Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
professional, try to be there to help on shearing day — you'll learn a lot, as
most shearers are shepherds themselves, and the job will go smoother with
extra hands to sort, catch, and move the sheep.
If there aren't any shearers available where you live, or the shearers won't
come to your farm because you have too few sheep, or you just really want
SHEPHERD STORY REVISITED
Agritourism
S
OME 4-H PROJECTS
have a way of becoming lifetime projects, and
that's just what happened to Darrin Day. Darrin grew up on a dairy farm,
but showing dairy cattle is really intensive, so his parents bought him a small
fl ock of sheep for his 4-H project. He's had sheep ever since.
Little has changed with Darrin in the last decade: his sheep still provide an
aesthetic value for his main enterprise, which is operating a bed-and-breakfast
in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, with his partner, Bryon Groeschl. “There are
shepherds and farmers who run a B&B, and innkeepers who keep some sheep.
I'm in the latter group,” he told me with a laugh. “The sheep aren't a major
profi t center, but they're great advertising.”
Darrin normally keeps 10 to 12 ewes in the fl ock. He and Bryon market
wool and sell their lambs as natural meat. He said they are using organic prac-
tices, but due to the small size of their fl ock, they don't jump through hoops to
be certifi ed.
“Still, the main thing they're here for is petting and as lawn mowers,”
Darrin told me. “Some visitors come back every year during a certain time to
be around the sheep. They may come back for our shearing weekend, or they
may come for lambing.”
Running a B&B with eight suites and four cabins is a lot of work in its own
right, so Darrin doesn't want to have to spend too much time caring for his
fl ock. He's found that Border Leicesters are a good breed for his situation.
“The Border Leicesters are friendly, easy keepers,” he said. “They're excel-
lent mothers. The ewes lamb on pasture in late spring and require little or no
attention. They get no supplemental grain, and the lambs make great gains
right off the grass.”
Darrin said that running a B&B is a wonderful way to make a living, but he
emphasized that it's not for everyone: “It's almost like running a dairy farm —
you have to be here all the time. And you need patience; 99 percent of your
visitors are just great, but you do get 1 percent that are really diffi cult.”
