166. Grazing Sheep with Big Tom Perkins
Speaker: On today's show, we're talking
sheep and some of you may already
be reaching for that skip button.
I encourage you not to.
It's a really good episode, and you
get to find out the podcast name
inspired by the Grazing Grass podcast.
So we'll get started with the fast five.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: To
get started, what's your name
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Big Tom Perkins.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: and What's
your farm's name
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Big Tom's Con-o-creek farm.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513:
and where are you?
Where are you located?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
We are in Western Pennsylvania.
We're about 10 miles from the Ohio line.
If you look at the top of Pennsylvania
and the bottom of Pennsylvania, we
are almost smack dab in the middle,
but on the very western edge.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, very good.
And what year did you
start grazing, animals?
I,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: I
guess it would've been rotational
grazing, probably 2012.
I'll back up and say that in 1996
I started to rotationally graze
animals and failed miserably.
So I went back to the old way of grazing,
which was pretty much continuously
grazing three different pasture fields.
Because I did rotate through, so, but
we were always feeding hay by August.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: in
what livestock species do you
graze?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
lifestyle?
Now I graze strictly sheep,
but I started out grazing beef.
Cal: Welcome to the grazing grass podcast.
The podcast dedicated to sharing
the stories of grass-based
livestock producers, exploring
regenerative practices that improve
the land animals and our lives.
I'm your host, Cal Hardage and each
week we'll dive into the journeys,
challenges, and successes of
producers like you, learning from
their experiences, and inspiring
each other to grow, and graze better.
Whether you're a seasoned
grazier or just getting started.
This is the place for you.
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Speaker 2: For 10 seconds
about the podcast.
First off I mentioned about the podcast
name inspired by the Grazing Grass.
You know, we have a
discussion a little bit later.
I'm probably making that word too
strong, but you have to listen to that.
It's at the end.
So if it's not your cup of
tea, skip right over it.
Um, Big Tom Perkins on today been
wanting to have him on for a long time.
I enjoy listening to the Grazing Sheep
podcast and every time I hear his name Big
Tom, I think Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean.
I guess to be more fitting, we should
have a hog producer on, if I'm going to
talk about Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean.
Oh, well, you'll notice as we go through
this episode, there was a little bit of
delay when we recorded this, and I've
tried to fix it, but you may still see
artifacts of that or hear artifacts.
Speaking of seeing, I use a software that
builds the video for me based upon the
video inputs and they do cuts and stuff.
I don't do much editing at all to that
because I feel this is a audio program.
The video I upload to Spotify and
YouTube is just an added bonus.
However, AI, the company must
change their AI in it because that's
how it determines how to make the
scenes and what layout to use.
It's a little bit different today, so if
you watch it, let me know what you think.
And with that, let's get back to Big Tom.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513:
Tom, did you, growing
up, did you
grow up on a farm?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Yeah, this was a dairy farm.
My parents bought this farm
in 1956 and moved the dairy
cows here on July 4th, 1956.
I was born in 61 and all I remember is
just milking, you know, just dairy cows.
It was in the eighties that, so
we sold those dairy cows and we
bought just a few head of beef cows,
mainly to keep the barnyard eaten
down and to eat any hay that was,
that got rained on or broken bales.
Those kinds of things.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Did,
Did, they
do?
the whole hard buyout in 85?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Nope.
We sold in 86 when we missed
the whole herd buyout.
That's how, that's how good of managers we
were of this farm.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: My grandparents
had been dairying for years.
We joined them and started dairying in 85.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Okay.
Right.
The whole buyout deal.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah, the, the
buyout deal was the interesting thing.
I, I haven't thought about it.
in years.
I wonder, looking back if they feel
like that was a success or not.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
I don't know.
I do remember there was talks about
there were gonna be milk quotas and you
were gonna have to buy milk quotes from
other farms if you wanted to expand.
And I don't know that
any of that ever came to fruition.
I just know, you know, growing
up almost, almost my whole
adolescent life this farm was
being stripped mines for coal.
And the original contract on that
strip money said they would tear up
no more than four acres at a time.
And at one point, better than three
quarters of our farmers tore up, and
we were still trying to milk cows
and we were buying in feed all the
time.
It was a, it was an
extremely losing proposition.
We didn't make much
money at all on the coal.
Any money that was made was spent, you
know, buying in feeds for these cows.
And it wasn't until they had put the
whole farm back and we realized the
farm was in such bad shape, it was
never gonna be able to grow corn or,
or any of the stuff that we needed.
You know, it wouldn't
grow alfalfa from nothing.
And we decided that was, it was
just time to get rid of the dairy
cows and it ruined our water.
That was another issue.
You know, we shipped grade A,
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
water, the water was so bad.
We'd wash all, you know, the bulk
tank and all the, all the milking
units and all that, and when it would
dry, you could write your name in
it because the water was that bad.
And so then we
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
so we had to,
ship cheese plant and there was no, there
was no way to make a living doing that.
So that's when they decided
it was time to sell the cows.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So strip mining in your area.
We have strip mining
for coal in our area as
well.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Mm-hmm.
It's I'll bet you there's
more of this county with
strip mine than, than wasn't.
It's I don't know.
It's, it's extremely
destructive that, that ground.
We tried irrigating corn, we
tried everything we could.
In this valley.
We were the last farm to be put back.
And when they were all
done, we ended up with
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
of, we ended up with about three
inches of top soil and they just said,
that's all the top soil there is.
We, you know, I can remember my dad
saying, we have way more top soil than
that one.
When you started.
They said, there's nothing
we can do about it.
That's all there is.
And being good farmers, the first
thing we did was hooked into a plow
and went and plowed that under and we
lost all that three inches of top soil.
I
look back on that now and I
said, what in the world were we
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
But we'd never heard the no-till
or any of that kind of stuff.
And.
We just buried 8,000 feet of
water line here on the farm, and we
had the option of running it on top
of the ground, but I wanted it buried
because I grazed 365 days a year.
I wanted to be able to have
water in the dead of winter.
You know, it
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
frost free hydrants.
So I definitely wanted this buried,
and it wasn't very long before
we realized we were pulling rocks
out that were half the size of my
gator, just massive black rocks.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
And the crazy part is these rocks
are rusting because they're so full
of iron ore, they're unbelievably
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
So we, we've managed to get this line
buried, but I do wonder how long it's
going to be before anything grows on top
of those, of those ditches that we opened
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Because it takes so long to get the,
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: How deep
do you have to put your waterline?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
We were supposed to go 36 inches, but
there were a lot of places we went.
30, 32,
We had to cross a gas line and
it took us six months to get
permission to cross this gas line.
So it was the very yeah, it
was the very last place that
we, we excavated and put in.
And we went to a specific spot because
they said the gas line was six feet
down and we would be able to go
three feet to bury our wire line.
And when they came out and did
it, we got down to about 22 inches
and they said, Nope, that's it.
You can't go any deeper.
And I
just said, I would've buried all my
waterline at 22 inches if I'd have known.
We could only go 22 inches here.
And so it's been in,
it's been in for a year.
It
did not
freeze.
It didn't freeze.
We did have bitter, bitter cold
temperatures and it didn't freeze.
So I don't, I don't know.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, well, good.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
If that's gonna be deep
enough in the future or not.
But the plan is to pile dirt on
top of that here this summer as
we go through and kind of clean
everything up and we'll
make that even deeper.
The, the gas line, the gas company
says we can't do that, but my
rule of that is hide and watch.
So
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Right.
Yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
if they don't like it, they can
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513:
So you all agrees,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
it back off.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: right?
They, they can fix
it.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Yeah.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: You went to
beef cows for a while and you mentioned,
I think you said you started rotational
rotational grazing in about 2012.
What brought you to that point
to try rotational grazing?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
So I had I had a pretty
good hay business going.
We were selling a lot of
grass hay all small squares.
Making right under 13,000
small square bales a year.
And you know, we put hay in the barns
all winter and then, or all summer
and then take hay out all winter.
And I had a real good supply of young
kids around that would come and, and help.
And those kids started getting
older and they started getting
real jobs and they started
getting families and they would
come down and help out of kind
of a sense of obligation really.
But slowly, you know, I could
see this isn't, this isn't
gonna be sustainable anymore.
And so I went back into beef cattle.
We just kept a really small, just
a handful of cows around, and they
really were to eat hay that got rained
on or broken bales, just a hay shaft.
We had to, you know, find
things to do with that.
That's really why they were here.
And as it got harder and harder
and harder to find these, you
know, kids to come help, I started
to expand the beef herd and.
I was just watching a video on YouTube,
Joel Saladon talking about his salad bar
beef and just the things he talked about
made a heck of a lot of sense to me.
I had played music and toured,
and traveled for quite a few
years and came home in 96.
I had three months to kill and I had
a contract signed to play a cruise
ship, and I was just came home to kill
time until it was time to go play,
you know, go work at the cruise ship.
In the meantime, my mom got diagnosed
with cancer and talked to the guy
that I had signed the contract with
and he said, you only have one mom.
You probably ought to stay home.
And so that's what I did.
I ended up growing roots, but
in that winter of 96, I went to
my very first grazing conference
and listened to these guys
talk, and man, I came home.
I was gonna try that in the spring,
but I had that really junky.
We call it bumblebee wire, that
yellow and black wire that you
would buy from tractor supply.
Yeah.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
And we didn't have an electric
fence all the way around the farm.
So I outlined our farm with this
bumblebee wire and tried to run electric
through it and tried to rotationally
graze clear at the other end of the
farm using this bumblebee wire that
just basically had no electricity in it.
And I couldn't keep cows in.
They would just walk right through it.
And I was, I was definitely at that
point I was rotationally over grazing
because I had in my head that it
should look like a golf course.
So they should take everything off there.
And
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: in
my mind that when the cow put her head
down, if you could still see her nostrils.
There was, there was still grass in there.
And so she should graze that
off before I moved her on.
And it was just impossible.
We couldn't keep cows in.
It was a total mess.
Get up in the morning and the
cows weren't anywhere near
where they were supposed to be.
They'd be over on the neighbor's farms.
And so I gave it up pretty quick and
like I said, it was in 2012, in the
winter of 2012 that I stumbled on to
some of these Joel s videos and that man
could sell, you know, ice to Eskimos.
And
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah, you
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
so I, so I really scoured and started
looking at some of the newer reels
and so on that were out there.
I, I went to an auction that
spring and there was a guy that
it was a farm that was selling out
and he had done some rotational
grazing and he had some Pell reels.
Have you ever heard of the Pell reel?
PELL reels?
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: I
haven't.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: They
were some of the first that I'd ever seen.
They came I think from New Zealand.
And,
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
they were sitting in a pile with some
other stuff and I got that all bought
pretty cheap and brought that home and
said, okay, I'm ready to try this again.
And and started out and all of a sudden
it made a little more sense to me and
I read an article the first two weeks
that I grazed I was gonna move cows
once a day, but every time I would go
out and check 'em, they were outta the
grass, so I'd have to move 'em again.
I was just making my
paddocks way too small.
And it took me about three,
took me about three days to get the cows
to the point where when I walked through
the corner and called them, they all
came and I could just open that wire
up and they'd walk right through the
next bag, put their heads down and eat.
And and just it, I was reading an
article in stock Mcgras Farmer about
leaving those solar panels behind.
And suddenly I realized
I'm doing this all wrong.
I'm taking way too much grass off.
And so just started moving cows, started
making the paddocks bigger and still
continued on with the move cows in
the evening, move cows in the morning.
And I did that up until 20, I guess,
20, 21, maybe 2022, and decided
it was time to get rid of the cows
and just concentrate on the sheep.
I could graze cows 365 days a
year, but our ground doesn't freeze
enough to hold those cows up and
so they would just pug my fields
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
something,
horrible.
And yet my sheep, they
could be out there.
They were fine.
As long as I'd move 'em
every day, they'd be fine.
They wouldn't tear things up.
And I made that decision.
The cattle prices were coming up.
And I thought, this is probably
when I'm gonna get the most money I
possibly could ever get for these cows.
Had I held 'em a year longer, I probably
would've got even more money for them.
But I was pretty happy with the price.
I pretty, pretty happy
with the price I got for
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
And and they were doing well and
they, they worked well in my grass
system and, and I'd put an ad
in the paper and got two calls.
One guy from Indiana and one guy from
Virginia and the guy from Indiana came
out with a big stock trailer and he
looked at 'em and he said I'll take 'em.
How are we gonna get 'em loaded?
And I said, well, I'll just call
'em and they'll just walk with me
and we'll walk right into the barn
and close the gate behind them.
And that's what we did.
And managed to get 'em loaded.
The last cow was a bit
of a pain to put on.
They weren't used to being.
Penned up at all.
They got a little wild once we
pinned them up and but we loaded
them up and they went down the road
and it was, it was, kind of a sad day.
I'm still a cow guy at heart.
We, when our sheep lamb got my right
hand, man, he'll, he'll climb in jugs
and he'll make sure that each ke is open.
And just a couple of weeks ago
I said, he said she's got milk.
And I said, in all four quarters.
And he said, well, and
two of them, you know,
because I'm still that cow guy.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Right.
Yeah.
So why'd you add sheep to your operation
when you were grazing beef cattle?
And you mentioned a little bit
with the plugging.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Yeah.
The, as I had bought some cows in and
started to sell some calves from those
cows sitting down doing the math.
I.
I'm thinking, man, I'm gonna have to have,
you know, 50 or 60 cows here if I'm going
to attempt to make any kind of a living.
And there wasn't enough
grass here for 50 or 60 cows.
And in probably three different
mag beef magazines, there was an
article in there about adding sheep.
And I thought, my first thought was
this, this is nuts.
Why are they putting
sheep in beef magazines?
And I truly wonder if I could go
back and look at those magazines
if there really was an article in
there, or if the good Lord was just
planting this seed in my head saying,
this is what you need to be doing.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
they talked about the kain breed as being
like the, being like herford cattle,
you know, just good mamas easy care.
You just don't usually have
a lot of problems with 'em.
And so I started looking for
registered ka and sheep and I
found them up in dried in New York.
Which is about six hours away from me.
And I drove up there and looked at
him, and that gal had a father who
was very sick, and he lived in North
Carolina and she knew she was gonna
have to spend a lot of time with him.
And so she was selling her, her
adults, and she was keeping her lambs.
And if I recall correctly, he,
he, her father didn't have long
to live, but she wouldn't spend as
much time with him as she could.
So I
bought her, I, I
went up there to buy
10, she had 11 in a pen.
So I ended up coming
home with 11 bread use,
and I
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Why'd you
decide to go with registered animals?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
I just, I knew that I always
wanted to sell breeding stock.
And growing
up a dairy guy, if you were gonna
sell dairy cows, you wanted to sell
registered dairy cows, you didn't
wanna just sell great dairy cows.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Right,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
everybody has that.
That notion or that preceded
notion, I guess it is that that
register just means better.
And, and we both know that
doesn't, that doesn't mean anything,
you know, I've been on some pretty big
commercial flocks and walked through those
sheep and said, man, there's not a u here.
I wouldn't mind having to know.
You know, it's a really, really nice
sheep and there's not a registered paper
anywhere to be found on any of them.
So it, it
really is, it really
is, in your breathing.
And so I did know that.
Yeah, I, I did wanna be able
to sell seed stock at some
point, you know, down the road.
We got involved in the National
Sheep Improvement Program pretty
early on, and and that just, it's
it's a program that lets you monitor
the traits that you can't see.
You know, you can't see the weight
gain you can't see parasite resistance.
You can't necessarily see it.
It's hard to measure how much milk
that, that you is producing without
going through massive calculations
that are hard to do on your own.
And the National Sheep Improvement Program
lets, lets you do all that, doesn't
tell you whether that sheep's got good
feet, whether the sheep has a good
other whether that sheep sheds out.
Well, it doesn't tell you any of that.
You know, you still have to do all
your own, you know, phenotypical work.
But it does allow you to,
to measure these things.
And I knew running the grazing
operation that parasite resistance
was going to be very important.
So we started early on bringing
in rams that would increase
our parasite resistance.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: With the
National Sheep Improvement Program.
What kind of data do you
have to provide to them?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
you can provide as little or
as much as you as you want.
They're gonna charge
you the same either way.
So I'm going to provide as
much data as I possibly can.
We start out as soon as
those lambs are born, we want to get
within 24 hours of birth, we want
to get a birth weight on that lamb.
This is something you can, you just, like
with cattle, you know, you can breathe
for smaller birth weights, heavier
birth weights, whatever you like to do.
We like to just keep track of it.
Early on we had really
light birth weights and
we had quite a bit of death loss.
And it wasn't until I read an
article that, you know, your
birth weight is a direct correlation to
that, that we decided we needed to do
something to bring our birth weights up.
And and so it, it, so I think
it's a very important trait.
Then we're looking at about a 60 to a
90 day weight that we're gonna take.
And they call that the early,
or it's called a weaning weight.
Even though you may not have weaned your
lambs yet, it's just a term that they use.
And then there is a post weaning weight.
They're gonna go back another 30 to
60 days after that, weigh those lambs
again, and they do a massive calculation
to figure this, this stuff out.
And we're also, when that lamb is
born, we're going to mark down
whether that lamb was born a
single, a twin, or a triplet.
We're gonna mark down whether that
land was raised as a single, a twin,
or a triplet, you know, 'cause you,
you can have triplets, one dies
now it's being raised as a twin,
not necessarily a triplet anymore.
But this program takes into calculation
how long that one triplet was alive.
And so it was only getting one
third of the milk that was available
for a certain period of time.
Then it suddenly can not get half
of the milk that's available.
And it, this program takes into, it
takes all this into consideration
and does this massive calculations.
And these, these supercomputers
are in Australia where they raise
lots of sheep and they know how
to put all these calculations
together.
And the other main thing that we're
measuring specifically is we're gonna
do a peak weight count on those lambs.
When those lambs are just, just as
we're getting ready to wean those lambs,
we're gonna take the Es and the lambs,
we're gonna put them in a paddock and
we're gonna overgraze that paddock.
And it's really a matter of time.
'cause we know that's what overgrazing is.
So we're gonna leave those Es and
those lambs in that paddock for maybe
a day and a half, maybe two days.
And then we're gonna move them on in
the RO rotation as we normally do over
the next 30 days, we're gonna wean those
lambs and then we're gonna bring those
lambs back to that same paddock and
we're gonna have them overgraze again.
And we want those lambs to become
infected with the, the parasites
that are there, that MCUs cat totos,
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
barber
pole.
The barber pole worm.
And we want those lambs to get infected.
We're gonna wait three to four
weeks after that and we're gonna
pull fecal samples on those.
And we send those fecal samples off
to usually Virginia Tech and we get
those fecal numbers back and then
we plug that into that program that
all gets sent off to Australia and
it comes back and it measures the
parasite resistance in those lambs.
And we wanna have a bare minimum
average of 500 eggs per gram,
per, I guess, per animal.
So we'll have some that literally
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
six or seven.
We'll have some that might have 26,000.
And, but we know
because we have those kind of numbers,
we know everybody got infected.
It's just how good are they at,
Fighting those off?
And that's really what
we're measuring for that.
And we know that with parasite resistance,
with the, with the work that's going
on in North Carolina University and
West Virginia University, WVU, that
parasite resistance in sheep is
not just about parasite resistance,
it's about their immune response.
And those sheep just have a massive.
Immune response.
The ones that are, are
highly parasite resistance.
And we're believing that that parasite
resistance not only equates to the, you
know, actual being able to slough off
those parasites, but it's just overall
healthy sheep, healthier sheep just 'cause
they've got such an immune response.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
The milk in those ewes are so much
higher in IgG, the immunoglobins.
And so it's just it's a much
better colostrum for those
lambs when they're first born.
It's, it's amazing the work
that they've done and the stuff
that they're figuring out.
And so we feel like even if
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
raising sheep in confinement,
we'd still be using parasite
resistant rams for a replacement.
A replacement U lambs.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yes.
Have you seen, how long have you been
doing the, the improvement program?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Been.
So we started Sheep in 2017, and I
think it was 2020 that we started into
the National Sheep Improvement Program.
We had some records before they
were able to, you know, upload
that they call it historical data.
So we were able to
upload some of that data.
But as soon as we got the, as soon
as we got the first fecal results
back, we had used two different rams.
One RAM we bought that was
an NSAP ram, and we knew that
he had parasite resistance.
The other was a RAM that we had
bought out of Aho Flock that I
had some views with, some just.
Not legs that I liked.
You think of cows with really crooked
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
you know, as they get old, you know,
the pastures start to fall apart.
They have trouble getting up and down.
I couldn't find any information on
that about sheep, but I figured if
it doesn't, if it's bad for cows,
it had to be bad for sheep too.
So I, I was talking to a cousin of mine
and, and he said, well, you're the
one that has to look at 'em every day.
So if you don't like the legs
that are on them and you wanna
improve 'em, go right ahead.
So we bought this show Sheep,
they had really nice straight legs
and all my sheep now have really
good legs because of that show.
Sheep.
We named that, that Ram Tim
and the the ram that
was parasite resistance.
We had named that Ram.
Brad and I got that information
back and there was a night and day
difference between those two rams.
You could tell that Tim had no
parasite resistance and Brad had lots,
but being in Aho flock, they didn't need
parasite resistance 'cause they were
feeding them show feeds all the time.
They didn't have 'em out on grass
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Right.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: So
it wasn't an, for them, it wasn't
an economic trait that they
needed to be concerned with.
And that it just proved to me right
there that this NSIP is well worth the
investment because we knew we wanted
to have parasite resistant sheep.
We knew we were gonna be on grass
as much as possible, and we were
gonna need parasite resistance.
And as soon as I started to pay
attention to that and and improved my
grazing, you know, when we first had
sheep, they were standing in a pen.
This was February, they were
due to lamb at the end of March.
And I leaned against these pen and I
looked at these sheep and I thought,
I don't even have an intelligent
question to ask about sheep.
That's how little I know about them.
And I had read an article that said
the parasite lifecycle was 30 days.
I thought that meant the parasite hatched.
30 days later, the parasite was dead.
And so I set myself up a rotation
with these sheep at 35 days.
And what I didn't realize was it meant
that the egg would hatch would be then in
an L three larvae at the end of 30 days
and it was ready to infect your sheep.
And so we had major parasite
issues right from the get go with
that, with that rotation.
And by doing some studying and and
some reading up on it, I came to
the realization that the longer
the rest period for the grass, the
better it would be for the sheep.
And you know, we, we were gonna
lose some of those, some of those
parasites were gonna die off.
It didn't take me very long to figure
out too that suddenly with that grasp
being so much taller, it was a whole
lot easier to keep those sheep from
grazing down into that parasite zone.
'cause we know those
parasites are typically gonna
be in that bottom four inches of grass.
And if we can keep 'em outta
that bottom four inches,
they're not gonna be infected.
And I've only, I've wormed
one u in the last five years.
I'm hoping by the end of this
summer, I could say I've wormed one U
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh wow.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
the last
six, years.
It has a
and, and some of these U are terrible.
It, as far as parasite resistance
goes, they don't have any.
It's really because of the grazing that we
do that we're able to keep 'em out of that
zone and keep 'em in pretty good shape.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah, let,
let's talk a little bit more about
your grazing and how you're managing
to keep 'em where they need to go.
Because I'll be honest, with our
sheep, that's probably the biggest
negative I have is our fencing.
The way I'm fencing them, I
don't have as much control over
them as I would like to have.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
So we started off with netting.
We did have a five wire high tensile
fence that went all the way around the
farm, but only the middle wire was hot.
And those sheep would walk right through
that.
They would walk right through it
because they were below that wire,
they weren't gonna get shocked.
So we started out with netting and
I literally took Popsicle sticks
and set them on my floor and tried
to figure out how I could move this
netting and with a minimum amount of
nets to be able to get this sheep,
you know, moved to fresh grass.
And so I came
up with, we had to have at least seven.
So that was almost a thousand
dollars investment in these nets.
And that's what we did.
The first three years we moved
sheep every day, moving nets.
Every day we would move three nets
and and connect into the, you know,
the square that we'd already have.
And that was how we
moved sheep for the longest time.
We finally got to a point where our
nets were really getting beat up.
It was really hard to push
electricity through the nets.
And they had a bunch of Es that figured
out that they put their head on the bottom
of that net, they could pick it up and
not get shocked and walked underneath it.
And so I got irritated
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: and I
ran a single hot wire, a poly wire, about
six or eight inches off the ground and
about six or eight inches inside that net.
And so that if they wanted to lift
that net up, they were gonna have
to touch that poly wire first.
And so I didn't put any electric
in the net, adjust that poly wire.
And it took about three days before
I noticed as I was moving sheep, that
they didn't graze under that polywire.
And I knew at that point, I think
I got these sheep trained to poly
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
And now we could take our nets.
We could take our nets and run
them just in two parallel straight
lines, and we could now use
polywire to subdivide those nets.
And suddenly that was a game changer.
It was a whole lot easier to
take these nets and run 'em, run
'em off in straight lines, and then
just use our poly wire to subdivide.
And two years ago we, we had grazed this
farm long enough that I knew where I
wanted to put permanent interior fencing.
And everywhere where we would've
run two two rows of netting.
That's just where we put
our interior fencing.
And so it's now five wire,
five wire high tenile fence.
We're using the wooden H braces
on the ends and then put timeless
fence post in every 25 feet.
And I've got my wire spaced.
My bottom wire is a neutral wire.
It's six inches off the ground, and
then we go, the rest of 'em are hot.
And after that first six inches
is six inches, six inches, six
inches, and then nine inches.
And that puts my wire height.
I think if my math is ready,
it puts me at 33 inches.
And that's just low enough that I can
throw a leg up over that and, and get
in without having to squeeze all this
big body through nine inches of wire
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
it works out really, really well.
Now we always shut our fences off
when we go to move sheep because
I don't like getting shocked.
And the too many times I've tried working
fence hot and you know, you actually
touch something, you accidentally touch
something you're not supposed to, and
it just lights me up and I hate it.
So I, I just shut the fence off
and then go move sheep.
And my sheep are still well-trained
more than once I go over to shut, I walk
in a building to shut my fencer off.
And it was still off from yesterday.
And my sheep are still
where they're supposed to
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Yeah.
Because they, they don't
want to touch the fence
and they're not o they're
not overly hungry either.
'cause we, you know, we're
moving sheep every day.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: right.
How many so you're moving them
each day and you're using poly
wire to make those daily breaks.
How
many strands of poly wire
are you running across?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
I'm still running two.
I could probably ru run one, but I start,
it's a one fence and I hook my handle
into that fence and I take 10 or 12 steps
and put a, a I I use pigtail posts too.
That's the crazy part
that have I use Gallagher
Orange top.
I use the Gallagher Orange top
Pigtail post because to me that's
the best post on the market.
I, they don't bend the, the step in part
is never broken and Gallagher actually
makes an insulator that will fit on
the shaft of that orange top post.
It is the best insulator on the market.
You tighten that down, just snug.
It's still plastic so you can overtighten
it and strip it, but you tighten that
down snug and you cannot slide that,
that insulator up or down that post.
It wedges in there that
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
yes,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
It's amazing.
And so I have two of those insulators
on each one of those posts.
So I, like I say, I hook that
wire into the fence, start out,
walk out so many steps, put a post
in so many steps, put a post in.
Then I get to the other side.
Now I have to walk back.
So I figure I already
have the reel in my hand.
I'm might as well just bring
another strand back with me.
So I always split up two strands when they
get to that other set that other side.
I have two metal carabiners that I
hook that I hook it around the poly
wire and then onto the high tensile.
And then I move up two strands and hook
the second carabiner around the poly
wire onto that strand of high tensile.
And then just walk my way back.
I could, I think I could do it with
with one wire.
I just, I don't know, I just
feel like I gotta walk back.
Anyhow, wanna just put two strands up?
And your top
Isn't any higher than my knee.
They could easily jump over it.
They just don't.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So you're not using the
pigtail portion of that
post,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: No,
if I end up with some sheep that decide,
they realize, Hey, this is only this high.
We could just easily jump over
this, then, then I will use
that pigtail part.
And I usually only have
to do it for a day or two.
And all my reels are Gallagher reels.
Pretty much everything
we're using is Gallagher.
I love that Gallagher geared reel.
I
think it is the best reel on the market.
I've got some that I've bought clear
back in 2012, and the only way you know
the difference in them is the orange is
a little more faded than the newer ones.
There's, I've dropped them, I
haven't ran over one, but I've
had cows run through the fence
and get a foot caught and drag
that reel halfway across the farm.
And the, the reels never broke,
so I'm really happy with those.
And so yeah, we use those Gallaghers.
I take that when I come
back with that reel.
I'll pull that up tight and I'll
give a couple wraps on that poly
wire around that hook that hooks
on then to your high tensile fence.
And it has a nice lock you can lock on,
and I've never had one of them fall off.
So it, it's worked really, really well.
And the sheep really respect that.
That wire, I have a Gallagher
fault finder and we're typically
somewhere between eight and
11,000 volts in the, in our fence.
It, it stays super hot
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: and
we're only running the three Juul fencer.
And I thought, I
thought we were really a big deal
when we got our three Joel Fencer.
And now I, now I know
producers that have a 64
Juul fencer.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
and I asked the gal, I said, she, she
runs sheep and they run a single wire
just about to put off the ground.
That's how they keep all theirs in.
And I asked her, do you have to put
your name and address on the lamb?
And she said, why?
And I said, because if that lamb
touches that fence, it's gonna
get blown into the next county.
So how are you gonna get 'em back?
And they're from South Africa.
They're from South Africa, and
she has this beautiful accent.
And she says, no, no, no.
They go straight up.
They come straight down.
So.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, that's good.
Having a, a energizer big enough to
give you that many votes going through
makes the worlds of difference.
You know, you mentioned earlier, you first
four a voyage into rotational grazing.
You had trouble with your
electric fencing and cattle.
Same thing here.
When we first tried it, we tried to do
it with some cheap energizers, didn't
work.
Finally, when we spent the money
and got a good energizer it made
all the difference in the world.
And doing the, the grounding
rods like you're supposed
to.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: yep.
We have we have way more grounding rods
than probably anybody else in the county.
'cause we figured that out
right away was the grounding.
Rods were really, really
important as a kid.
Our cows never stayed in,
When I decided to redo our grounding
system, I went out to the pipe that
my dad had pounded into the ground,
and that was always our ground rod.
And I grabbed a hold of this
pipe thinking, I'm never gonna
pull this outta the ground.
It was literally six
inches into the ground.
That was all the deeper it was.
And when I
pulled this pipe out, I'm like, no
wonder our cows never stayed in.
This is not even close
to being a ground rod.
I thought it was gonna be at least three
feet in the ground.
No, it was literally six inches in the
ground and it was galvanized.
It was a piece of copper or wire
that had a a hose clamp on it.
I'm like, this, I, I can't believe
anybody ever got shocked on this fence.
You know, I, I do remember
getting shocked on that fence,
but I was like, the water cows
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
We used to have those weed whacker
fencers that supposedly you
never had to trim your fence up.
It would always just,
you know, whack the weeds off.
Our neighbors had one, they never
had any weeds on their fences.
We did, but we only had a ground rod
that was six inches in the ground.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah.
The ground rods will make
the roads of difference
there.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Oh yeah.
yeah.
And like I said, we, we thought we
were a big deal when we went to a three
Juul fencer and to found out, you know,
we're still just the little peons.
We don't have a big fencer at all.
One of the other things too is
my, my whole farm is set up.
I've got I guess there are 38 I think,
pastures and I only run electric to
the pasture that I want electric in.
I set this all
up so that
I didn't, I didn't have to have
everything all lit up at the same time.
The bad news is the other pastures
that you're not in, the grass is
growing up into those and you end up
having to go out and either spray all
those fence lines or weed whack them.
And in my future, I will have a
much bigger fencer and probably keep
most of those electrified at the
same time just to keep the weeds,
you know, knocked back on them
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
because they tell me with these 64
Juul fencers, if you've got weeds
on it, just hook it up and come
back tomorrow, they'll be gone.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
don't know, I don't
know if they're pulling my leg
or not, but we're gonna find out.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: yeah.
I, I suspect it can do it
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
do it.
Yep.
I think it will.
We'll find out.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: with, yeah.
With your sheep, are
you selling a majority?
Is breeding stock or you
sell some for meat market?
How are you marketing your sheep?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
So our top 10 to 15% of our ram
lambs will be sold as breeding stock.
Probably 50 to 60% of the used
could be sold for breeding stock.
I have a hard time parting with
used because every lamb crop is
better than the previous crop.
You know, the way we're
breeding, we're always
trying to
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: good thing.
yeah,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
yeah, we're always trying to make a
better lamb than the u it came out of.
And it's hard for me to let those go.
I would rather sell my oldest sheep on
the farm right now was born in 2021.
I would rather sell those, those older
proven used at a discounted rate
because I.
can keep, I, I, I'd like to keep as
many of this young stock as I can.
The sheep that aren't gonna make breeding
stock, those lambs are gonna go into
some kind of a meat market mostly.
So at, at this point, my bottom third
of my flock, which they're still
pretty good sheep, but they're not
gonna make my top 10% ram lambs.
Those get bred.
And these are all cat
and sheep by the way.
They get bred to a Suffolk Ram.
And the main reason
for that is because I
want that hybrid vigor.
And two, I don't want to have
a a half Suffolk u on my farm,
so I'm not tempted to keep her.
And we will, we will, sell those
into the light lamb market, the
ethnic market, and those lambs will
be anywhere from 55 to 65 pounds.
And that's right at weaning.
We get, we end up with a few
that are over that, but that's,
that's right at that weaning.
And and we're getting a pretty
good price for those lambs.
We take most of our
lambs out to m Hope Ohio.
It's a two hour ride.
And it's well worth it.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, yes.
Now I think I read somewhere you have
multiple lambing seasons per year.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: yeah.
We typically lamb 'em at
least three times a year.
I'm looking to increase that.
I'm flirting with the idea of lambing
every month just for cash flow.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, yes.
And you, you're just
glutten for punishment?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: I
am the but I'll tell you another thing.
I go out and check sheep
before I go to bed.
And then they're, they're gonna be
lambing.
And I don't, I don't get up in the
middle of the night and go look at 'em.
If they can't keep a lamb alive
till morning, then they
don't need to be here.
They've gotta have the mothering ability
to take care of them.
You know, I had a lamb or
had a u that had a lamb.
It was her first.
And I went out and she was just
beating a snot outta that lamb.
That port lamb hadn't eaten at all.
And she's gonna go on a coal truck.
She's in a head gate
now feeding that lamb.
And if
she has to stay in a head
gate for 60 days, she will.
But she's gonna feed that lamb and
we're not gonna keep that lamb.
And it's a little ram lamb anyhow,
so we're not gonna keep that one.
And and she's gonna go on the coal
truck because you, you gotta take care.
I'm way too lazy to be sitting out
there bottle feeding lambs and all that.
I'm not doing that.
So these
sheep, these sheep, need to work for me.
I'm not working
for them.
So it's and I, I don't know,
it, it's, I think all farmers
are optimists to begin with.
And so if you're a crop farmer,
you're all excited for spring and then
you're all excited for the harvest.
And the land farmer or sheep farmer,
if you're only lamb once a year, you
only get the excitement once a year.
So this is like Christmas,
you know, more times per year.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah.
I love lambing season or Kevin season.
Yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Yeah,
I'm kind of excited about it.
It's I know too, the sheep that are
in NSIP I'm really excited to see, you
know, to take those measurements and
see how, what that data comes back.
You know, did I make a, a good choice
in the, in the Rams that I used
and, and and that kind of a thing.
But the so like I say it, it's very few.
A u lambs they'll ever sell.
My podcast partner cam, he was here
two summers ago and he's a pretty good
shepherd and he is much younger than I am.
And right away he picked out
two uams that he really liked.
He wanted those in the worst kind of way.
And, and I'm thinking, those
are my best two u lambs.
I don't wanna sell those.
And he kept telling
me, put a price on 'em.
Put a price on 'em.
So I told him I wanted $1,500 a
piece, and he said $1,500 a piece.
He said, that's crazy.
I said, it's only crazy if you'll pay it.
You know, if you won't
pay it, it's perfect.
That's my
do not, that's my do not wanna sell price.
You know?
And, And,
I, I've told that story many times
and I think, man, if he'd have bought
this, I'd have been really upset.
I'd have been disappointed 'cause I
really didn't wanna sell 'em, but.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
So it, it, it worked out.
Those have produced some really nice ram
lambs for me over the last couple years,
so pretty happy he didn't buy them.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: With the
National Sheep Improvement Program, is
that something you would say a commercial
producer ought to do, or is it something
more for the registered industry?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: I
don't think a commercial producer needs
to do it by any stretch of imagination
because most commercial producers are not
raising sheep to sell to someone else.
As far as like breeding stock, and
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Right.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
in the, they're in the meat business.
They're in a, well, we're
all in the meat business.
The reality of it is, but
that's their bread and butter.
They, they want, they want lambs that
are able to hit the ground, you know,
take off running, do well, grow fast, get
'em on a truck, get 'em down the road.
That's pretty much their business
model.
I don't see a reason for them to be
out collecting that kind of data.
You might wanna collect some of that
data if you're gonna be retaining
X amount of use per year, but you
probably have enough data and, and
enough observations and you know who,
who your good use are and who your bad
views are, and you're gonna wanna keep,
you know, lambs outta those good use.
But I would say that as a commercial
producer, you should, if you, when
you're looking to bring Rams in, you
should really be looking at NSIP Rams.
If parasite resistance is
important to you, then that's
how you know whether a ram is
parasite resistance or not.
You can't just go to a guy's flock
who says, Hey, I've never, I haven't
wormed anybody in the last five years.
If they're doing a really good job
grazing, they won't need to worm anybody.
It doesn't mean that they've,
they're parasite resistant,
they just haven't been affected.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yeah.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: So.
You know, with us, you know, those,
those lambs, they, they're after
they've been infected and we pull the
fecal samples, we're gonna worm 'em.
'cause I can't wait two or three
weeks to get that information back.
I could have dead lambs by then,
so that, that is the
only time they're gonna
get wormed.
cause we know they're infected,
so we're gonna worm 'em
whether they need it or not.
Then they shouldn't need worm the
rest of their life 'cause we're
gonna do a good job grazing 'em.
If
you, if you're looking for fast
growth, you can find those numbers
in NSIP through the the weaning waste
and the opposed to weaning waste.
And so, you know, if that's what
you're looking for, if you're looking
for more prolifics in your flock,
you can look at number of lambs born.
If you're having used, if you're
having trouble getting your
lambs all up to market weight
or even weaning weight alive.
You start looking at number lambs weaned,
that's a, a trait that's in there.
We don't
necessarily, we're not, we're not
necessarily collecting that data,
but if a lamb dies, you know, before
weaning, it's gonna show up in that
data, you know, we're gonna mark in
that that's gonna be a data entry that,
that lamb died on such and such a day.
We know what that lamb died from.
We can
put that in there as well.
That all gets loaded into that
information and becomes part of
the, the data set that you get back.
So you can, you can increase the, the.
You can increase your, your
economics and your flock if you
know what traits you're looking for.
And so if you go to an NSIP flock, you
can pull out that data, you can find
those rams that you're looking for.
You still have to do the
phenotypical analysis.
You still have to look
at a ram and know, know,
is that the, is that
what you're looking for?
Is that not what you're looking for?
You know, if you, I see sheep all
the time that are registered and for
sale on Facebook, and I'm thinking
what that thing just needs hitting
the head and, you know, send it off
to the sale.
Send it off to the sale.
You're not gonna get much for it.
It's pretty ugly looking.
Don't be selling that for a breeder.
That's not what that should be at all.
And and I, I'll give you
a prime example of that.
We were putting the breeding groups
together, and I, these were all, these
were all mature es that I was breeding.
And I had two young ram lambs that I was
going to be used to breed to breed them.
And we know that a young ram
lamb's not gonna be able to cover
as many ES as a mature ram will.
And suddenly I realized, huh, I
need one more ram to put in here.
And I had a a pen of ram
lambs that I was selling.
And I thought, well, idiots,
you've got lambs here.
Go pick something out.
So I knew I wanted some growth.
I wanted the moderate growth,
and I wanted parasite resistance.
So I went back through my numbers,
first identified two rams that
I really liked, their numbers.
And then I went out to the
barn and I looked at 'em.
And as I was eyeing up these two
rams, I suddenly realized this one ram
shouldn't be in this breeding pen at all.
This thing needs to go to freezer camp.
'cause
he has, as he grew it as a, as a
lamb, he didn't look bad at all.
But as he grew, he was
kind of falling apart.
And so.
We picked the other
ram.
So I tend to look at numbers first
and get all excited about that and
then go look at the phenotype and see
whether, and see is that,
do I want to continue that on in my
flock or anybody else's flock and
I won't sell you an animal that I
wouldn't, you know, breed with on my own.
You know, obviously, you know, my is
going to, the Rams that I retain are
gonna be, you know, gonna have some
relatedness to some of my other ewes
that's kind of pay attention to where I'm
breeding and who I'm breeding those to.
But it's you know, another thing about
NSIP that people don't realize too is
that if that LAMB has any relatives in
any other flock that's involved in NSIP,
when that data is all run together,
they take that into account, what's
that sheep doing in this other flock?
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
So you can take a flock that is
strictly grass-based and you can take
a flock that's completely confinement.
And the lamb that grows best in
the completely confinement is gonna
be the lamb that grows best in
the grass fed part of it as well.
It's,
See, you, you aren't comparing apples
to apples, I mean apples to oranges.
You, you really are comparing apples
to apples and the way they are
compared.
That's the other part of this,
I think I should say, is when
this group of lambs that are all born
within 42 days of each other, make up a
contemporary group, and all those lambs
have to be raised the exact same way.
You cannot take some out and hand
feed them and, and, you know,
and, and underfeed the others.
They all need to be
raised the same exact way.
And what they're competing
against is each other.
And that's where their
calculation comes from, is, is
all those lambs in that group.
It will take into consideration, what
those, what other lands, what other
relatives are doing in other flocks.
But their main thing is they're competing
against each other.
And you keep a land a couple used
till they're eight, 10 years old,
they're still competing against each
other in that, in that same flock.
'cause they're in that
same contemporary group.
And it's, it's important to,
you know, let people know that.
But you know, your best growing
lambs in a group, you know, on
some other farm should be the best
growing lambs on your farm too.
And so it's always
important to look at that.
Parasite resistance is the
same, it's the same, way if you, if
you've infected them, it doesn't matter
where they're at, what farm they're
at, they should still end up with the
same amount of parasite resistance.
It's just so if I have a single
that weighs 60 pounds and I have a
set of triplets that only weighs 40
pounds and they're all the same age.
The, you would think, well, the single's
gonna win every time 'cause it's bigger.
But they take into consideration
that the, the triplets were born
triplets and raised triplets.
So it's all put on an even playing field.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, yeah,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
So, and that is, that kind of math gets
very complicated to do and that's why
it's, it's so much easier to send it
off to Australia and let them figure
it all out because they just plug
it into the supercomputer and it
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: yeah.
Let them
calculate it.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Yep.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah.
Very
good information.
Let's shift gears just a little bit for
our overgrazing topic and talk about
your podcast, the Grazing Sheep Podcast.
When do you get started and why?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: we
started that in, I guess, what is it?
This is 25, so I guess we would've
started it in, I think February of 23.
When I brought my sheep
home.
Yeah.
When I brought my sheep home.
I didn't know anybody
to talk to about sheep.
Everybody that I did talk to about
sheep said I couldn't raise sheep
the way I wanted to raise them.
They said, if you're gonna put 'em on
grass, you have to worm 'em once a month.
And I said, no, we don't want to do that.
And they said, well, then
you're gonna have dead sheep.
I would talk to state colleges, you
know, at Penn State University, they
pretty much told me the same thing.
If you're gonna put sheep on grass,
you're gonna have parasite issues.
You got to set up a good, you have
to set up a good worming program.
And so I felt like for the first
three years I was really on an island.
I just didn't, I couldn't find
anybody else that was raising
sheep the way I raised sheep.
I saw on some Facebook
posts here and there.
It seemed like people were raising sheep
the way I wanted to, but I would kind of
try to reach out to some of these people.
But they all lived far away.
And so I had gone
to a, a, Penn State,
Meeting that was about worms.
They were gonna teach you all about, you
know, worms and, and for monster scoring.
And we were doing for scoring,
but we were never trained.
So we didn't know if we
were doing it right or not.
And so I, I went to one of these
meetings and I ran into this guy named
Cameron Meyer and got to talking to
him about, you know, how I wanted to
raise sheep, what I was trying to do.
And he was a newly hired
Penn State extension agent.
And he was in a different county.
And when I grew up, if whatever
county an extension agent was hired
in, he only worked that county.
He didn't go to any other county.
And I begged him to come to my place.
It was two counties away.
I said, it's only like an hour,
but I'd love to have you come down.
And he came down and the
first thing he said was.
I've never seen so much grass.
You've got so much grass here.
And it was
in, uh, it was in October.
We would walk through my stockpiled
forage and I would reach down and pick
it up and it would come up to my hip.
And he's like, my God, I've
never seen so much grass.
And I explained to him, this
grass has to last me all winter.
You know, it can't just, you know,
I could bring in a thousand sheep on
my farm and graze 'em for one day and
then I'd be outta grass, you know?
So this has to last all
winter
cam.
And that just turned
into a great friendship.
And he was more than willing
to spend literally hours
talking on the phone with me.
And there was so much
information and I had all these
observations that I had made.
And from those observations, I came
up with these theories and I didn't
know if they were right or not.
It was just what I was seeing.
And so Cam and I would have these
long discussions and I said to
him one day, I said, you know.
I should be recording these
so that I could go back and
listen to 'em and remember them.
And he jokingly said, yeah, we
should make a podcast out of 'em.
And I thought, Hey, that's a great
idea.
Maybe we should make a podcast out of
this, because I have been dying to find
somebody to talk to about this stuff.
There has to be other
people that are in the same
boat.
And so he didn't know anything
about making a podcast.
I knew very little about making a podcast,
but from being a musician and traveling
all those years, I had worked in a
bunch of different recording studios.
I have a recording studio here on my farm.
It's a separate building.
That's was all I built
it just to record in.
And I thought if I could figure out
how to capture this information,
I could take it into the studio
and I can make it sound decent.
And we all know there are podcasts
out there that sound horrible.
They might have great information,
but you can't stand listening to it.
So you have to shut it off
and go find something else
to listen to.
And so we started fooling around
and recording some of this stuff.
We used Zoom because that was
the easiest way for us to do it.
We used the free Zoom account and
that is the number one reason why all
of our podcasts are under 40 minutes
because the free Zoom account only goes
to 40 minutes, so we can only record
40 minutes.
And the other part of this too was
when I sit down to do the editing, I'm
always like, thank God this is only
a half hour long and not any longer
'cause that's that much more editing
I have to do.
And Cam was, he was adamant
about, he loved to listen to
podcasts on his way to work.
And Cam has a PhD, so we, some of us
think that means you're really smart.
Other of us think that PhD
stands for piled high and deep.
And so he convinced me that your average
commute was about a half an hour to work
and said, this would be great to listen
to a podcast half hour long podcast.
So it all kind of stacked up.
We decided, okay, that's kind
of the format we would go with.
So in February, well I say 2023, I
think it was, we started recording
and we would record once a week and we
decided that we weren't gonna tell anybody
that we were putting these podcasts out
until we had at least 10 episodes because
him and I both, we discover a new podcast.
We wanna go in and listen
to a bunch of the episodes.
We like to binge listen.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
so we thought, well, if we wait till
there's 10, then they can go in and
binge listen and, then maybe we can get
'em hooked and they'll keep listening.
So it was funny
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
podcast, first podcast, we went
out, we, we put out, after a couple
of days, I told Cam where it was.
He went and found it and after a couple
of days we looked and we had two plays.
Because I listened to it
and he listened to it.
And then we recorded the
next one and it had two plays because he
listened to it and I listened to it and
then all of a sudden we had three plays.
And then we started Wonder who listened to
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
And it was, it was kind of a fun
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: right.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
And we found out that his
wife had listened to it.
So that's who that was.
That was the third one.
But I just
remember those days.
It was, it was kind of fun
trying to figure out, like
wonder who's listening to these.
And Cam's dad was telling him something
and he said, I think maybe we ought to
try to wean lambs the way Tom weans ' em.
And he says, I don't remember
telling you how Tom Weed something.
He goes, oh, I heard it on the podcast.
Cam calls me up and says, I knew
who the fourth listener was.
You know, so it was,
it was kind of fun back in those
days trying to figure out who
it was that was listening to us.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: And
somebody asked a question on Facebook,
I can't remember what the question was,
and I'm like, we have a podcast on that.
So I stuck the link in in one
of the replies and it just
started, it just started to blow up.
And it was kind of funny 'cause a lot
of our friends got ahold of us, said, I
didn't know you guys were doing a podcast.
And you know, to me it was kinda
like when you quit smoking, you
don't tell anybody that way.
If you start up again, you don't
have to be embarrassed by it.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
of the, this was kind
of the opposite of that.
If it's a complete failure, we
just won't tell anybody, and then
nobody will know that it was a
complete failure kind of a deal.
But it's, it's been a lot of fun.
We've got to meet a lot of
cool people through it.
I like going to a grazing conference
and somebody hearing me talk to someone
else, or even when I'm up, you know,
you know, giving a presentation or
something, you know, people come
up afterwards, you know, like.
You have that Grazing Sheet
podcast, we listen to you.
He said, I recognize the voice.
You know, I always hear,
I recognize the laugh.
And, uh, so it's it's,
that's been kind of fun too.
you know, you get a
little bit of notoriety.
I've been big Tom Perkins for a
long time and people already think
that there's some special reason
I'm called Bing Tom Perkins.
And that just came from, I was
working with a youth group and I'm
not that tall, but I'm pretty wide.
And there was another guy named
Tom that worked there or that
was helping out with youth.
And he didn't like being called we
Tom, so they, they stopped calling him
we Tom, started calling me Big Tom.
And that just, it
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah.
Most of your episodes.
Is that you and Cam just talking about
your operations, what's you're doing?
Do you bring guests on there?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Yeah, there's an awful lot of us just
talking about, you know, our theories
and, you know, what's going on on
our farms and how we're doing things.
But we do bring in different people
from different universities that,
that specialize in different things.
As it stands now, next
week's episode is Dr.
Scott Baldridge.
He's one of the country's
leading parasitologists.
So he or immunologist maybe both.
These are a lot of big words that
I'm not really sure what they mean.
I just hear 'em and then try to then
try to emulate what I thought I heard.
And so, so we, you know, we've
kind of become on first name basis
with some of these people and,
you know, we get questions from
listeners and we think, man, I have
no idea how to answer this question.
Well wonder if we could find
somebody that could, you know,
so we start looking around
and, cam now, he, he no
longer works for Penn State.
He works for a SI as a oh, I can't
think of the name, what the term is.
It's oh, director of sustainability,
I guess is what it is.
And so he spends a lot of time looking
at solar sites and how to grade solar
sites and those kinds of things.
So he's real involved in that.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
uh, so he's out and he's meeting
new people all the time, and he
keeps finding interesting people
that we get on the podcast.
But it, it is really to try to provide
as much information probably for New
Shepherds more than experienced shepherds.
Although we have quite a few, you
know, experienced shepherds who
like to listen to us and then, you
know, get an email once in a while
and say, that's just plain wrong.
And then like, okay, well explain to
me how it's right and we'll correct it.
And then sometimes that is, that,
sometimes that's exactly what happens,
you know, we find out, yeah, we were
wrong and we need to go back and fix that.
But and then a bit of fun too, you know,
we, I like to crack my jokes and and so
people get a big kick outta some of that.
And so it's been, it has
been a lot of fun doing it.
It's kind of a labor of love 'cause
we don't have any sponsors unlike you.
And so we are strictly
a shoestring budget.
You know, I, I was hoping to become,
you know, filthy rich and take over
the world and everybody said, nah,
you're setting your sights too high.
So I'm just working on getting, trying
to get filthy rich just like you
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: One day.
One
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: One
day.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: It is a
tremendous resource you all are
putting out with the Grazing Sheep
Podcast, and I enjoy listening to it.
It's time for our famous four questions.
Same four questions we
ask of all of our guests.
Our first question, what is your favorite
grazing grass related book or resource?
And I know immediately you're,
you're going to say The Grazing
Sheep podcast, and then I'm
gonna say pick something else.
And I know you're gonna say the Grazing
Grass Podcast, so you're gonna have
to go to number three on your list.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: I'll
tell you the book that really brought
it all together for me, and I got this
book out so I wouldn't mess up the title.
It's The Drought Resilient
Farm by oh, Dale Strickler.
Yep.
And I don't know,
I don't know that there was any new
information in there that I didn't know
before, but the way he puts it together
suddenly made all the sense in the world.
And that book is a, just
a really nice book too.
It's made really nice.
It's got fantastic pictures in it.
The quality of the book
is, is, is Unreal.
And I think that book was like $35.
It wasn't crazy expensive.
I don't know what it is now, but
I really, that whole entire book
really put it together for me.
He talks in there about if
you're gonna see the new pastor.
Boy, now is the time to go in.
If you wanna make it smooth, then plow it.
You know, is that wrong?
Maybe, but we're only gonna do this once.
If you wanna use
you know, herbicides on it, you wanna
go in and spray it off, kill everything
off as round up, go ahead and do it.
You're you.
We know that's bad for the soil, bad
for the environment, bad for everything,
but we're only gonna do it once.
And this just made so much sense to me.
And there was just a massive
amount of information in there.
Suddenly I understood the ma the
difference between warm season
grasses and cool season grasses.
And I think it was all, I had tidbits
of all this information before, but
for some reason that book really
made it all come together for me.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Two
things with that big Tom.
His books are almost like
a coffee book, coffee table
book, you know, they're just nicely
done and.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Yeah, they are
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: And the
other thing is I have to hear things
multiple.
times before it sinks
in.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Yep.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: you know,
most things I've heard, but going
through the book, getting a look
at the pictures really helps me
out,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Yeah, I, I would agree.
It's that's why I said I don't
know if there was any, I'm sure
there was information there I
didn't know from before, but there
was a whole lot of it that I did
know.
And for whatever reason, just the way
he laid it out, it all came together.
It just all made so much sense
where before I, I don't know
what the difference was.
Maybe it was just, that was enough times
that I heard it, it finally made sense.
But I really feel just the way he writes,
the way the pictures were laid out, all
of a sudden it, it just came together.
So that was, that's been a,
a major help for me.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513:
Tremendous resource.
Our, our second question, what's
your favorite tool for the farm?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: When
I first heard your podcast and you asked
this question to someone, I thought,
how would you ever pick your favorite?
Because there are so many.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513:
That, that's the beauty of the
question.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
I know.
I know.
I would have to say probably my
side by side because it has made the
biggest
difference I used.
So I, I, I've, because, you
know, I'm wider than I am tall.
It's always hard for me to walk.
And so I would go out to the pasture
and the first thing I used to go out
to the pasture was a rising lawnmower.
It was with no deck on
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
and it was bumpy.
It was slow,
but at least I
didn't have to walk
that far.
And then I graduated to a 35 horsepower
tractor that would go faster.
And, but it was crazy bumpy and it
was, I was just beating my back up.
I'd beat my knees up just riding on the
tractor and I suddenly
got a side by side and I would
be out in the field and I'd
be like, oh man, I forgot it.
I need an extra post.
And I just jump in the gator and run
down and grab that post and ride back
up and put that post in anywhere before.
It's like, I have to remember to
bring that up tomorrow because
I'm not making this trip again.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: right.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: So,
This winter mine's a diesel.
This winter the fuel jelled up in
it and I didn't have it for three
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, no.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
in some of the coldest weather we
had, and I had to get that little
35 horsepower tractor back out.
And of course the sheep were clear at the
other end of the farm, and so I had to
ride out there.
Yeah, I had a ride out there, you
know, three different days and I
thought, oh my lord, I forgot how
miserable this really was though.
I was cold.
I'm being bounced around.
And I was so happy when we were able to
get the gator, bring it back down, get
it in a heated building, get that fuel
thaw out, and then could run it again.
So I'd have to say that would be
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: It
is a, A side by side can be so
handy.
Yes.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Very expensive
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh, yes, I agree.
In fact, I look at prices on them
and I'm, I have sticker shock.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
It, yeah, it, they're insane.
They're insane.
I would never buy a new one.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah.
Our third question, what
would you tell someone?
Just getting started.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Get out and do it.
I spent.
I don't know, countless hours trying
to figure out how to do it absolutely
perfect before I went out and did it.
And I was at a grazing meeting,
this was probably in 2012, and
somebody said, just, just go do it.
You're gonna screw it all up.
It doesn't matter.
Just go do it.
And
now I tell people the same
thing.
Are you gonna overgraze it?
Probably.
Are you gonna under graze places?
Probably.
But it's not gonna mess
up your whole farm.
It's just one little spot.
And you just use that to learn.
And that's how you go from there.
You learn by doing things.
You know, if you sit around and wait
till it's gonna be absolutely perfect,
you're never gonna be able to do it.
'cause I don't know that I've ever had a
paddock move that was absolutely perfect.
You know, some are closer than
others.
Yeah,
some are closer than others.
And if you, like I say, if you,
if you mess it up, you mess it up.
But it's only one spot.
It's not your entire farm.
It's just one spot, and if you have
to skip that spot for the rest of
the summer, you just skip that spot.
It's not a big deal.
So just
get out and get started doing it.
Just learn from what doesn't go well.
That's it.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: You know,
I've, I've heard it said numerous times
that good is the enemy of great because
if it's good enough, you, you don't
strive to get to that great point.
But I think you can make the
argument, perfection is the
enemy of being great as well.
Because I get hung up because I
think, oh, I gotta design the perfect
system, or, or it's gotta be perfect.
And then you, you don't get anything done.
So I think that's great advice.
Just do it.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Yeah,
I can, I can give you a prime example.
We had a door to a grainery
that's on the side of our barn.
Nobody ever knew it was there because
the guy who built it originally.
It just made it, it just blended in so
well that it looked like boards just came
all the way down the side of the barn.
You didn't notice that there were
two hinges and this little tiny gap
that went all the way around that he
really built it well.
And we had a big windstorm come
up and it just broke our door.
And so my dad said, oh, we'll, we'll
just, you know, throw some boards
together and make a another door.
And I said, no, no, no.
It has to, it has to look perfect, it
has to look just like it did before.
And I came home one day and he had
fixed it and it looked terrible.
It, you, now you look at, you
could tell there's a door there.
It took me two years to realize that
if it was up to me, that door still
wouldn't be on there because it had
to be perfect before it went on.
he
he just put a door together
that serves the purpose.
It works.
So you can't
wait.
You cannot wait for perfection.
You just have to go out and do it.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah.
So true.
And lastly,
where can others find out more
about you and the podcast?
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
You can find the podcast pretty much
anywhere you listen to podcasts.
We upload to Spotify
that uploads to, you
know, a lot of the others.
Apple used to be Google, but I guess
now you can't do Google anymore.
We think most of ours come from
all of our, most of our listens
come from Spotify or Apple.
There's a cast box that I didn't
even even know there was such a thing
as Cast Box, but they pretty much
any platform that carries them.
If you want to, you know, reach
out to me, you could do that
at Big tomPerkins@gmail.com.
I get quite a few emails a day.
I don't give them answers every day,
but usually I'll sit down at least
once a week and dedicate some time
to try to answer some of these,
but definitely go listen, go
Because we're trying to outdo
the Grazing Grass podcast.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah.
Well, I, I hope you do.
well.
I hope we, we'll just tie all the
way.
There we
go.
I tell people.
On finding my podcast.
I'm like, it's everywhere.
You listen to a podcast and if
you go somewhere to listen to
a podcast and the Grazing Grass
podcast is not there, let me know.
I'll get it
there.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Or just quit listening to that platform.
'cause clearly they don't
carry quality material.
Yeah.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: exactly.
Yeah.
One last question, big Tom that we
added in just a few episodes ago,
and it's a question you asking
me, so you have a question for me.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Huh.
Let me think.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: I, I, I
didn't, I sprung that on you so
that you'd give me an easy question.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513: Yeah.
I.
I guess because it's called the
Grazing Grass Podcast, and ours is
called the Grazing Sheep Podcast?
How often do you rotate your grass?
Because we have to rotate sheep every day.
And so how do you move your grass
from one paddock to another?
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: I, I don't move
the grass that often, but then again,
I move it quite often, the blades of
grass that's already been eaten by an
animal are inside the
animals as I move them
each day.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Yeah, I had a feeling that would be
the director you would go with that.
I really did.
So, yeah, it was just,
it was just kind of a
pun.
It's funny.
After you got ahold of me, I started
thinking we, we had come up with
a bunch of different names for our
podcast and we didn't like any of 'em.
And I woke up one morning just
thinking about the Grazing Sheet
podcast and maybe a month later.
I ran into your podcast again,
and I thought, Ooh, I wonder
if I got the name from him.
Wonder if that's where
that came into my head,
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: well,
I'll, I'll start taking credit for
that.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
you you, you that Yeah.
I might owe you credit for that.
That might be where it came from, because
I think you started, I think you started
your podcast a good six months before we
did ours, I believe, but maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it was out
even longer than that.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: it
was even longer than that,
but I took a break in there.
My, we, we had a health scare.
My wife had breast cancer.
She, she's doing great
now, but during that time of the breast
cancer, we stopped producing any episodes.
So I started, in fact, we
are coming up next month.
It'll be five years of the
podcast, but there was a certain period
of time I was releasing monthly, and
then I took, I don't know, a year off.
Because there was about a year
in there that that was just
focused upon fighting that breast
cancer.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
Yeah, I've, I've often wondered if
I have ever had an original idea,
if it wasn't just an idea that was
inspired by another idea that I had
heard before and then made it my own.
But yeah, there was, there was
more, you know, that I, I, I woke
up and I thought, why don't we just
call it the Grazing Sheep Podcast?
'cause that's what we do.
And sometime later I ran into
yours again and I thought, oh,
wonder if I stole that from there.
Wonder.
That's what, how that happened.
I hope not.
But,
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: oh.
I think it's a great title.
So
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
thank you.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: it it works out.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
The other
beauty of this whole thing is that
I've got to work through this whole
podcast and I've never thought once
about how I'm going to edit it.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Oh yes.
Yeah,
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
I have thought quite a bit about
how you're going to edit it,
but not how I have to edit it.
cal_1_04-13-2025_130513: Yeah,
There, there's been a few, actually
it has crossed my mind on editing
because there's been a slight delay
and it's caused me to talk over you a
couple times.
So, yeah.
this, it's gonna cause
me a little bit extra
work there, but I bet I can
get, get it figured out.
But I Appreciate
you coming on and,
and joining me today.
big-tom-perkins_1_04-13-2025_140513:
me today.
Well, I thank you for having me.
Cal: Thank you for listening to this
episode of the grazing grass podcast,
where we bring you stories and insights
into grass-based livestock production.
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