Caring For Our Sheep

We inspect our sheep every single day, watching for signs of illness, injury, or lameness. During lambing season, those checks happen multiple times a day. Early detection is everything — a ewe that is off her feed today may be seriously ill tomorrow if no one notices.

Our vaccination and parasite control program has been designed specifically for this environment. Rather than following a generic protocol, we have built a flock-specific approach that reflects the real conditions our animals face. The aim is always to let good management, not medicine, do the heavy lifting. We do tag each of our flock with an electronic identification 'ear tag' which allows us to keep detailed records on their production, genetics, and health history. 

A ewe tends to her newborn lamb in early spring — one of the most critical windows for close observation.

We believe sheep thrive outdoors. Our pastures are lush, our land is well-managed, and given the choice, sheep will almost always do better on grass than in a barn. We lamb on pasture whenever possible — it simply produces better outcomes for both ewes and lambs.

That said, the Ozark winters have their own ideas. When temperatures drop or a ewe needs closer attention, we bring animals in. Our barns are equipped with lambing jugs — individual pens where a new mother and her lambs can bond safely, sheltered from weather and visible to us at all hours.

Clean, fresh water is available at all times. It sounds simple, but maintaining that standard across every season — summer heat, winter freeze — requires real infrastructure and daily vigilance. Alongside water, our sheep have continuous access to a balanced loose mineral and salt mix formulated for optimal health in this region.

During periods of flushing and lactation — the most nutritionally demanding stretches of the production year — we supplement with high-quality feed mix. Growing lambs get access to creep feeding, giving them a nutritional edge independent of their mothers.

We keep stocking density below the land's carrying capacity, typically around five sheep per acre. This is not a hard rule but a living calculation — one we revisit constantly as forage conditions change through the seasons.

Rotation is the cornerstone of our grazing system. Sheep move to fresh paddocks every one to two weeks, depending on the season. This gives the pasture time to recover and — critically — breaks the lifecycle of internal parasites, which are among the most serious ongoing health challenges in any sheep operation.

We also rotate cattle behind our sheep once or twice a year. Cattle are resistant to the internal parasites that injure sheep, and vice versa. This rotation helps improve pastures (cattle like different types of forage than sheep) while also helping to reduce parasites. It's a win / win for everyone.

How you handle animals matters enormously — not just for their welfare in the moment, but for the long-term relationship between the flock and the people who tend it. We handle sheep gently and quietly. No yelling, no hitting, no pulling on wool or horns.

Hands-on expertise: managing animals through well-designed handling facilities reduces stress for everyone involved.

Our handling facilities — alleys, crowding pens, working chutes — are designed around how sheep naturally move and think. When you work with a sheep's instincts rather than against them, you can accomplish in minutes what would otherwise take much longer with far more stress on the animal.

Our dairy sheep operation adds another layer of daily care. Since we milk our dairy ewes twice daily so their health is very closely monitored. In addition to being on high quality pasture, our ewes are supplemented with grain and minerals. We also keep detailed records on their production, health, any treatments, and offspring. 

We milk our ewes in a Grade A dairy barn, and the milk is processed in our grade A Ice Cream Manufacturing facility (Atelait Creamery) on the ranch. The ability to control the entire production process of the ice cream from 'grass' to 'cup' is one of our unique advantages since it allows us to control all aspects of the quality of our ice cream! Most creameries rely on other farms to produce the milk for their ice cream so a lot of the milk production process is outside of their control. 

Building a strong dairy flock takes years. Every season we evaluate, cull where we must, and retain the animals that best represent what we are working toward. The genetics improve slowly but unmistakably, and that long view is what keeps us focused when any given lambing season tests our patience.