SHEEP, GOATS, AND GRASSLANDS

C. E. Holscher, D. A. Spencer

SHEEP and goats are grazing animals by nature. For the 50 million sheep and 4 million goats in the United States vast areas of cultivated crops, farm pastures, and range must be provided. In the range country, which lies west of the one hundredth meridian, roughly 70 percent of the sheep and 80 percent of the goats are produced.

Ordinarily, ranges are relatively large areas, privately or publicly owned or controlled, and mostly in semiarid and forested districts. Range forage usually is a mixture of native grasses, legumes, sedges, rushes, other grasslike plants, weeds, and, sometimes, woody plants. Pasture management usually aims to maintain maximum production of young palatable growth of tame grasses and legumes; on ranges such a practice is all but impossible because drier conditions limit regrowth after grazing.

Harvested crops, distinct from range and pasture, are usually stored against the time when ranges and pastures cannot be used. Usually, harvested crops supplement ranges and pastures and play a part in all the many different kinds of sheep operations, in which time of lambing and locality are big factors. For example: Lambing dates range from October in southern California to May in many parts of the range area; in southwestern Idaho, lambing in January and February is common.

Early lambing is done in sheds where ample protection from severe weather can be given to the newborn lambs. Late lambing is done on the range a more economical system but one that usually results in a larger portion of the lambs being sold as feeders. In areas where lambs are produced on farm pastures, early lambing prevails. Flocks are usually small and the necessary attention and care can be given to early lambing.

Lambing in sheds makes it necessary to feed ewes hay and other supplements. Range-lambing operations as a rule do not produce a high proportion of fat lambs. Consequently many lambs are put in the feed lot on a ration of concentrates and hay for further fattening. Fattening on the farm may be on grass or harvested crops or both. Range operations are different from sheep raising in other sections in the North Central States, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, where sheep raising also is a sizable enterprise.

As for goats, they are found in all parts of the country, too. Texas produces maybe 70 percent of all goats raised in the United States, but there are many in New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The greatest concentration of goats is on the Edwards Plateau of Texas, where, as elsewhere, they are grazed on the range.

There are many milk goats in the Southwest also, and many in the farm-pasture areas of the Middle West and the East. They are handled much like milk cows, but they can live where milk cows cannot. Angora goats on the western range are usually herded, much like sheep, but where pastures are available they may also be turned loose to range for themselves. Milk goats may be fed harvested crops during much of the year, but particularly when pasture grasses are not growing. Angora goats are fed harvested crops only in case of shortage of pasture or range forage or during severe weather.

In the range country tremendous variations in topography ( elevations range from near sea level to 12,000 feet or more), climate (precipitation ranges from 5 inches annually on some desert areas to 50 inches in the higher mountains, and frost-free periods extend from a few weeks to 230 days), and soils cause great variations in the type and amount of forage.

Grasses, weeds or forbs, and browse or woody plants all are part of the diet of sheep and goats. Sheep prefer weeds and finer grasses, but during the fall and winter they graze considerably on browse plants. Goats, however, are mainly browse eaters, although they graze many of the green, succulent grasses and weeds. During lambing and kidding the finer, juicier plants are important in keeping up the milk supply of the nursing ewes and does.

In the East, the Middle West, the Ozarks, and the Pacific Coast States goats often are used to clear pastures of undesirable brush. Sheep sometimes are used to clear pastures of weeds. But where sheep and goat operations are on a permanent basis, care must be taken not to overuse the type of forage most desirable for the animals produced. An overgrazed sheep range in a few years can change from one producing numerous weeds and fine grasses to one producing only coarse grasses and brush.

Similarly, the browse plants so essential in goat operations can be quickly eliminated by too heavy grazing. The grazing capacities of most of the range types are considerably below their potential because of overgrazing and other mismanagement. We can do a great deal to improve them.

The Range Types

Ten broad range types occur in the West and, in addition, the forest ranges of the South and Southeast. They differ in grazing capacity because of the amount and composition of the vegetation, variations in rainfall, productivity of the soil, and so on. Grazing capacity varies more or less directly with the effective precipitation unless overgrazing or another abuse reduces the productivity. Sheep use parts of every major forage type found in the West. Some sheep and goats also graze on the forest ranges of the South, but much of the sheep and goat production in that area is on farm pastures. Goats are generally found on the drier, browse-producing ranges.

The grazing capacities of the various types are: Tall grass, 0.5 acre per sheep and goat month, not used much by goats; short grass, 0.8 acre, used very little by goats except in Texas and New Mexico; Pacific bunchgrass, 0.9 acre, used very little by goats; semidesert grass, 1.1 acres, extensively used by sheep and goats ( Edwards Plateau is in this type) ; sagebrush grass, 1.8 acres, excellent spring-fall range for sheep, but used little by goats; southern desert shrub, 2.3 acres, chiefly sheep range but grazed by goats also; salt desert shrub, 3.6 acres, used mainly as winter range for sheep, but used little by goats; pinyon-juniper, 1.7 acres, used a great deal by sheep and considerably by goats; woodland chaparral, 2.0 acres, usually valuable as goat range and in California it is also grazed by cattle and sheep; and open forest, 1.6 acres, valuable as summer range for sheep.

The mountain brush and aspen subtypes are valuable as goat ranges. Goats use cut-over lands extensively in Oregon and Missouri.

In almost every region (except perhaps the short-grass Plains) there is a seasonal movement, particularly of sheep. Goats are often ranged close to the home ranch, although even there the spring, summer, fall, and winter ranges are usually separated.

The usual pattern in the Mountain West is to graze sheep on the sagebrush-grass type in the spring, progressing toward the higher country as the range becomes ready for grazing. By the time the open forest or high-altitude range is ready for grazing, the sheep have migrated to it. They spend their summers there and return over the sagebrush-grass ranges in the fall.

Forage on the spring range is made up of the finer grasses and palatable weeds: Arrowleaf balsamroot, penstemons, lupines, tapertip hawksbeard, bluebunch wheatgrass, Sandberg bluegrass, Nevada bluegrass, and needle-grass. In the fall the same grasses are used to some extent, but much browse is included in the diet. This includes bitterbrush, big sagebrush, threetip sagebrush, and rabbitbrush. In a mild autumn far less use is made of the browse species than when the weather is cold and snow is on the ground.

Summer range is used to attain growth and fill on the lambs. The forage remains green most of the season and lambs ordinarily gain rapidly. Much of this type of range is in the open-forest type on national forest lands. Some of the important forage species on the high ranges are blue-grasses, bromes, wheatgrasses, fescues, wild carrot, sweet-anise, wild geranium, sedges, alpine timothy, dandelion, cinquefoil, and groundsel. Browse plants eaten on the open-forest ranges include mountain-mahogany, snow-berry, ceanothus, serviceberry, and bitterbrush.

Wintering of sheep and goats differs in the various parts of the western range country more than other seasonal operations. Much of the winter range is included in the broad type called the salt-desert shrub. Precipitation is irregular, and forage production varies as much as 300 percent between good and poor years. These ranges must be used in winter because of lack of stock water at other seasons. Winter snows provide some water, but even in winter snow water is undependable. Some operators find it profitable to haul water to the sheep.

The principal plants of the salt-desert shrub type are Indian ricegrass, galleta, winterfat, shadscale, saltbush, black sagebrush, bud sagebrush, and rabbitbrush. Many are shrubs high in protein and make the desert excellent winter range if there is plenty of good water.

Livestock without winter range must winter in feed yards, chiefly on alfalfa hay and some grain.

In much of the short-grass region, sheep are wintered on the range. Winter range is somewhat rougher than the range used for summer. The main winter forage species bluestem wheat-grass, needle-and-thread grass, big sagebrush, silver sagebrush, false-tarragon sagebrush, and cudweed sagebrush retain considerable nutritive value and provide good winter grazing. Grazing on the range forage is more economical than wintering in feed yards if ample forage is available, deficiencies are offset by supplemental feeding, and extra care is given the flocks in bad weather.

The Essential Nutrients

Good goat management requires that weeds and grasses be present on the range when the kids are small. Since goats are primarily browsing animals, considerable brush should be available at all seasons, especially on the winter ranges. The Edwards Plateau is of the semidesert-grass type. The principal species found in that type are Rothrock grama, black grama, curly-mesquite, and such thorny shrubs and dwarfed trees as mesquite, mimosa, catclaw, hackberries, creosote-bush, jojoba, ceanothus, and low-growing live oaks.

For the most part, range forage provides the minerals, proteins, and vita-mires essential for growth and maintenance of strong, healthy sheep and goats. Chemical analysis show that the protein content of growing range plants equals or exceeds that of good alfalfa hay. Harvested directly and used immediately by the grazing animals, range forage supplies the vitamins often lost in the storage of harvested crops.