$2K to $1.4 Million With St Croix Sheep on Grass
God’s built-in design for multiplication in creation is astounding! We see it in the seed, the egg, and our animals on the farm. Join me today as we discuss one of our most prolific multipliers - the St. Croix sheep!
In today’s video, I’m running the numbers starting with an initial, modest investment of 3 ewes and 1 ram. Watch and see what their compounding on grass alone can do!
As mentioned, we’re assuming our real world average lambing rate over 5 years at 1.39 lambs per ewe. Yes, this is our actual rate. We’re also assuming the sex of each lamb born is split 50/50, as this is consistently close to what we see every Spring. The hay price used is our current real world price of $100/ton.
In the “how much land does it take” section, I’m using our numbers here on the farm in our specific LOCATION and CONTEXT, which is about 1 animal unit per acre for set-stock grazing and twice that number of animals when rotating. Please note: These numbers are for OUR LOCATION. Please do not message me from Antarctica this summer asking why your 3,400 head of sheep aren’t productive! 🤠🐑Reach out to YOUR local extension office and/or a local farmer to accurately determine your land’s carrying capacity upfront!👍
Also worth noting - Some producers have reported lambing three times in two years, meaning these numbers could be even higher. Personally, I prefer NOT to run my ewes that hard.
For further reading: extension.psu.edu/does-your-f...
Great content and info!!! Thanks for doing your videos!! Been watching for the last year and love them all!
Hey, thanks so much! These comments keep me goin!🤠
You’re a blessing to watch Jason! Love your videos.
Aww Grace, thanks so much!😀
Brother, let me thank you for your open honesty about how things were rough starting out. Things should only get better from here on out. "My people perish for lack of knowledge." You're also spot on to buy your hay rather than make it.
Thank you for the encouragement.
Hi Jason, great Thumbnail photo with the 2 Lambs. Glad that the St. Croix Sheep are working out well Financially.
Thanks Ben! Hopefully we’ll have a few more lamb pics here soon
What a great video! Beautiful sheep and cows. Looks like y'all have a great system.
Thanks for watching and commenting. Appreciate all the positive feedback here!
This is really interesting! I'm admittedly not the best when it comes to numbers but it's really cool to see it laid out like this. Thank you for crunching the numbers for us! My whole family is now watching your videos haha we sit down together in front of the computer and watch together so thank you as well for giving us this opportunity to learn together as a family :)
Oh I’m so joyful at that thought of you being together as family❤️
Great message your content is great. I think you have convinced me to raise up some St. Croix. I have been so focused on meat chickens and Cattle. Time to get into Sheep
Hey, thanks for watching! Email is in the channel description if I can help! Best of luck to ya!🐑🐑
Well put!!
Thanks for watching!🤠
Appreciate you taking the time to figure what you did. There are so many different factors and assumptions that doing something like this is really hard. Where we live for example, the sheep are way cheaper than what you talked about in your video and our hay is way more expensive. We recently came out of a drought where hay was going for $400 / ton. However, sheep are incredibly prolific and one can definitely build a flock quite quickly which is what our goal is right now. I recently sat down and figured out that we can reach 100 head from our original flock of 7 in just 2-3 years by keeping back 50% of the lambs. Pretty cool.
Wow, 2 to 3 years, that’s incredible! I’ve often wondered what we’d look like starting with 10. Man, $400/ton for hay tho…whew!
Great video.
Thanks Andy🤠
Your child Sam is doing a terrific job with that drone sir. People ask for number breakdowns, you gave it to em'. Hahaha I'm sure you'll enjoy the questions and comments. Thanks for the video.
…I just now passed that compliment along and he’s smiling ear to ear! Thanks, Stuart!
Love your Heart, Analysis, and that you are Word Based. Kingdom Principles Out Perform Worldly Processes everytime. The Meat and Pelt ROI on Rabbits is Outstanding too. Exceeding Abundant Blessings for you, the Damily and the Farm!!!
Thank you so much for this encouragement! You’re absolutely right on Kingdom principles.
"Potential" is the word to keep in mind when anyone watching wants to criticize. Good business practices must, repeat, "must" keep track and hopefully set projections at least with a basic mathematical tally. Any analysis or projection will likely get hit by something unexpected to test your resilience. As Birchfield notes. It is the operations that will get you through to profit, and better yet with love for the land and animal. Appreciate what you're given and look over what you care for every day. My son was working a few hours north this week and got in a little after supper trout fishing. Sitting on a rock by a stream and hoping, he looked over to the adjacent farm of all pasture, surrounded by bush, a small corral and a few small sheds in the distance as the sun was slowly setting. The grass was 18 inches high, lush from spring rains. So ask yourself, who could have made anything more fantastic than that?
Love this.❤️❤️
That is really cool! I wish we had more land. Just shy of 5 acres and getting started with painted desert sheep.
That’s exciting though, you can do a lot on 5 in my area! “Painted desert”…I’ll have to look that up.
Those are great sheep. We are on 10 acres (currently using only 4-5) we have one ram currently and 4 ewes we are breeding. 7 babies this breeding cycle. Working on clearing the woods for Silvopasture. Definitely have to be creative with the grazing space (have a flock of goats also) but our pasture gets better every year!
Some of these numbers are quite aggressive, but it’s very interesting nonetheless! The biggest challenge I have in my area is securing land for grazing, I am working on getting creative by leasing row crop land with cover crops early in the spring and areas with marginal browse such as abandoned acreages, ditch lines, waterways, and tree lines. My wife and I hope to have enough reserve cash by next year to purchase another 20 acres. We have a goal of only running about 250 sheep and selling all lambs direct to consumer. We figure that will put the operation around $200k of gross revenue annually.
Man, those are some pretty awesome goals! Are you running St. Croix? Thanks for sharing!
We need more videos like this to show agriculture can be a highly desirable income
Thanks ks, appreciate the comment.🤠
I run an IT business started started a goat dairy farm recently in Wisconsin. I can see these kind of numbers working great in conjunction with a 10 year plan where the farm is an effective tax write off while building a debt free farm business for our children. Very responsible and recession proof!
@@patrickhoerterExcellent point, Patrick! I hope all are paying attention.
If you are projecting to build out the herd to fill up the land you have (and why not), you really get to a point you must farm to the edges of the fences (clear out fence rows) and consolidate all the equipment and random materials tight around the buildings. Often when busy the equipment gets dropped where it is and fields converted to huge parking lots suddenly fill up with weeds and non-use. Take a google maps screen shot of your farm and identify unused area or areas you can convert back to production.
Great idea! We’ve actually “fence row grazed” with our sheep in the past with great results…I agree with using every square inch!
@@birchfieldfarming Great message. Well done video. Very engaging. Leviticus 23:22 “‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God.’” Just something to consider. Not sure how it applies to today. Except that there is a portion of what we own that is for something other than production. It doesn’t say it, but when those farmers left the corners of their fields, they were providing food and habitat for wildlife as well. As a town kid growing up in farming community, farmers blessed me by allowing me to be able to set traps in those corners of their farms. I harvested fur that I could sell, and they did not charge me a dime for that. When farmers use every square inch of their land for profit, in my uneducated opinion, they violate this scriptural principle (commandment). (You see the commandment being kept by the wealthy farmer Boaz in the book of Ruth).
@@davidpeightal4918That’s an interesting perspective, especially viewed thru the lens of loving God wholeheartedly then loving neighbor as oneself. I’ve often wondered with our farming in general and the curse to work the ground, what are the spiritual and practical implications of that as viewed thru the post Christ event of Him becoming that curse for us? How does/should this impact or even completely change our relationship to the ground? I’ve enjoyed reading about your past experiences on the land.
@@birchfieldfarming this got really long. Only read it if you have time. Some is scripture. Some is my opinion. you raise a deep question that probably whole books have been written trying to answer. My mom and dad both were ordained pastors in a mainstream Protestant denomination. My beliefs were well formulated and intact until I started listening to scripture every day for hours as a truck driver. The Sabbath was thrown in my face almost every single day as I listened. I decided to start observing the Sabbath. And, turns out, for me and many like me, the Sabbath is the “gateway drug” to understanding scripture in ways that I could not possibly understand before that step of faith and obedience. Jesus said things like ““You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.” (Mark 7:9) He said it a lot. And some people believe his teachings were for the Jews, and his teachings ended with his death and resurrection. To me it is silly to think he was only teaching the people who were alive at that time and had no insight into the fact that his teachings would be studied by people like you and me. He kept all the commandments, and taught his followers to keep all the commandments. The commandments are almost always on the same pages with words like “love”. John said “sin is transgression of the law”. (1 Jn 3:4). This was long after Jesus had died and risen. The definition for sin is still the same as it was in the beginning. There are many commandments that do not apply to me. Some are for women, priests etc. But I pay attention to all of them. And even the ones that don’t apply to me help me understand the character of יהוה God which never changes. You started off the video with some of His commandments. The principles still apply, and you are testimony to the fruit of paying attention to them. All his commandments are toward a better life, better family, better society, nation, world. The Gospel of Jesus re-opens the garden for us to be forgiven and eat of the tree of life and never die. It changes nothing of the eternal principles that always apply to creation. These principles are understood and enjoyed and employed within the parameters of His commandments.
@@davidpeightal4918I have time. Life and blessing to you, friend. May all who read this rest in the Peace of Jesus both now and in the coming times.
Thanks for sharing this video. I live in Dayton. I'm currently active duty and moving overseas for a few years, but I've been getting more interested in farming when I get out. Edit: in, not and
That’s awesome, I had family worked at Wright Pat. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for the video. My wife and I are hoping to start with sheep this summer. In your example, is there issues with inbreeding? I have a source to get 2-3 ewes. I was trying to find a ram to join them. But every year, it seems I need a new ram to breed with the offspring. Am I missing something? Thanks for you're help - we really appreciate your videos!
You know it all depends. When repeatedly using one ram it’s called line breeding, which is an acceptable practice but also requires skill, as traits (both good and bad) will be magnified. You’re just fine to start with one ram, but I wouldn’t go more than a couple generations when first starting out. We started with just one ram and then added another bloodline after 3rd gen. If I were starting again, I’d just buy both upfront and swap each year. All that being said, we did have some success with this technique: After we got our flock started, we identified our absolute best ewe, kept back her ewe the following year. (By best I mean large carcass and virtually NO messy backend at any time of year - NOT just the largest ewe). Then that ewe threw a ram and we kept him back and watched. He was superior in growth, but more importantly clean on the rear all year round on grass. He’s currently one of our sires. Best of luck, Steve!
Hi Jason, hope all is well as you haven't posted a video in 3 weeks. Looking forward to your next video.
Thanks for checking in, Ben! Spring has sprung and has us behind on the farm! Hope to have another video out very soon.🤠
Great video. I'm getting ready to start a raw milk dairy. But I have to say sheep are my close second choice.
Sounds exciting, Tom! We’ve done a bit of milking with our Devons, and I sure do respect anyone who works in dairy.
Hey brother- here in Western PA. Going back and forth on Dorper or St Croix. Did you consider this when you started out? Thinking about weight of animal. Thanks!
Yep, all depends on your goals and context. That being said, the “Angus of the sheep world” must be wormed regularly in my area, and I wanted minimal inputs on grass alone. Some of the new soil health data confirms the biological destruction caused by chemical wormers, plus I don’t want the extra labor. I’ve always said what I give up in carcass size, I gain in parasite resistance. The Royal White (St Croix/Dorper cross) comes close, but I still haven’t found an unwormed flock.
At first, I thought this model was missing some variables; however, after another look, I saw that this originally perceived flaw is exactly what lends this tool to comparison. Only the input, meat value, and market value variables would need to be changed in order to use this tool to compare profitability of different livestock animals. Also, very important to point out is that as clever a tool that this is, it can only be used as a guide. The realities of practical farming can never be predicted. Jason very clearly indicates this. At some point, we just need to step out in faith, through much prayer and discernment, and just do something. We must remember that the focus of this presentation is on multiplication, as Jason prefaces. We provide a suitable environment and let things happen. Another thing Jason has continually referred to is the importance to work within our own context. If we are not willing to change that context, we must work within it's limitations and capitalize on it's merits. Know your piece of ground and WORK it!
Thank you for this. I think this clarity it will help some folks.
@@birchfieldfarmingare you aware of or know Greg Judy?
@@stellarjayatkins4749Yes I am.
Did you get any of the bad storms last week. I am about 3 hours west of you in Indiana.
Everything went North of us, thanks for asking. How about you guys?
We have 63 katahdin ewes currently and 2 large dorper rams. We’re looking on bringing in some more katahdin ewes with about 5-10% Romanov because of the increased lambing number as well as keeping our own ewes and buying/switching rams as needed. We’re On 50 acres rotationally grazing. We are told out target weight at 3 months should be about 60lbs. Target price paid by butcher is $4/lb but it’s often $2.50 - $3.00 we’re keeping condition high for 3 lambing’s every 2 years and do not see numbers (COGS) that high in the future. Where are we missing?
Lots of ideas here, might be tough to solve on a KZhead comment. My point was to highlight the exponential growth when compounded over several years with these creatures. I’d start by asking questions like what are your goals and then drill down to specifics (lambing rate over time, carrying capacity of your pastures, rotation management, etc). I’m assuming you’re 100% grass-fed? If the goal is to simply increase profitability, what are your options on the sell side besides the current situation(other processors, selling direct to consumer, etc)? Have you considered selling breeding stock vs meat?
Only just discovered your channel. Love it. New subscriber. Thinking of starting ruminant livestock. Question: If half-half generally male to female and you are not selling, what do you do with the extra males? And how do you stop inbreeding with father to daughter? Thanks in advance for any information. Greetings from South Africa 🇿🇦
Welcome here and thanks for following along! The extra males are your meat. Males are separated at lambing (mid-April) and re-introduced around mid-November. This allows the breeder to only introduce selected top rams for breeding. Look up “linebreeding” when you have some time, as there are many different strategies and variables when producing top stock.
@@birchfieldfarming Very helpful. Appreciated. Thanks.
Nice analysis. What minerals are you feeding?
Thanks! We use Free Choice Enterprises mineral system and let them self select what’s needed. I like it b/c the pastures re-mineralize over time thru the animals. Thanks for watching!
@birchfieldfarming I'm doing the same but it's more expensive so searching for an alternative
@@McCoyFamilyFarmMan, it sure is! Cattle hammered my phosphorus for awhile after I introduced. You know what’s interesting though is I had a soil test done and my pasture was deficient in phosphorus! I think it’s working but you’re right it is expensive, especially initially. I’m hoping it levels out over time. Let us know here if you find a better alternative.
I'm just about to start a farm and am new to this. Do you need to bring in rams from outside the flock occassionaly in order to get some genetic diversity? If you start with one ram and just build from his offspring, won't their be problems with inbreeding?
There’s debate about this - using the same ram is called line breeding. It can be done, but takes some initial selection and skill. I would recommend starting with two rams from different blood lines to start and swap each year, then 4 or 5 generations out find another. Good luck with your farm!🤠
@@birchfieldfarmingthanks, that sounds reasonable. I was just reading an article on line breeding and it said line breeding is generally considered breeding half brothers with half sisters and continuing with the animals with the best traits. Whereas in-breeding is breeding brothers with sisters and parents with offspring. It also said, if it works, it’s line breeding. If it doesn’t work, it’s in-breeding.
@@tomcopeland6424…Yeah, that’s the old saying, which I have been guilty of using before, too. Not all subscribe to that thinking tho. Best thing is to hop in the ballgame and learn all you can! 🔥
Hows the health of the flock? I hear that st Croix are healthy without vet services. Do you deworm or give antibiotics ?
No dewormer, no antibiotics, no grain. Yes, they are healthy without a vet. We paid a little more upfront and sought out a breeder doing it right, and it was one of the best moves I’ve ever made for our farm.
sounds like exactly what I'm looking for
@@ericamundson4700Carcass size is not as large as some of the other meat breeds (Dorper), but I wanted minimal input animals and they’ve worked out in that regard.
Brother, it’s gonna be an interesting ride and our Lord God willing we aren’t dependent upon it. You know, we have 16 ewes and a ram and all but a few are definitely full. Based on their prior lambing rate, we project 40 lambs, but that is not an absolute. They will all be registered through St. Croix Int’l for breed stock, but we know some folks may be seeking meat stock and we have to calcuate that into the reality. As you said, that is the life of a farmer and we choose our destiny ourselves.
Man, that’s gonna be an awesome lambing! It’s the best time of the year, brother! I need to look into the Int’l side. Our registry has changed hands in the last year, and I’m not thrilled about some of the changes.
@@birchfieldfarming Super happy with the Int’l, and they will accept registration from other credible registry groups. Rates seemed very reasonable, I was surprised when I didn’t see your name and wondered why, but didn’t reach out to ask. You’ll see us on there as Harrisiana.
@@appalachianheartsong5487Great to know! I’m over on the other side at St. Croix Sheep Breeders, Inc. The registry used to be awesome, but they sold to Livestock Conservancy. Since the sale, all our names and listings require general public to create an account just to find us as breeders! Great to know you’re happy, as I’m looking.👍
@@appalachianheartsong5487I’ve been thinking too - a few of us need to get together and form our own registry with grass-fed stock/zero dewormer and serve the emerging market with these beauties!🐑🐑
@@birchfieldfarming First lambs on the ground this morning. A set of twins and a singleton. A little early but all seem to be strong and are suckling! So excited around the homestead, and we pray that you have a healthy lambing season.
We have 55 ewes and we struggle to find a very good market for them. Any advice or ideas?
…tough to answer over KZhead comment, but have you tried marketing breeding stock? We’re in kind of a niche with 100% grass-fed, No de-wormer, and selling to other homesteaders looking for that independence on grass alone. I don’t have a lot of experience on the lamb meat side, but that’s actually what we got the animals for. I went with registered stock as well, which has given us a leg up on the breeding side.
So the first profit potential is from just selling live lambs/sheep versus selling meat?
Correct, breeding stock sales - sheep vs cattle then on to meat lbs, then $
Jason, one of your cows looks like an American Milking Devon. Is that correct?
You are correct, and I am impressed! She’s actually a registered American Milking Devon with a Rotokawa grandsire. The cream she gives us is pretty awesome.
@@birchfieldfarming That's awesome. We have our starter herd of registered AMD cattle coming this week. We plan to use them for dual purpose milk and grass finished beef.
@@ecchastangOh wow! Can I ask general area where you’re located and farming?
@@birchfieldfarming We are outside of Chattanooga in Dunlap TN. Mowbray Mountain Farm online at all the usual places. We bought 119 acres 3 months ago, and are pasture raising berkshire pigs on non-GMO corn and soy free feed, and American Milking Devon grass fed/finished beef. We will will have pastured eggs, lamb, and dairy in time. It is a slow process but we are excited. We have a newsletter if you want to follow along. Our herd is a bull, 2 bred cows, 2 bred heifers, 3 weaned heifers and a weaned steer.
@@ecchastangSounds amazing and thanks for sharing!🤠
If you go back on a Greg Judy video Aug, 30 2019 he says his lamb crop was 1.3. Best ever was 1.65. Might want to ask him what he changed in management or genetics because I think he claims 200% these days.
Interesting, Alan…thanks.
Who do you sell to? Do you have to get certified
You do not have to be registered to sell, but we are a registered breeder. Several options to choose from for St Croix sheep registration - Google the breed and select what fits your farm goals best.
Get a pack of "Jacobs Cattle" dry bean seeds to plant in the garden, seeds look like a handful of cattle and their story is useful.
Interesting…I’ll have to look into this!🌱
Looked for a house out your way , bid on 2 and lost ended up on the east side but none the less farming
Hey, congrats Bobby!
@@birchfieldfarming thanks, several years in the making but this year I'm starting my sheep flock !!! Hope to make a living some day off of it, just one day at a time.
@@bobbyfoster1417awesome, stay in touch🐑🐑
@@birchfieldfarming will do !!
Greg Judy is doing about 1.7 on his sheep. He doesn't usually need hay for them. He emphasizes leasing land, I am sure you are aware. Plus there are people who use sheep to clean up pasture. How soon do you think you may have opportunities there. I like the servant heart Greg has to improve leased land. If you had more land in rotation you would decrease the amount of hay you need to purchase
What most folks don’t realize about Greg Judy’s operation is the reason it works for him is the ground is VERY poor in his area and cannot be row-cropped. Unfortunately, row-cropping drives the land market everywhere else, which makes his land leasing content largely irrelevant to the rest of us. I LOVE Greg Judy but context is everything in ag.
@birchfieldfarming All the good ones say context context context. Greg did say they cannot really rowcrop because of the hills. You can do cover crops and no till, all sorts of things that Greg can't. I think it is important that context very different. I am in North Texas and we are a lot different. And go East or West very different.
@@tireddad6541You got it!👍
Intermittent, controlled, restricted, diversified, rotational grazing.
Ha!…you got it! 🐑 🐄 💩
Great breakdown, I’m going to share this with a friend. Jason, what was your email again? i know you shared it in a video before but can’t recall which one. I have some questions for you that’s more conducive to email vs yt comments
Marcus, email is in channel description anytime you need it. I’d rather not list it in comments with the robots. Message me anytime.
You're able to sell stock for $475 consistently? To realize those numbers you would have to sell off everything. Not saying theres necessarily anything wrong with displaying the info this way but it seems a little misleading.
Sell out every year and a waiting list at $500/ewe, $450/ram, but I really, really wish folks would take the time to watch the ENTIRE video and grasp the point of what’s being said.
@birchfieldfarming that's really good. I watched the entire video. I guess I just feel like a lot of folks will get the wrong idea from those numbers. You compare earning a salary cumulatively over years to the market value of every animal on the farm after selling none. The thing about the salary is you're seeing that money year after year. To see any money off the farm it will not grow at that rate. I know you touched on that but just my $.02. I don't want to come off super wrong, I do like your content just also value "keeping it real".
@@danielphillips1094Great points and I hear you and thanks for circling back. Here’s my challenge: Is an ounce of gold worth nothing because you haven’t yet sold it for dollars? In other words, the sheep have a market value at all times, sold or not. My analysis is based on that assumption and that folks have a general understanding of what the term “market value” implies, but perhaps we agree on the fact that one bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Can one person manage 10,000 sheep? Like you wont need labor costs haha?
LOVE to all the naysayers bumpin my views with your comments! Keep ‘em ROLLIN baby!!🐑🐑🔥
@@birchfieldfarming It was a genuine question. Never looked after a sheep in my life.... How many sheep can one person handle?
@@mourbonaventure7475Depends on context - my expectation is several hundred, more with trained dogs. I know one solar grazing contractor planning to run thousands, making about twice what good row crop ground rents for here.
Your numbers are VERY DECEIVING. If you are keeping all your animals your are not making any money only spending it. Plus to get those totals you have to sell ALL your animals. 🤦🤦 Do some real world numbers by selling off all the unneeded young rams/ewes and maybe part of the older ewes that are still able to breed every year.
Unfortunately, you’ve misunderstood the entire analysis.
Your #'s are not even close
Awesome, thanks for watching!
Why do you say the numbers are off?
@2:25 Amen! Greetings from South Africa.
Wow, South Africa!🤩