review, please do. Until next time, keep on grazing grass.

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