Ovine Awareness

Where: Grange School of Adaptive Agriculture
16200 N. HWY 101 Willits, CA 95490
When: May 7th
Cost: $25 for general admission, kids are $5, lunch is $10. Work trade available

Reaping Sheep Benefits: A Series of Ovine Workshops
Increase your Ovine Awareness in this full day demonstration based workshop series! Local farmers and ranchers will join the Grange School in presenting the many uses of sheep from fiber to meat to milk to grazing. Workshop stations will be hosted by experts who will demonstrate shearing, butchering, milking, and grazing techniques and the Grange School will serve lunch for us monogastric creatures (not just grass, we promise.) $25 for the day, $10 for lunch. Work trade available.

Schedule:
10 am Milking Demonstration
Gowan Batist
location: Vernal Knoll (6)

11 am Butchering Techniques
Gowan Batist
location: Orchard (2)

11 am Philosophies of Animal Husbandry and Shearing
Alice Woelff-Erskine
location: Gazebo (4) and Stump Henge (5)

12 pm Lunch
location: Gazebo (4)

12:30 pm Livestock Guardian Dogs
Alice Woelff-Erskine
location: Stump Henge (5)

1 pm Sheep Dairy
Gowan Batist
location: Vernal Knoll (6)

2 pm Shearing and Fiber Arts
Gowan and Alice
location: Stump Henge (5)

3 pm Fencing and Shelter
Ruthie King
location: School House

Philosophies of Livestock Management
The talk covers general information which is helpful to keeping all kinds of livestock on any scale from a few backyard chickens to a large ranch operation. I cover animal health and happiness, some business practices, grazing and land management, ideas around slaughtering and the philosophy of keeping animals.

Slaughter and Butcher Demonstration
We will humanely slaughter a sheep then skin and quarter it. An already quartered lamb will be brought out to demonstrate cut and wrap techniques.

Livestock Guardian Dogs
Best breeds, feeds, and behaviors of LGDs.

Shearing Demonstration
We will discuss the properties of wool as it relates to fiber arts and then go into the details and strategies of shearing. Using hand shears, participants will get a feel for the process of skirting, shearing, and cleaning up their sheep.

Dairy and Cheese
Gowan Batist from Fortunate Farm will set up a stanchion and milk two sheep with a discussion of dairy breeds and considerations for housing, feed, and breeding. We will discuss cheese making and the many benefits of sheep milk.

Fiber Arts
A group will work to prepare the wool cut from sheep earlier in the day. Starting with washing we will discuss the properties of the fiber and lanolin, then we will card already washed wool in order to spin it. A felting workshop will take place as well!