Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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Whether lambs, ewes with lambs, or dry ewes will be run on it
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Whether any supplemental feed (hay or grain) will be purchased
Some shepherds estimate that an acre of really good tame pasture can
support four sheep during the year. Rougher, native pasture may not even be
capable of carrying one, so take a good look at the condition of your acreage
before you bring your sheep home. It is better to keep too few for the fi rst year
until you see how your pasturage holds up.
SHEPHERD STORY REVISITED
Facilities Expert Ken Kleinpeter
W
HEN THE LAST EDITION
of this topic was printed, Ken
Kleinpeter was managing the Old Chatham Sheep Company in
Chatham, New York, the largest sheep dairy in the United States. Old Chatham
produces nationally marketed cheese and yogurt from a 1,000-ewe fl ock; the
sheep are milked year-round, on a revolving schedule, with anywhere from
200 to 500 ewes producing at a given time, depending on the season. To meet
the market demand for sheep cheese, Old Chatham also purchases frozen sheep's
milk from other sheep-dairy farms and from a sheep-dairy co-op in Wisconsin.
In 2003 Ken left Old Chatham to do international development work
in Bosnia, but ultimately ended up back on a farm, as the farm manager for
Glynwood, a nonprofi t organization whose mission is “to help communities in
the Northeast save farming.” Glynwood, a 250-acre farm about 60 miles outside
New York City, works to empower communities to support farming and conserve
farmland, while also working their own land to demonstrate the economic viabil-
ity of environmentally sustainable agriculture. The farm is home to a small fl ock
of ewes, as well as chickens, meat goats, cattle, and pigs. Part of the operation is
a community-supported agriculture (CSA) venture that sells the produce of the
farm on a subscription basis; the nonprofi t also runs a conference center on-site.
In Old Chatham's sheep-dairying operation, as in cow dairying, the lambs are
taken from their moms after 24 hours and reared artifi cially. While there, Ken
helped the dairy transition from raising lambs in conventional barns, where poor
air quality sickened too many lambs, to raising lambs in plastic hoop houses.
These greenhouselike structures were just gaining a foothold with livestock
producers at that time. I asked Ken about his experiences with the hoop houses:
“With a sheep-dairy farm like Old Chatham, you have all these lambs you're
