[Jacob-list] re: grain for sheep and question about overweight sheep

[Jacobflock at aol.com]

At the buffet, do you check out the dessert and actually prefer Rocky Road 
Ice Cream to broccoli (sp?)...Pasture management is a ruminant buffet.  
Absent a "hard" rule becasue locales and native pature differ...you can 
problably carry 4-5 sheep per acre...and make them feed the buffet down.  
They will generally take the wide, young blade before the stemy broccoli.  
You may have to "pen" them inside a pasture to limit their going to the end 
of the buffet line for Rocky Road.\

Some mowing may be necessary (1) to remove stem and promote blade 
growth...and...(2) to give the sheep a vision space in the grazing area.  If 
you are a prey and can't see what's coming in the tall grass, you stay out of 
the tall grass.  And the tall grass gets taller.  You might try cutting a 
"starter" area in the tall grass for them and see if they expand it.  We have 
had some success with this "cut a little bit" approach.

We had a rainy spring but it produced a bumper crop of "spear grass"... a 
seed that has a sharp tip that penetrates the skin...and they have to 
removed.