We got into sheep because if the Border Collies. You need a few sheep to train the Collies. I never wanted sheep! So we got some flea ridden specimens in 88 and tried to train our first Collie with them. Steep learning curve!

Since we needed sheep, we realized that there were no dairy sheep in North America. We milked some of that breed in Switzerland before and really liked their milk. That’s how we ended up importing dairy sheep genetics to Canada and milking and processing the milk of a whole bunch of sheep.

When we moved to McBride in 2006, we took a few of these sheep along. Since then we cross bred them with meat sheep and lately more hair sheep, because selling the wool is a loosing battle.

The multi species idea with cattle, sheep and horses is working and improving the soil, for us very well.

The sheep act as buffers too. If we can only harvest a limited amount of hay, we reduce the flock. Sheep have their first lamb at a year old and after that they hopefully have twins. That makes them able to recover in numbers way faster than cows. Our flock has fluctuated between 12 heads to 280.

We like our sheep to have their first lamb at 13 months old and then have twins every year thereafter. We bring the flock into the hay barn for shearing a few weeks before lambing starts. They give birth in the hay barn and spend one to a few days in an individual pen to mother up with their lambs.

Once bonded, they go into a larger area where they have to prove that they can take care of the young ones with other moms and lambs together.

Once they pass that test, it’s time to go out on pasture again for the rest of the year.

We used to sell our lambs mainly farm gate, but were approached by Fresh Valley Farms from Spallumcheen BC, where they are sold now, cut, wrapped, and frozen as certified Organic Lamb.