Why a Few Sheep Benefit From Moving On

If you keep half a dozen ewes on a paddock that never changes, you will know the pattern. The grass is cropped to a tight mat near the gate, docks and thistles march in, and by midsummer the flock is scouring and the field looks tired. Sheep are selective grazers; left in one place they eat their favourite plants down to the crown and ignore the rest. That constant close grazing is also how worm burdens build, because larvae hatching from dropped dung climb the grass blades and are eaten again and again by the same animals.

Rotational grazing is simply giving sheep a fresh bite every few days, then letting the last patch rest. Even on an acre or two, splitting the ground into several paddocks changes everything. Grass recovers, roots deepen, dung spreads more evenly, and the sheep stay healthier on less bought-in feed.

How Many Paddocks, and How Big?

There is no fixed blueprint, but a few practical numbers help. Aim for at least six paddocks, and eight to twelve if you can manage it; more paddocks mean longer rests and more flexibility when growth slows.

• Stocking rate: six to eight ewes per acre on decent lowland pasture. Halve it on wet or upland ground.
• Rest period: three to four weeks in the spring flush, six to eight in a dry summer, up to ninety days in winter.
• Graze-down: take the grass from roughly 10cm down to 4-5cm, then move on. Leaving a little behind helps the plant recover and shades the soil.
• Paddock size: start small and widen the fence if they clear it too quickly.

Try not to graze the same paddock at the same point each year. Shifting the pattern interrupts worm life cycles and stops weeds setting seed.

Fencing and Water Without a Big Budget

Electric netting is the smallholder's friend. Rolls of about fifty metres, on plastic posts, can be shifted by one person in twenty minutes. Two or three strands of plain wire on pigtail posts suit flatter, drier ground and a calm, trained flock.

• Buy the strongest energiser you can afford. A weak pulse on long wet grass means escaped sheep.
• Train ewes to electric fencing in a small, visible pen before turning them into a big field.
• Keep a back fence, so they cannot graze back over ground they have already cleaned.
• Water is the usual sticking point. Moveable troughs and lay-flat pipe let you serve several paddocks from one tap.
• Provide shade and shelter: a hedge, a line of trees or a simple field shelter for lambs and newly shorn ewes.

Reading the Grass: When to Move

Your eyes and a pair of boots are the best tools. Walk the paddock every day or two, and when the grass is down to about 5cm, or bare soil and dung pats are starting to smother the crown, move the sheep. In a spring flush that might be every two days; in a slow August it might be a week. Stick to a back fence so they cannot nibble regrowth. If grass looks short, do not stretch the paddock; shifting early is far cheaper than feeding concentrate later.

Health Payoffs: Worms, Feet and Flies

Worm larvae survive on grass for only a few weeks in warm, moist conditions. Resting a paddock for a month or more means most have died before the sheep return, so every mouthful carries fewer parasites. Grazing down to 4cm or lower forces them to eat right where the larvae sit, which is why hard grazing makes worm problems worse.

Dung is also spread more evenly, which reduces fly strike, and treading is concentrated in one small area before the ground rests, so poaching is limited. Feet stay drier on paddocks that have been rested and regrown.

• Use faecal egg counts through your vet rather than drenching to a calendar.
• Never move freshly drenched sheep straight onto clean pasture; leave some unexposed worms to slow resistance.
• Try herbal leys: chicory, sainfoin and birdsfoot trefoil contain condensed tannins that help reduce worm burdens.
• Run a few cattle or horses through after the sheep if you can. Mixed grazing breaks the worm cycle.
• Quarantine and treat bought-in sheep before they touch your pasture.

Keeping It Going Through Winter and the Lean Months

By November, growth has slowed to almost nothing and rest periods need to stretch to two or three months. Plan a deferred paddock or two in late summer, letting grass stand tall so you have foggage to graze in the worst weather. Move the flock off wet ground before they poach it, and accept a small sacrifice area near the gate as the price of healthy pasture elsewhere.

Winter is the time to do the arithmetic. Count next spring's paddocks, mend fence posts, and decide which ewes to keep. A rotation only works if the grass comes back, so if the flock has outgrown what the ground can rest properly, sell a few. That is the quiet lesson of the system: look at the land first and the sheep second, and both usually improve.