Most Underrated Homestead Animal

Sheep. Sheep are the most underrated homestead animal ever because of the massive amount of benefits that they give versus the lack of people actually growing sheep. In today's vlog, we're going to be doing sheep chores with Lily and talking about— I've got 10 reasons why anybody, practically anybody, could do sheep. Breakfast of champions. Wow, thank you, my man. You're getting your boot off today. How's that make you feel? Good. Getting that boot off. How's your foot feel? Fine. Good. Yeah, my mic went on, so we're gonna— maybe it'll turn out better. We're gonna do a little narration of what I'm doing. Dan, Dan will play— my editor will play, uh, this footage as it unrolls. What you need for this system is about 3/4 of an acre, 2 to 4 sheep, an all-in-one ram pen. I call it or mobile wrestling ring, but we can call it a ram pen. When I say all-in-one, I mean it has its water in it, which is just water buckets. It has all our minerals, our ABC mineral program, Advanced Biological Concept. It has shade, and of course it has its fencing. No need for electric, no need for net. It's all-in-one. To build this ram pen, to give you an idea of what it is, it's a 16 by 16. It's made out of cattle panels. Cattle panels come in 16-foot pieces. They're 52 inches high. We kept it that way. Uh, 1-inch metal tubing— I guess it would be square tubing— can be picked up at your local welding supply store, anything like— something like that. We have 8 wheels on this thing. They are the 8-inch Marathon flat-free tires. We've got them on Amazon. Sometimes they do bend, the little axle on them does bend, so we just have replacements. They certainly don't go flat, but sometimes they get bent. We have to do replacements. You can leave a 4 to 6 inch gap at the bottom. This thing is going to cost you— depends on how well connected you are to a welder. If you weld yourself, it's going to cost Well, it probably cost you less than $1,000 if you do it yourself. If you're gonna hire somebody, $2,000 to $4,000, I would say. Now wait, before you panic, have a heart attack, let's get in the abundance mindset. You might say, well, I can't afford that. Well, you can't not afford that. If you invest $2,000, $4,000, and you run 2 to 4 sheep in there, 50 pounds of meat each, you're gonna get over 200 pounds of lamb in there. Guys, a lamb and leg is anywhere from $80 to $135 grass-fed. 200 pounds of lamb, very conservative, low, $10 a pound is— what is that, $2,000 a year? And this thing will last you 10 years or more, so you're in the positive after just 2 years, and you don't have to pay taxes on that thing. Our lambs in this pen are growing older and because Lily won't always move it twice a day. I mean, theoretically we should— she's gonna move once a day. So we're gonna work with that. We're gonna get 2 lambs out of there, leave 2 lambs. I still wonder, Lily, are they really gonna follow this alfalfa? Really gonna be able to break them away? So we feed alfalfa in the pen, get people distracted, and then we catch them. That would be one of our reasons And let's just make it number 1, is that these animals are manageable. They're not like cows. They're not big. Somebody like me, Lily, could even pick up one of these things. The top 10 reasons sheep are so amazing is They eat anything. Guys, they'll eat poison ivy. A lot of people brag on goats for eating all kinds of bramble and stuff. Sheep will do it too. That's incredible. They have destroyed this. Sheep are small and they're not really going to kill anybody like maybe a cow would or something. They're not going to step on your child and obliterate them. The third thing, they're great mowers. You can— we use them. We run them through the yards. Here and they mow the grass. Premium quality meat that a lot of people like versus like a goat. Not a big market for it. They are less likely to get parasites than their counterparts with the little eyes. They, yes, they'll eat bramble, but they also thrive on grass. They are very easy to keep in. They're not escape artists. Did you know you can milk them? Yes, they are dual purpose. Well, tri-purpose, I imagine. That's another reason. They can be wool, but you don't have to do wool. A lot of people don't know that. You can get hair sheep like we have and not mess with the wool and just grow them for meat. You can harvest them easily yourself on farm with just a knife. You don't even need a gun. Lambs birth 2, sometimes quadruplets. Let's check on people in the garden. Hey, what do we got going? What are you doing, Mr. Brown? Yeah, did you help pick some of these tomatoes and peppers? I helped pick red beets. I had a whole bit about how to do shoot down in the pasture on a mobile wrestling ring and the mic wasn't on. It was so good too. You're doing some shots, huh? You're vlogging? Yeah. All right, let's roll that now. All right, I've got my helpers and we are headed to the high tunnel to pick tomatoes. I would say we have plenty to pick. Are you guys done in the garden? Yeah, because Josiah might as well go with me then. Hey, this is a good problem to have, right? Heavy, put pounds, pounds and pounds of produce. What are you gonna do with all that? I'm gonna make it into sauce. Nice. Or freeze green beans. See you, babe. Randolph's back at it. What's the hope today, Randolph? Well, hope to get all the big posts put on, maybe all the rafters in, and maybe the roof. Check out this— come on. I had a visitor once come and say, you know, how are the sheep doing? I don't see them much in the vlog, so I've been trying to incorporate them a little bit more. Sheep are so easy. There's rarely anything to talk about. What do we do, put up the net and let them through? We don't even have to call them. By the way, that's all you need— Premier One electric net. It's the 32-inch. I like their— the smallest one they've got for sheep. You want to move them every day. A couple of reasons. Well, look at their cute little droppings. Did I just say cute? Yeah, they're kind of cute. They're not Milk Duds, kids. Don't eat them. Uh, you want this grass— well, you want to get them off their manure so there's less parasite pressure. But you want this grass that they've eaten— look how they've just demolished this— you want this grass to fully recover. So in the spring, that's maybe 3 weeks, considering you're on the East Coast, maybe double it on the West Coast. And you know, in the summer, we're on like a 45 to 60 day rotation. And fall and winter, if you have the land, 120-day rotation wouldn't be bad. You see the net's been set up. This is where they were today, so a new net has been set up to move them into. 7 sheep per acre is kind of a rule of thumb, and you'll supplement with a little bit of hay, maybe. I mean, it depends on your, your land. We move this sheep shaw over. Plans for this are in Abundance Plus. This thing has worked out amazing. It's the Northern Tool 20, 26-inch non-flat tires. It's about 3.5 feet tall so the sheep can get under there. We have our Choice mineral programs, the ABC mineral program, which is— that's Advanced Biological Concepts. We got the wheel on the axle. This is 8 foot by 8 foot. This is your 7-lamb shelter plus their babies. 8 foot, 8 foot, that's what the lumber comes in. You just pull, you just grab this like a rickshaw and pull it. I'm walking backwards, but you could go the other way. I put hooks on it to hang waters if you need to. I don't need to because we have water troughs and prospective pastures. Look, they don't need no stinking grass. Look, we don't need no stinking grass. They're eating bramble. You don't need no devil eyes. We don't need no stinky. These guys taste better. And you can have at least one sheep per cow and not need any more land because they just eat the things the cows don't eat. This is a brambly area. We— this used to be forest right here on the edge, but now we can get 5 more ewes. 5 has not been enough for us with their offspring. That's not enough lamb for us in a year. We need about double that. Hey, you, you, you fertilizing? Oh, they've tipped the alfalfa bucket. They will overdo it. They'll overdo it. If you're doing 5 or 6 sheep, I would say 4 100-foot nets times 2 so you can set up the next day's paddock. You won't always need 4. Sometimes there'll be plenty of grass. That's not a big investment. I have these T-posts every 100 feet through the middle of my pastures. There's a shutoff so I could undo it here. I don't have to go turn off the electricity, and then I could mess with the fence. The fence would come right up to it. You could connect it with an alligator clip. This right here, insulated wire, just comes up here so it can connect to our shutoff, and then it just goes out every 100 feet. I also have my water connections there. You can see the T-posts out in the field and know where your water and your electricity source is. This is a ridiculous Energizer It's Stafix. I believe, uh, Speedrite bought out Stafix, so I don't think they're Stafix anymore. But 63, guys, you know what that stands for? 63 joules. To give you an idea, I think Premier's one most powerful one goes to 2 joules, and that's very powerful. We have it just on a one-strand electric, just getting out to there. It just gets out there to our T-post system. With insulated wire. Like, this can— this can ground out and not— and still be hot. It's so powerful. That's why we use it, because we have so many nets. How's it going? You got 2 more posts in? Yeah, I got 2 more. It's looking good. It's gonna be heavy now, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Aren't those posts a little bit overkill? I think they might be, but they're not gonna break. We got to get Josiah's boot off. And we're gonna go look. We're just looking, boys. Yes, sir. Maybe a four-wheeler for, uh, less impact on the pasture, just a little quicker here and there. We don't get a four-wheeler by Christmas for them, we could get it a Christmas present for them, the boys. I had a four-wheeler growing up. It was so much fun. Now that's partly why I haven't gotten the boys A four-wheeler growing up because I had one and I was a little crazy on it. Gideon, if you're coming, you gotta have shoes. I know, they're in the car. Are you sure? Uh-huh. Oh, Sally is back! We missed you, yo mule. Thankfully it was not, uh, what'd they think it was? Blew a ring? We thought we had totaled it. Thankfully it was not that. Water got in the contraption or something another and it was pushing oil out in the way. Oh, it was getting burnt. That's probably a butchering of what really happened, but anyway, it's not a piston ring, which would have been a total rebuild. Okay, good, you got your other shoe. You're gonna need it coming out, my man. Amanda said one more week, not because it looks bad, it's this is because, uh, looks fine. We're not at the 6-week mark yet, I don't think. We're what, 5 weeks? Mr. Motorcycle, can't believe I'm doing this. What am I thinking? It won't hurt to look, right? Except y'all probably gonna be bugging me to death. How does it feel? Here's the working force. My goodness, that's so big. No way we're gonna do a— we got racks, we gotta have racks. Because this is gonna be good to get work done. There's a smaller one, it's a 300. Y'all get the four-wheelers, I'm gonna get this monster truck side-by-side. No, just a four-wheeler. Oh, that thing would go fast. That thing would fly. We've got our prices. Dirt bikes, the lower end one is like $1,000. You got $1,000? That's a lot of egg collecting, bro. And off Yes sir, you got all 6 posts in, my man. I'm looking pretty good. And half the roof ribs. And this is from lumber from our farm here, right? Yep, those are our 2x6s. Yeah, these are custom from the sawmill guy. What are you up to now, beautiful one? I am making tomato sauce, and this time I'm actually skinning and de-seeding, but I'm gonna make crushed tomatoes. I'm not gonna make like a tomato tomato sauce. I've turned all of those tomatoes in there into this. I'm just gonna do crushed tomatoes is all I'm doing. I like it. Well, if real food makes you happy, well then, if what? You must be very happy if real food makes you happy. Last call, this is launch week for our new community app with Abundance Plus. Premium subscriptions are available. That's going away. I'm also hanging out mega inside the new app, Abundance Plus Community. If you're not a member, now is a really good time. This is something that is very different. Sure, we have educational and entertaining videos and documentaries and ad-free vlogs on Abundance Plus, But we also have this community feature that includes chat. Come to us with a problem and many come in to help you. Plans, discounts, recipes, marketplace. You can't sell your stuff on Facebook or, or if it's pets on Craigslist, you can sell it there on marketplace. Premium goes away Sunday. I encourage you to get in there and check it out. That's abundanceplus.com. Alright, thank you guys. Love you. Appreciate you. Goodbye.