I have been a proud owner of 3 ewes since March of this year.  It has definately had it's ups and downs.  The reason I got them was to breed and sell the lambs each fall.   I also have quite a bit of open pasture that I'm not currently using but plan to use in the future so I don't want it to grow wild.  For the last two years I've had to hire someone to come bush hog mow it and I have had to saw down new trees that keep growing up.  I thought that sheep would be helpful in keeping the pastures from growing wild until I need them - natures best lawn mowers! 

When I first decided I wanted to get some sheep I decided I should read as much as possible first to make sure it was the right decision.  The best book I found was Living with Sheep: Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Flock by Geoff Hansen and Chuck Wooster.  This book is a very easy read for novice sheep folk like me but as I get deeper into the sheep ownership and re-read it over and over I find new things that I didn't understand the first time to be more clear when I actually experience them.  

The first thing I had to do was decide where and how to contain them.  I had already had my mind set on this place behind the barn which had weeds, briars, old rusted out car parts (so large I couldn't move them), and grass so matted in that I couldn't get my walk behind weed eater to mow it down.  I had choices on fencing such as electric or heavy wire.   The heavy wire is more expensive but will hold up a long time.  The electric fence is a lot less expensive and the one I chose considering I didn't have a huge pasture at first and I had planned on taking the fence down and moving the sheep up to the bigger pastures later.   The pitfal with electric is that if you don't get the electricity to work correctly or you have a power outage - the sheep can get out very easily.  I found this out the hard way when the first week I had my sheep 2 strands of the fence were not hot while the others were.  I didn't realize it until I found my sheep in the upper pastures one morning when I got to the nursery.  I had to call in my family to come help me round them up.  Without an Australian sheep dog this is very hard to do.    I had never put in an electric fence before and found it was not as easy as it looked either.  I had an irregular shaped section with hills and big clumps of grass and briars to work around.  The wire has to be pulled tight as possible.  I bought every tool known to man to pull the wire as tight as possible and almost went insane trying to get it just right but now I know how to put in an electric fence.....I'll never do it again!  The price cut was not worth the headache.

Once I got the fence situated and the ewes were finally contained properly then I had to determine what kind of hay and grains they liked best.  I quickly realized they love sweet feed.  I was feeding it to them almost daily with their hay and they had tons of grass of course.  They tore through the contained area in a matter of a few weeks and had it entirely cleared out.  Suddenly two of them started acting strangely - very lethargic and looked bloated.  I was really worried because after giving them so much sweet feed I read that it wasn't good to give them too much and can cause stomach problems.  I was getting ready to call the vet when one morning I heard a strange noise coming from inside the barn (they have a covered area in the basement of the barn).  I went to investigate and lo and behold there was a newly born lamb on the ground crying.  The mother was cleaning it.  I was shocked because the guy who sold them to me said that he didn't breed them formally but a ram had gotten loose in the pen with a lot of ewes including mine.  He didn't think they were pregnant.  Well - he was wrong and I was totally unprepared.  According to my sheep book there were all sorts of things that could happen in the first few days and I had no way to contain the mother or lamb to ensure all went well.  Luckily all did for those two.  The next day was when the real trouble started.  Another ewe dropped a lamb but she apparently didn't go to the same mothering school as the first one because she rejected her lamb right away.  The lamb was male and she would consistently kick it away if it got near her.  She didn't clean it so I had to clean it.  I called the guy who sold me the sheep since he was right up the street and very knowlegable.  He came over and suggested we try to confine the two of them together so that she would connect with the lamb without destraction.  The only place we could do this was that basement area under the barn so he brought his Australian sheep dog and we managed to get her and the lamb in the barn closed off from the rest.  We left them there for 2-3 hours with no luck.  Finally I decided I was going to have to bottle feed this lamb myself but that meant I had to take it home so it wouldn't get cold at night.  Luckily my sister who has a house full of dogs, cats, and other pets wanted to do this.  We mixed up colostrum for her to take home and she did fine for a few days until suddenly we found that she and her husband had fallen in love with this little lamb. 
They had named it Doodle.  Her husband had made his mind up that they were not going to give it back.  He was going to buy it from me and he was going to build a pen in the back yard for it.  I quickly got very concerned in this logic considering rams get upwards of over 200 lbs in adulthood and without proper room to run would not do well.  I also read in my book that rams that are coddled as babies by humans can quickly turn to be very aggressive to those who they were closest to - especially if they are uncastrated.  I explained all this to my sister and luckily she saw reason and brought him back and we slowly acklemated him to the flock.
Doodle has definately been the center of attention by my entire family though.  He is very cute and so is the female lamb (the one born first) but he will come up to you and play like a dog would.   He even practices ramming at my fist now.  The other ewes and lamb just look at him like he is crazy and will not come close unless I have sweet feed.

My current challenge is to build a holding
coral for the sheep so that I can give them their enoculations.  Spring has been busy at the nursery so I can't find the time to do this but it has to be done soon.  The next thing will be to start on the fence in the 1 acre pasture behind our pond.  I think it will be June before I can start on it.

If anyone has any great suggestions on keeping sheep, building fences, or raising lambs that are good cost effective ideas - send them my way.  I am finding I am spending far more money than I thought and I want this to work out to make money instead of loose money.