Welcome to our Icelandic Sheep website!
Salmonberry Icelandics
Contact Us: Salmonberry Farm
11231 Staplin Road
Mannsville, NY 13661
(315) 387-2129
|
Our Farm |
|
|
|
|
Welcome to our farm! On Salmonberry Farm in upstate New York, we raise Icelandic sheep. We are relatively new to the Icelandic sheep world, bringing home our starter flock of unregistered sheep in the spring of 2006. With some experience and confidence under our belts, we added registered breeding stock in the summer and fall of 2007. We use only registered rams on both our registered and unregistered ewes. Spring 2008 How we got started…… After purchasing our small, run down, abandoned farm and fixing it up (this took several years), I found myself thinking that it would be the perfect place to have some animals. While growing up, my parents had a small farm where we raised a few cows, pigs, turkeys and chickens to produce food for us to eat. My brothers, sisters and I all had “chores” to do. It gave me a respect for animals and an appreciation of knowing exactly where our food came from. The only experience with sheep that I had up to this point was hearing someone shout “Hannibal”, then watching the grass fly before my eyes as my siblings and I would run for our lives to jump on top of the picnic table before our Aunt and Uncle’s ram Hannibal (he got out of the fence again) could take us out. With that said, the learning curve was steep for us. Out of the many sheep breeds, why did we select Icelandics? After reading through Storey’s Guide for Raising Sheep and doing some online research, we selected Icelandics because of their unique appearance and the triple purpose breed testimonials. We were not disappointed. Icelandics are easy keepers. Our sheep do exceedingly well on grass, hay and minerals alone. This fits in nicely with our rotational grazing system. Our ewes have proven themselves to be easy lambers and excellent mothers. We have just concluded our second lambing season and find that again, our ewes lamb successfully. The ewes are protective of their young but not aggressive toward us. We have found assistance and advice received from fellow shepherds, breeders and Cooperative Extension very helpful. We participate in the Voluntary Scrapies Program. We are members of the Canadian Sheep Breeders Organization, ISBONA and the Farm Bureau. When building our flock, we decided to look for proven ewes that were milky and had nice wool and excellent confirmation. For our rams, we looked for easy dispositions, excellent confirmation and fleeces. The former can be deceiving, and both can be difficult to judge if selecting ram lambs. Our rams have easy dispositions and have never been aggressive toward us. However, I do not permit children in a pasture or barn pen occupied by our rams, nor are children permitted to be in an area where we are handling our rams. We have a variety of colors and patterns in our flock. Be sure to check out our lamb, ram and ewe pages!
Spring 2009 Update This winter has been a long and snowy one for us! The calendar says it's spring, so lambing must be just around the corner! Over the past several months, we've had the opportunity to listen to the cacophony of coyotes surrounding us and actually saw one. We've also viewed some bald eagles making a pass occasionally. So far, neither species has intruded on our farm, and hopefully will choose to get their dinner elsewhere. A few of the measures we have in place to protect against predators include our four foot page wire fence with a strand of barbed wire on the ground (to deter digging) and a hot top wire. We also have two guardian llamas that are very watchful, agile and strong. (I was surprised to observe one of the llamas flip a ram over on his back in one felt swoop using only his front leg. The ram learned not to butt the llama, they just avoid each other). Currently, this appears to be enough. Hopefully it will continue to be. Spring is one of the busy times at our farm. The sheep were shorn and vaccinated in mid March and we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the 2009 lambs. The lambs from the crosses this past fall should be promising. In addition, we will be receiving our pelts and rovings from the fall back from processing in the next week or so. We are always striving to improve the efficiency of our operation with the least impact to our environment. In the past, we have contracted with the NRCS to make improvements to our farm and will do so again this year. We have pasture and hayfields improvement projects that will be starting soon. Not only will this give us the opportunity to enhance the grass/legume varieties available to our sheep, but it will decrease the chances of erosion of our valuable soil resources. I've found the Stockman Grass Farmer as well as some of their books to be excellent resources for these improvements, as well as our local Field Crops Extension Educator.
Links and Resources
Below is a small listing of the sources we have used and continue to use for information and products. Storey’s Guide to Raising Sheep by Paula Simmons and Carol Ekarius - a great source of information for getting started with sheep CLRC (Canadian Livestock Records Corporation http://www.clrc.ca/index2010.shtml By first joining the Canadian Sheep Breeder's Organization, you can then register your Icelandic sheep here. Online Membership Application http://www.clrc.ca/MemberEnglish.shtml Fee Schedule Printable Application Form http://www.clrc.ca/G-47memberapp.pdf This should be sent from post office because it requires additional postage
Canadian Sheep Breeders Organization
USDA Aphis
Premier 1 Supplies http://www.premier1supplies.com/
Wellscroft Fence Systems, LLC
Skyview Fencing and Pole Barns
Blue Seal
Jug Waterers
Pipestone Veterinary Supplies
ISBONA
Cornell Sheep and Goat Program http://www.sheep.cornell.edu/index.html
Sheep and Goat Marketing http://www.sheepgoatmarketing.info/PageLoad.cfm?page=news/northnews_200508.htm
|
|
