© 2000 - 2009. Website design, text and photos are copyright by Ronda Jemtegaard unless otherwise noted.
Reproduction by any means, electronic or mechanical, is forbidden unless written request is submitted to
and approved by Ronda Jemtegaard of Greener Pastures Farm.
In this age where it's now easy to clone and delete parts of photographs,
and some farmers and webmasters are doing this to published photos of their livestock,
please note that all photos on this website are unaltered in any way!
Colors, conformation, etc are exactly as depicted.
Low Maintenance Farming
How to do what needs to be done
without spending all day on it
Many people think that farming takes too much time, or that it's too much work. Actually, it is the amount of work that you (yes, YOU!) make it. You can spend all day feeding livestock if you want to. I love living on a farm and keeping livestock, but I have other interests as well, and insist that we work smart to allow time for non-farming activities as well. Weather extremes can alter this greatly, but on normal days, 20 to 30 minutes is all it takes to do our feeding chores. And we have lots of livestock! Planning is key.
FLOORS IN THE HOUSE: Why does this matter? Because farming involves mud, manure, dust, etc. Baby blue wall-to-wall carpet is just not going to work, and within 2 months of moving into this old house, we ripped it out. The 40-year-old oak floors beneath, despite being scarred and worn, looked MUCH nicer, and are low maintenance. Spills and tracked in mud or manure can be wiped up easily from a floor. The kitchen and dining room had white linoleum, which was easy maintenance, but showed every footprint or spill. My husband brought home a sample of a close-out flooring to see if I liked it. I threw it down next to the dogs' muddy footprints by the back door and it was a perfect match! I'll take it! Medium or dark shades of wood, and natural tones of medium to dark shades of stone (or stone replicas on vinyl for those of us who can't afford stone) are the best choices; these colors hide most everything that gets tracked in; only you will know which is the pattern and which is dirt. That's a good farm floor in my opinion! And carpet... ugh. We have ripped out carpet in two different homes, and I don't care HOW clean the owner was; there's so much unpleasant stuff that lurks under/in the carpets and the padding, and aside from the fact that it's not healthy, it's just plain gross! Cleaning is not my favorite activity, so I insist that everything is low maintenance and easy to clean, and the only rugs in my house are small enough to go into my washing machine. Color can be added on the walls, the furniture or anything else, but brown floors make the most sense for a farm house.
COVER ALLS: Whether you like an all-in-one cover-all, or some over-alls with suspenders paired with a coat, these are so helpful to put on over your jammies or day clothes to stay relatively clean when doing barn chores or other dirty work. Insulated versions for winter are great and worth the investment; and lightweight versions for summer are worth the expenditure as well. An "Elmer Fudd" hat with earflaps may not be very fashionable, but function is more important when it's cold, windy and/or pouring rain and you have stuff to do outside. These can all go into the washing machine every so often, as needed. Muddy seasons necessitate a place to hang your muddy coveralls to dry and be ready to wear on your next trip outdoors.
RUBBER BOOTS: These should be knee-high, and you should be able to slip into them or slip out of them without using your hands. Why? Often enough your hands will be full of something when you need to dash out the door, and these rubber boots are for those quick dashes, and should be kept by the door. I have insulated boots that have lacings and zippers, and while these are warm and nice to have when I plan to be outside for hours on a cold day, they take more time and effort to get into and out of. Quickie trips are made quicker with hands free rubber boots.
SHOES: White sneakers are more work for you. Brown shoes are practical and don't show the dirt from everyday wear, whether it's on a farm or in the city. Brown sneakers make more sense to me; I never understood the white sneakers thing when they showed up in fashion decades ago... these are on our FEET, for crying out loud. They are going to stay white for 5 seconds, and then be dingy. Not remotely attractive. But I did learn a tip from a farming friend who washes her white sneakers in the dishwasher... not with the dishes, of course. Good info, and I now do this with our brown sneakers.
SPACE BY THE DOOR: Have a coat rack, or make or buy a row of coat pegs on a board that are placed high enough on the wall to allow your coveralls and/or coat to dry overnight. A bench is handy, and something waterproof to park your boots on will be very useful.
WEBSITE: If you have any plans to sell livestock, you need a website. This site you are visiting was built using Homestead, an easy-to-use program which I've been using for 10 years. It doesn't require knowledge of HTML; it's just drag and drop and is a piece of cake to use.
LIVESTOCK: Choose a breed that suits your climate, that is not a "prima donna" that needs pampering to live, to breed, to give birth, etc. After trying many hardy breeds, I chose the ones that meet our high specifications for ease of management, production, good health, etc.
FENCING: If you don't have adequate (preferably "GOOD") fencing, then you are going to spend a lot of time chasing your own tail, or more specifically, your livestock. Spend the time to set it up right. I prefer woven wire field fencing rather than electric fences. I grew up on a large farm that utilized electric fencing, and WHEN (not IF) the power goes out, the fencing no longer works, and the livestock know this. I want my fencing to work whether we have electricity or not. Use rotational grazing by carving your acreage into small pastures that you can easily move your grazers from one pasture to another. Use alleyways to connect them, and make your gates the same width as your alleyways, so that they can latch whether open or closed, and each pasture has access to a barn or shelter. There is more information on this at our Fencing page.
WATER TANKS: The more, the better! We have one for every pasture, and they can be dragged around as needed. If you are planning to be gone for a few days, move the livestock into a pasture that has not been grazed in a while, and increase the number of water tanks you normally have for your flock, ideally double or triple the number, just in case. If you have a house sitter or neighbor checking in, they will thank you. Ditto with water containers for chickens and geese. Put out triple the number you normally use, and they will be good to go, when you go!
BOTTLE FEEDING: Ideally, you have chosen a breed of livestock that will not require bottle feeding. But accidents happen, and having the proper equipment on hand for bottle feeding is more than a good idea. If you do need to bottle feed, then do at least 2 babies for ease of management, and keep them together in a pen in the barn until they know you are "Mother", even if you have to take one from a mother who is nursing just fine. Choose girls, if you have the option to choose! Bottle feeding can tame the animal, and having one or more tame ewes is far easier for you. Why at least 2? Because flock animals or herd animals live in groups for a reason. It's cruel to keep flock or herd animals alone. I repeat: IT IS CRUEL TO KEEP FLOCK OR HERD ANIMALS ALONE. Those 2 babies will keep each other company between feedings, and once they know you are "Mother" after about a week, they can be turned out into the pasture with the rest of the flock. They will know your voice, and return to you when you bring the bottles. Talk to them while feeding, and handle them while feeding. Sit down and lean back against a fence post in the pasture, so they can climb on you just as the other lambs climb on their mothers. Scratch their chests and behind their ears, which the other lambs' mothers can't do, and you will have a friend for life, and eventually a flock leader who will follow you wherever you need the flock to go. Choosing a breed that does not require bottle feeding is essential in my opinion, but having a couple bottle fed ewe lambs that grow up into flock leaders is very handy!
IN AN IDEAL SITUATION: Here is a list of a number of situations that I have implemented or would like to implement, in order to create the best situation for my livestock and for ease of management by the farmer.
- HEDGEROWS: This originated in England and Ireland (I think, check references) to create a living fence. My plan 10 years ago, which I've not yet been able to implement, is to create a 6 to 10 feet wide swathe of plantings between each pasture, with field fencing on each side to keep the livestock from eating the plantings down to the bark or root. There are a number of shrubs, trees, and plants that are not daily "feed", but are a good browse for livestock to choose from that have healthful benefits as well as beauty. Juliette de Bairacli Levy lists these plants in her book The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable. Ms Levy states that she chose herbs and plants that are non-toxic, and lists their uses and benefits, and many of these are flowers and shrubs that people choose to decorate their landscapes, so this is something that would be attractive as well as useful. It is my belief that most of our cravings (sugary treats aside) indicate a need our body has, and I believe animals have that same instinct. This fits in with my philosophy that the more variety in our diets, in the diets of our pets and in our livestock, the better.
- A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE WATER TANK: Paving an alleyway leading to each water tank, or paving an area well around each water tank will allow livestock to wear their hooves down naturally, reducing or eliminating any need for you to give them a hoof trim. This can be concrete, but ideally would be some type of rocks. Gravel can get stuck between their toes (been there, pried out the rocks from between toes), too large rocks can create a situation where limbs can be broken if a foot gets stuck between rocks while running. I don't know the best situation yet, and am working to find and implement that. Maybe rough concrete is the answer, with a domed center so that water will run off. An alternative is to provide plenty of boulders in each pasture for the livestock to climb and play on, this will also wear down the hooves, just like the natural wear that occurs with wild sheep. Hoof trimming does not take all that long for the farmer, but if you let it go or get busy and forget, overgrown hooves can create lameness. something a conscientious farmer will not intentionally do. Placing an area where the hooves will naturally wear is helpful to you and your livestock.
I have more, and will add as time allows. I am taming 3 ewe lambs this spring by bottle feeding them, so I'm spending more time than usual out at the barn and in the pastures, which is actually very pleasant. And as I walk back to the house from chores, tips pop into my mind that I think would be helpful to fellow farmers and wanna be farmers, and I sit down and type them out before I forget... Farming should be fun and an absolute joy.
Cascade Farmstead Sheep
The ultimate low-maintenance and
hardy sheep breed for the small farm.
This background page shows just a few
of the colors and patterns found in
our self-shedding Cascade Farmstead
ewes and lambs.
