OSU Sheep Team

SUMMER PARASITE MANAGEMENT
Rory Lewandowski, Extension Educator, Athens County
July and August are critical months to control the internal parasite, Haemonchus contortus in pasture based sheep and goat production. Often producers may find that lambs and kids seem to “stand still” during the summer, with little or no weight gain. There can be several reasons [...]

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Rory Lewandowski, Extension Educator, Athens County
Raising sheep within a pasture based production system presents the manager with two challenges; internal parasite control and summer slump production of cool season pastures.  The use of a warm season annual like sudangrass may offer the pasture based sheep producer a parasite control option while at the same time [...]

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Jeff McCutcheon, Extension Educator, Knox County
After the dry growing season last year many sheep producers are asking what they could do to improve pasture yields.   Other than improving soil fertility there is one thing you can do during the month of May that will improve yields.  In fact most experienced graziers I know get pretty [...]

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Bob Hendershot State Grassland Conservationist
(Originally Published in Sheep Team Newsletter April 2003)
What is lambing like, for your sheep flock, hours per lamb or lambs per hour?  The shepherd’s labor and the size of the lambing barn are the two things that limit the size of most Ohio sheep flocks.  Pasture-lambing avoids both of these [...]

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Jeff McCutcheon, Extension Educator, Knox County
(Originally Published in Sheep Team Newsletter September 2007)
It has been a tough summer for grazers in many areas of Ohio. Dry weather and high temperatures have limited forage growth. Many pastures have been grazed closer than they should.  With the rains in August pastures started to recover but the high [...]

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Jeff McCutcheon, Extension Educator, Knox County (Originally Published in Sheep Team Newsletter June 2007)
Grazers with whom I have the privilege to work are concerned.  Many are reporting 0.4 total rain for the month of May and the average temperature 10 degrees hotter than normal. This translates into grass growth slowing and even stopping, right [...]

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Jeff McCutcheon, Extension Educator, Knox County (Originally Published in Sheep Team Newsletter June 2007)
June and grass growth has slowed or stopped. You are grazing through your fields and considering your options.  One option to consider is planting summer annuals for grazing in mid to late July.
If there is any land not planted in corn, [...]

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Clif Little, OSU Extension Guernsey County
(Originally Published in Sheep Team Newsletter June 2007)
Are you wondering how much to invest in fertilizer this year?   We will soon be approaching the period of the forage growing season critical for stockpiling pastures.  Will it pay to purchase fifty units of nitrogen this August?  In order to make [...]

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Bob Hendershot, USDA NRCS, Grassland Conservationist
(Originally Published in Sheep Team Newsletter October 2003)
Toxic levels of prussic acid or otherwise known hydrocyanic acid (HCN) form naturally in the leaves of many annual warm season grasses as well as a few other plants.  Johnson grass, sorghum, sudangrasses, sorghum-sudan hybrids and even the leaves of wild cherry trees [...]

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Jeff McCutcheon, Extension Agent, Knox County
(Originally Published in Sheep Team Newsletter October 2003)
Did you realize that one of our most abundant feeds is spread on the ground each fall? Ohio produces over 3 million acres of corn each year. After grain harvest the rest of this grass plant is left in the field. Besides bushels [...]

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