The Fiber Event in Greencastle, IN will be April 9 & 10, 2010.  Look for our fleeces there!

Our Icelandic Sheep will be at the 2010 Michigan Fiber Festival in August 2010.  Check out our sheep there.  

Our scrapie status is Certified.  We test negative for Ovine Progressive Pneumonia (OPP).

We will very soon be breeding our ewes, so we should have a big lamb crop in 2010.

In order to combat the internal parasite problem I have been using Pat Coleby's book, Natural Sheep Care as a guideline, which means I am feeding them copper.  I have several yearlings (2008 born lambs) that have only been dewormed once with a chemical wormer.  They were born and raised on pasture.  Sheep have run non-stop on this farm since 1968 so pastures should be thoroughly saturated with internal parasite. 

Summer 2009:  The Colbey Method seems to be working.  I feed free choice the following:  kelp, copper sulfate, dolomite (dolomitic lime), limestone (calcium carbonate), salt and sulfur - just as Pat Coleby suggests.   In April we had 6.66 inches of rain, May 5.95, June 5.40, July 2.60, Aug 4.20 and Sept 6.25.  With our usual hot IL summers the internal parasites should have been quite abundant.  I rotated every 2 to 4 days thru five pastures - certainly not enough time to break the parasite cycle.  Only a very few suffered from parasite disease and I will try to have the figures available soon.  No grain was feed during the grazing season, tho I did give the lambs a creep with alfalfa and grass hay.  Only lambs that were dewormed once or not at all will I retain to go back into the flock.   

If anyone else is using the Pat Coleby method of feeding sheep minerals, I would like to hear from you.