100 years ago it was quite common for farmers growing crops to also raise animals or vise versa. Since then farmers have become more specialized. Reintroducing animals into a regenerative system is making old technology new again….
by Chad Steiner
In October I wrote an article (here) on why we’re raising sheep. In today’s article I’d like to talk about getting the vineyard ready for the sheep to move into and our immediate goals with the sheep, i.e. the next couple of weeks. Regardless of what I talk about here, we’re on a total learning curve. Yeah, Jeana and I raised and showed sheep in FFA, but that was under “adult supervision” (thanks Mr. Pile). Now “we’re” the adults. This means re-learning how to care for sheep while learning how to incorporate them into the farm. It could be said this is for show since we’re so small. Having a little over 3 acres of grapes (1.25 of Chardonnay, .5 of Sauvignon Blanc, 1.30 of Pinot Noir), 5 acres of apples, a few acres of pasture, flowers and pumpkins, our house, guest house and tasting room – we think it makes it manageable since we do a lot of it ourselves. Regardless of size, our goal is to become regenerative (read about it here). Incorporating animals is one of the pieces of the regenerative puzzle. Back to today’s article. The grass around the farm is lush right now (see image below). But we’ve got a small window before buds have opened and the vines become appetizing to the sheep as a food source. What I’d like to share is – 1. Preparing the vineyard, 2. Preparing the sheep, 3. Moving the sheep in and around the vineyard. Let’s dive in as I hope this paints a picture of our short-term sheep goals.

1. Preparing the vineyard. Here is the list running around in my head.
- All the vines need to be pruned. Do we remove or mow the shoots placed on the ground from pruning?
- Insight: Normally the shoots on the ground get chewed up with the mower after pruning. I was thinking we’d need to mow the shoots before the sheep came in. However, because of our timing, mowing would have significantly reduced the amount of forage for the sheep without enough time for it to regrow ahead of bud break. Unless – and a big unless – we’re able to prune before the grass in the vineyard starts growing, which hasn’t been our approach in the past (we like skiing in February).
- Learning – we must consider pruning ahead of grass (or cover crop) growing. This means potentially working on snow and in colder conditions.
- Insight: If the shoots placed on the ground are large enough, they would be an impediment to the sheep walking and grazing. And the shoots could potentially be large enough in some varieties or farming situations where a standard mower might not easily work for this job.
- Insight: removing the shoots out of the vineyard by hand is a lot of labor and removes the valuable organic matter, not an option for us.
- Insight: Mechanically “pre-cutting” the vines in preparation for pruning would help reduce the “size” of shoots on the vineyard floor. Specialized equipment is needed and commercially available, or it could be done by hand using a hedge trimmer (more labor). This would give us the option of NOT mowing ahead of the sheep entering. Which means one less tractor pass, which is less compaction AND gives us the option of pruning in March.
- Conclusion: so far 2024 is early, making us later than normal (primarily b/c it was our family and a couple friends pruning). We left the shoots on the ground, un-mowed. As we pruned, at a minimum, we cut large shoots in half. Our future approach, finish pruning earlier and pre-cut the vines to keep the shoots smaller. We won’t mow the shoots ahead of the sheep coming in.
- Insight: Normally the shoots on the ground get chewed up with the mower after pruning. I was thinking we’d need to mow the shoots before the sheep came in. However, because of our timing, mowing would have significantly reduced the amount of forage for the sheep without enough time for it to regrow ahead of bud break. Unless – and a big unless – we’re able to prune before the grass in the vineyard starts growing, which hasn’t been our approach in the past (we like skiing in February).
- Getting the fencing set up for the sheep. We use a PrimaShock8 fence energizer with a complete solar set up from Premier1 Supplies. Having ground rods set up around the farm is still ongoing. We’re strategically placing the ground rods for maximum use – picture trying to put them in the middle of four squares ideally. We use poultry netting from Premier1 (for future use with chickens) and it’s so easy to set up, it just sticks into the ground and easily connects together 100’ at a time.
- Voila – the vineyard is ready.
2. Preparing the sheep. Very basic. The sheep love to forage on green plants. As we almost ran out of hay (see picture below), we were ready to move the sheep onto fresh forage. Our primary concern was their safety from predators. In preparation, we moved Angel in with the sheep full time in February. We miss her being at the house, but she’s done an amazing job living with them. The sheep are ready.

3. Moving the sheep into and around the vineyard.
- Moving the sheep into the vineyard. We now have 8 sheep. Loading them all into the trailer to move them around the farm would be time consuming, but it’s an option. We opted for the potentially riskier option – seeing if they’d all follow us if we had grain in a bucket. We’ve feed them grain off and on but not regularly, thus the hesitation on this option. Grain buckets in hand and the whole family on the job – we gave it a try. The sheep followed along, but only after we realized, since I’m the one feeding them every day – with one of the boys – they would only follow me if I had the grain. Really made me think of the stories of shepherds in the bible… and the caretakers of these animals. With some encouragement, they followed along and made it quickly across the farm to the vineyard.
- Moving the sheep around the vineyard. This is where our learning curve will continue. Since we’ve not done this before, we don’t know how long it will take 8 sheep to graze the area we’ve started them off in. For the first set up, we have them in the Pinot Noir, Clone 777. Say, 0.4 acres. Our goal is to graze about 50% of the foliage out there. This is supposedly ideal for the cover crop/grasses out there. As the cover crop gets eaten, the roots will sluff off, as it regrows, it will grow new roots. If we graze too heavy we can have a negative affect on the cover crop. I hope we can move the sheep through all of the pinot noir before the buds are “edible”. We’re at 2 full days of grazing and not quite ready to move…. Any guesses on how many days it will take for 8 sheep to graze 0.4 acres? Of course it depends on how heavy the vegetation is. Hopefully this paints a picture of what we’re trying to accomplish. Amazing how because of the learning curve, we likely won’t have the sheep move through the entire vineyard before the buds are out. Partly because we’re behind as I describe earlier, partly because – the window between when the cover crop is big enough to graze and full bud break isn’t super long…. Maybe we’ll have to get more sheep to move them through faster – more on that later (the ram is coming this summer).

In conclusion, I’d like to say, yes, the sheep are in the vineyard. If you come visit, the electric fence is “HOT” or “ON”. We’re committed to a regenerative approach. Sustainable WA™ Certified was our first step, check. Organic certification is our next step, then on to Regenerative Organic Certification – which requires animals. We feel like we can already see a difference in our orchard and vineyard. Not using herbicide has really brought those areas back to life. Look close in the vineyard and orchard where the vines and trees are growing – you can see it coming back and see the difference in the plant species. Sheep are going to help even more with the addition of their light hoof tillage, natural grazing and the magical addition of their manure. Getting the vineyard ready for the sheep involved more “strategery” than I imagined. But, they’re in there and the learning curve continues. Thanks for following along. Have an amazing weekend.
Cheers,


So interesting! I’m learning so much!
Do you ever accept/need volunteers to help with “chores”?
Hi Lynn. Always. Moving the sheep and fencing is becoming a regular thing. With two people it takes maybe 1.5-2 hours. But there are plenty of other things on the plate right now 🙂 we’re always game for help. Thanks for following along!
Haha, loved the video of the move! Reminded me of my sheep days 🙂
Right, it seemed like the boys really enjoyed it. Luckily we’ve got a couple of the sheep that were bottle fed and love to follow us, then the rest of the sheep follow them.