Rachel Hester: Hey guys, I just wanted to interrupt quick to give a shout out to our sponsor, the North America Dairy Sheep Association. Natsa is open to any sheep breed or crossed use for milking purposes. Natsa supports dairy shepherds and is elevating dairy standards in sheep in America. Natsa now offers a Milk Star program, has sanctioned dairy sheep shows, and is now offering a breed up program. Olivia Fox: Editing Rachel here. I need to apologize for the abrupt ending to this podcast episode. We started having some pretty significant technical difficulties at this point in the podcast episode, so we decided to cut our losses and end it, and even the ending was a little dicey. So this is the end of this episode. Sorry again for the abrupt jolt. Lydia: toy! ⁓ speaker-0: Welcome to the wooly way of podcast specifically for dairy shepherds. is folks wanting to raise sheep for the purpose of harvesting milk. your host, Rachel. ⁓ Rachel Hester: Welcome back to the wooly way. And today we have Lydia Tavis from Harmony Heritage Farm. And we also have her delightful child with us. So you will maybe hear some delightful baby sounds in the background, but we're gonna just keep rolling. Cause we're all moms and homesteaders here. So we totally get the drill, but Lydia, thank you so much for joining us today. speaker-0: Thanks so much for listening to the Woolly Way Podcast. speaker-1: We hope you enjoyed our episode and have gleaned at least one tip you can implement in your flock right away. If you like what you heard, please hit the subscribe button. And if you wouldn't mind, leave us a review. This helps others find our podcast so that they can enjoy learning about dairy sheep along with you. The Woolly Way podcast is a production of Whoopsy Daisy Farm and Crafty Fox Bakers. For updates and information about our show, follow us on Facebook or Instagram. Lydia: Thanks. speaker-1: and I'm Liv Fox. cover all things pertaining to raising dairy sheep here ⁓ animal nutrition, housing, health care, ⁓ tips, cheese making, and even some butchery and fiber arts. Olivia Fox: because we were having a really good conversation, but we did decide we'd like to have Lydia back on the podcast. So if you have questions or anything you'd like us to follow up with in our conversation with her next time we have her on the podcast, please be sure to email us at whoopsiedaisyfarm at gmail.com or you can email Liv at craftyfoxacres at gmail.com. You can also email us speaker-0: After all, if you raise dairy sheep, you are going to have wool, if your operation is successful, you'll eventually have surplus lambs to decide what to do with. Liv Fox: Yes. Rachel Hester: You can become a member or get more information by going to the website www.northamericadarysheep.org or you can email the association at northamericadarysheep.com We are so thankful to Natsa for sponsoring this podcast and helping bring more resources to the dairy sheep community. Stay tuned for future podcast episodes Lydia: Yeah, happy to be here. very excited. Very excited to talk to you guys. speaker-1: Ethical animal husbandry is the focus here, as well as sustainable agriculture. We want to provide you with the information you need to start and continue your dairy sheep operation in the best way possible for you, your sheep, and the amazing world we live in. speaker-0: Subscribe to our YouTube and email list and look us up at whoopsydaisyfarm.com to find both. Have a particular guest you'd like us to host or a topic you'd like us to cover? Fill out our contact form on our website or shoot us an email at whoopsydaisyfarm.gmail.com. See you next time! Rachel Hester: Well, we're excited to have you here too. So you have actually raised dairy sheep for like 20 years, right? Which, seeing as you look like you're 22, I guess you started when you were a toddler, right? Lydia: Yeah. speaker-0: So grab a nice cup of sheet milk and let's dive in. Olivia Fox: at the North American Dairy Sheep Association at gmail.com. We like Gmail in case you haven't noticed. thanks so much for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and share it with any friends you know who enjoy sheep. Liv Fox: Ha ha. Rachel Hester: where we talk to NADSA board members about what NADSA is trying to accomplish in America for the dairy sheep community. Lydia: Thank you. Rachel Hester: You're welcome. Yeah, I am windburned and windswept and under slept. So I feel like I look all haggard and hedgewitchy right now. So I'm like, ⁓ you enjoy it. Well, you can. Lydia: That's actually really cool. Liv Fox: Yeah Lydia: No, I, it's funny because normally people think I'm way older than I am. I actually, married. My husband is 10 years older than me. So they always assume I'm like, you know, 40. But ⁓ no, I, I got first sheep when I was nine. So that's kind of where it all started. Rachel Hester: you Okay. Liv Fox: So you've been doing it for a long time then. Lydia: Yeah. Liv Fox: don't we start off with like where you're located. Go back to like when you started getting into dairy sheep and just kind of talk about your farm a little bit. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Lydia: Yeah, actually, it all kind of started when I was born. My mom decorated my nursery in Psalm 23, so I had sheep surrounding me from the time I was an infant. And I think that might have just started this weird, like, just association with sheep and just, it was comfort and happiness and, I just have always loved sheep. So lived in the city though. We lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and then moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, and then we moved again to Washington, and my parents bought about 10 acres, ⁓ and always, always wanted sheep, and they told us when we moved to Washington that we could ⁓ get animals and get sheep. So they called around to a bunch of farms ⁓ in area, sheep farms, ⁓ and dairy. ⁓ Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Lydia: that's about an hour from us was the only ones that called them back and said, yeah, we do have some lambs. ⁓ So it was just a random, like they were the ones that called. And so we went and ⁓ picked up a couple of dairy lambs from them and just started from there. But I remember I read story's guide to raising sheep like probably four times before I bought my sheep because I was just. Rachel Hester: Okay. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Lydia: terrified and excited and just all the things and they didn't have anything for dairy sheep like any education anything books like yours Rachel like there was nothing. a bumpy beginning. ⁓ Rachel Hester: No. Liv Fox: Right. Rachel Hester: And this was before the days of like Pinterest and YouTube and everything too, right? I because this was, this was back in the days of dial up when R2D2 squealed at everyone when you connected to the internet. Lydia: Yes. ⁓ We had this old, blocky ⁓ computer and I was like the keyboard that has the big chunky keys on it and yeah, so if I needed help or anything I'd try to look up, try to get the keywords just perfect to get, you know, exactly what problem I was having and fix it. ⁓ And so often it was too late, like I lost, I lost ⁓ of my... ⁓ Liv Fox: Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Yeah, yeah. Lydia: beloved pet sheep early on because I just didn't know they're just so sneaky. You know, they get sick and it just seems like all the symptoms are all the same and they just yeah, it was rough. It was very rough. So trying to fix that now with and I'm so excited. So neat to see what you've been doing. Rachel with your book and I've had so many people like call me for dairy sheep and say, hey, you know, Rachel said Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, Lydia: you should feed this or that and I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, I actually didn't know that. Like, that's actually really great information. So that was a, that was something I Liv Fox: Hahaha Rachel Hester: Well good, I'm honestly kind of scared when I talk to like real shepherds because I learned a lot of what I do from Eastern Europeans or talking with Europeans that I follow on Instagram now. So it's all very practical homesteading, but I did not go to ag school. I know nothing of like, Liv's taught me more about the real shepherding stuff like breeding harnesses and you know. Lydia: Yeah! Rachel Hester: Having your life quasi under control because you plan things and keep records and ear tags. I don't know any of that. So whenever like a real shepherd's like, ⁓ Rachel Hester, I'm like, hi, please don't hate me because I don't I don't know what you're supposed I just I just keep my sheep alive and they give me milk and we're happy and I spin their wool and I wear it and apparently that makes me cool, which is very weird. So I'm glad you approve. Liv Fox: Yeah! Lydia: So here's like a actual real life reference. So someone I think messaged me the other day and was like, so Rachel said to feed in her book, she said to feed these different grains and sunflower seeds. Black, I think she, ⁓ she said boss. She goes and boss. And I was like, what is boss? She's like, ⁓ black oil sunflower seeds. I knew it was like, I knew that they're good for sheep, but I had no idea why. And she goes, yeah, they're really good for selenium. I said, I wish I had known that. Liv Fox: Yeah, boss. Rachel Hester: ⁓ yeah, yeah, boss. Lydia: Like, that's so good to know. But it's, I just feel like this is so exciting to have like all the parts coming together of like people and their experience. Like I have hands-on experience. I don't have time or haven't had time to like do the research and the background and all that you have done to like bring in the cultural differences, like European things, what people have been doing over there for years and years and years. Like I had no clue about any of that. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lydia: I've just been in survival mode over here too, like just trying to keep everybody alive and... Rachel Hester: Well, and I'll tell you what, so I got started with all this through from a nutritional therapy lens. So what I do for sheep, I was trained to do for people. you know, if you're having this health issue, what's the nutritional deficiency you have? And then what food is there that contains that thing? ⁓ you know, completely different perspective of things. And so like it my sheep were. Liv Fox: Yeah Rachel Hester: were showing signs of vitamin E deficiency and selenium deficiency and vitamin B deficiency when we first got our property. And so I just Googled like what foods have these nutrients. And there was like, you know, all this, like oysters. And I'm like, well, I'm not my sheep oysters in Kentucky. That's not gonna happen. ⁓ I did about going to Trader Joe's and getting like a little tin of oyster and being like, here's sheepy sheepy. Like, do you want, like, covering peanut butter or will you have this? Lydia: Thanks. Rachel Hester: But so then I would go and be like, okay, what plants have these nutrients in them and sunflowers thankfully, mercifully had enough selenium and vitamin E that I did not have to go get a tin of oysters for my sheep because that would really be weird, but I digress. Lydia: No. a good advice there too though, and just ⁓ ⁓ available to you ⁓ far as meeting those nutritional needs for your sheep. It's going to be so different for everybody and what they can get affordably and what even grows on your property and what you can supplement with. ⁓ I've found here ⁓ Rachel Hester: Yeah. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Yeah. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Lydia: that we have Himalayan blackberries and they are invasive species and they're just awful like we're trying to eradicate them all the time and they're just creeping into our fields and but it turns out they are super high in protein ⁓ and really really great for the sheep and the sheep love them and if they can graze them like through the winter during pregnancy I've seen like my healthiest sheep Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mmm! Lydia: The sheep have been the most healthiest when they're out grazing through the fall and even into winter and getting those blackberry leaves because I think it just makes such a huge difference for them. Rachel Hester: Great. Lydia: are in southwestern Washington so it's halfway between Seattle and Portland. ⁓ Liv Fox: okay. I in ⁓ Squam, Washington for three years before the whole dairy shape thing. ⁓ I myself because I would have had access to a lot of dairy genetics that I no longer have access to. But hindsight's always 20-20. Lydia: ⁓ Good luck. Rachel Hester: I really want a Homestead Festival to hire me to come speak so that Liv and I can road trip it out there and just some sheep accidentally slip on banana peels and end up in the back of our rental car because we clearly wouldn't drive that distance to a Homestead Festival but so far I haven't had any takers on that yet. Lydia: Thanks Rachel Hester: Actually, I have good friend in Spokane too. She wants me to come visit. and be like, I am Yes, Cora. Yeah, Lydia: Cora, right? So I'm actually gonna go see her tomorrow. meet her. I feel like I met a whole bunch of people all of a sudden too with just Instagram and it was so small. Like I didn't know anybody and it was pretty much, I don't know, I feel like I'm under a rock a little bit up here, but all of a sudden it just seems like there's a bunch of people that are interested and excited about dairy sheep. So it's pretty fun. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: just seeing like the avalanche of snowballs the Dairy Sheep movement has become in America. I'm like, okay, I don't actually mind that I was on the front end of all of this because it sure is good for book sales Lydia: still people that are. Liv Fox: So how many, sheep do you have? Lydia: So I have about, let's see, 30 adults and I think we had about 30 babies this year too. Liv Fox: milk all of those or are you machine milking? Lydia: I am ⁓ milking everybody and I am milking eight right now. I like to keep it to around 10 milkers. That's about right for me. ⁓ I did have a machine milker for a while. ⁓ I forget what the brand was, but it was a vacuum pump that we had in dairy barn. have an old old dairy barn we were using at our in-laws and it was it worked well for the sheep but I just felt I didn't love cleaning all the equipment. It was just so much work to clean all of the equipment and so much time. I just decided it's a lot easier to milk by hand if you're only doing up to 10 you know. So and then being off-grid now to Liv Fox: Okay. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Lydia: That was not initially a thing. Now we're off grid and it would be really hard to figure out how to set up a vacuum system. just haven't, yeah, messed with it. Liv Fox: Okay, that makes sense. What breeds are you primarily working with? Rachel Hester: Yeah. And what breed do you have? Lydia: So I have East Frisian crosses. So I have Redoux arcot, fin, border lester, and East Frisian all mixed in there. it's quite a, it's a, it's a interesting thing because I'm not really breeding as much for like milk production, but more for utter confirmation. So all of those breeds kind of bring something different to the table and then wool quality too. I really, really love to. play around with the wolf. So that's where the fin sheep kind of come in. I love the fin sheep for that. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Can you break down what each of those breeds bring with your utter confirmation? Lydia: within every breed, is nice udder conformation. So it's not as a breed thing, it's more of just the luck of the draw kind of within the breeds. So ⁓ fin sheep of course are going to have smaller udders. ⁓ So I have found that breeding the fin crossing them with the East Friesian, if you have happen to have East Friesians that are their udders are just Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Lydia: astronomical and hanging down way too long below the hawk, crossing them with the fin really starts to bring back that nice tight, ⁓ well attached, udder structure. So there's that. The reason I bred the border lester in was more for grass hardiness on pasture because we're primarily pasture here. I just don't want to have to feed a lot of grain. Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. Lydia: ⁓ if I can, it's expensive to ship it in where I live here. ⁓ So the border lester, they just keep weight on like crazy, like they eat nothing and they're just fat all the time. So ⁓ I love them for that. ⁓ So I bred in the border lester for that. And then the Redue arcot are just incredibly prolific. They're also one that performs really well on a more grass based. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Lydia: system and they keep weight on and they're long-bodied so they carry their lambs really well and they're strong, ⁓ muscular, so I really love them for that as well. And then of course the East Frisian is just the rock star of the milk production, but from what I've seen, so I've had a lot of East Frisians ⁓ over the years, probably I had this opportunity once where I was given like 40 of them to kind of care for and sell. Rachel Hester: Pardon us while we're drooling. You were given 40 East Frasians. Lydia: from a dairy and most of them had udders that I would never I Liv Fox: the hardship. Rachel Hester: Right, right, or live there like thou shalt not lust after thy neighbor's blessing. Liv Fox: You Lydia: ⁓ it so it was amazing, but it was also like it gave me really good ⁓ context for what I don't want ⁓ Because a lot of dairies have bread just for milk production ⁓ you know nothing on I don't want to badmouth anybody because everybody's just trying to survive ⁓ do the best they can ⁓ But it just gave me a good idea of like ⁓ gosh Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Right, right. Lydia: This is not something I would ever want to hand milk. This is way taking way too much time. It hurts like. actually ended up selling all of those for her. they had a goat and decided they didn't want to do the sheep dairy side. ⁓ They had bought a bunch of sheep and ⁓ didn't work out. Liv Fox: Okay. on average, much do the sheep that you're milking produce a day? Lydia: So my sheep will go will do between half a gallon and three quarters of a gallon a day when I'm milking twice a day, kind of average over the entire year. So we're usually milking from ⁓ February to July and I start to dry them up in July, but their production definitely slows down in July as things are more dry don't know if it's as much nutritional where it's drying up and they're not getting all that green flush grass or if it's more just Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: ⁓ Lydia: you know, genetics where they're not going to produce longer than that. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: That's a really good production because I get about six months with my crosses I'm averaging a quart to a liter per day depending on the you and her age East Phrygian genes in my flock nothing probably compared the East Phrygian genetics you have in your Lydia: Well, I'm I'm not ⁓ I know there's some really great East region genetics over on the East coast. Like I've been kind of jealous of those actually, because I feel like a of what we have here is kind of inbred even ⁓ also, but ⁓ there's a people that are bringing down genetics from Canada, because we're not too far from Canada, so that helps for sure. Liv Fox: Yeah Rachel Hester: OK. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Yeah. Liv Fox: You said you like to play with the wool and that's one of the reasons why you added the fin sheep to the cross in your mix. So what all do you do with your fleeces when the sheep are shorn? Lydia: So one of the main things that I'm doing right now is ⁓ felting it into rugs. That's kind of like my main exciting thing that I'm doing right now. ⁓ But I can also like I've made dryer balls and made yarn just for fun, like just kind of messing around with it, figuring it out. ⁓ But the fin has really such nice wool for that. Rachel Hester: Mm hmm. Mm Liv Fox: Okay. Mm-hmm. So when you say you're making rugs, are you like felting the whole fleece as a rug or are you use, I know folks that do like the raw fleece and they like peg loom it into a rug. Lydia: with the rugs, I just found this new way to... It's called a no-kill sheepskin rug. and you take already carded wool and you lay it down in different directions. You take your raw fleece, like your whole raw fleece if you have one, or can piece together multiple fleeces, and you lay it out on top of that and just water it. There's a certain way that you can roll it up a broom handle and a plastic bag and Liv Fox: Okay. Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Liv Fox: Okay. Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Liv Fox: Okay. Lydia: some non-slip mat stuff and you just like roll it like a rolling pin and it's a lot of hard work. But it, I don't know, it takes maybe 30 minutes. It's not horrible. And then there's the box. You wash it after that. So you use the raw fleece and then you, ⁓ it's kind of dirty still. So you soak it a few times after that to clean it really well and then you're done. So. Liv Fox: Okay. Rachel Hester: ⁓ wow. Liv Fox: Okay. Lydia: It's fun. It's really fun. Liv Fox: Okay. That sounds kind of fun. I don't know when I would find the time to do it, but my mom, my mom has recently got, dove into the fiber world and she has taken up spinning. And I'm over here like, you got to start spinning faster, mom, because I've got last year's fleeces still and I'm going to have this year's fleeces in about six weeks. So you get to spin in lady. Cause she doesn't want to do anything with it. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Lydia: may it. Rachel Hester: Yeah Lydia: See ya. Liv Fox: She just wants to spin it so I could see she would like doing something like that too. So I'll have to tell her to listen to this episode. Lydia: So proud! What kind of shape do you have? Liv Fox: So I have predominantly high percentage East Frisian and then I purchased a 50 % Zwerbles Ram a few years ago. So he's Zwerbles and then like East Frisian Lacone Cross. His DM had like a really nice utter attachment in production. And actually this year is the first year I'll be milking his daughter. So I'm anxiously awaiting for that. Lydia: Bye. Liv Fox: I don't have anybody ⁓ to for live cover breedings until early I had six ewes laparoscopically artificially incriminated with pure bred East region semen and those ones are due the end of April. ⁓ Lydia: ⁓ wow. ⁓ that's exciting. Liv Fox: I have all dairy sheep now besides Darla. Darla the one that's ⁓ a Suffolk Hemp Shire Cross, but she adores my daughter. So she probably will live out the remainder of her days on this farm, but everybody else are dairies. Lydia: Nice. That's awesome. Rachel Hester: Why is it the ones that like love your kids the most are the ones that have like, like no dairy percentage, the ones are really, really good high percentage, like they'll give you milk, but they're like, don't talk to me. Liv Fox: Yeah. She actually has a fantastic udder attachment and pretty good teat placement considering she's a meat breed, which is why I have retained all of her daughters on the farm. But yes, otherwise at this point, because there are days that she also really ticks me off because she's the flock queen. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Yeah. Liv Fox: And if, you know, if she's like, you, want to do something to me and she like, you know, gets everybody stirred up and I'm like, Darla, I will put you in the freezer. But then Journey's like, Darla. And she comes right up to the fence and I'm like, that's the only thing that saves you right there is that, that bond between you two. Rachel Hester: Hehehehehe Lydia: I love the name too. I just love naming them like people names. It's so funny. Darla. Liv Fox: Yep, Darla Jean. She's got a middle name when she's being naughty. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Yeah. Lydia: Yes. Liv Fox: Are they old enough to help with the dairy sheep or are they still younger and not super involved yet or what's that like? Lydia: So, yeah, so my 10 month old, he loves the sheep. Can't really do much with him yet, but ⁓ he loves them. The other day we had someone come up to actually ⁓ some lambs and ⁓ daughter was holding him in the pen with ⁓ lambs ⁓ set him down and I was not paying attention, ⁓ even thinking about it. I left the pen, he was still in there with... Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Lydia: all the lambs and I'm talking to these buyers and just chatting away and ⁓ the guy that was there actually, snapped a picture of ⁓ Charlie in the pen with the lambs just ⁓ having a great, fantastic time standing on one of the feed tubs and just petting at them and ⁓ in his nammies, the sheep pen. So ⁓ he sent me that picture later and was like, thank God I'm a country boy. Rachel Hester: Exactly. Lydia: Yeah, he's pretty chill. Very chill. ⁓ Marilyn is eight, eight going on nine. And she's actually been, ⁓ she's been a lifesaver, you know. When I was pregnant last year, we had a horrible, horrible snowstorm and I had pneumonia for like a month. And I was how long? I think I was eight months pregnant. I was really close. No, maybe seven, seven months. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: ⁓ Liv Fox: ⁓ no. Lydia: and of course you've got all the sheep start lambing, ⁓ during that time. So there's like lambs popping out all over the place. My oxygen levels, like 87, and I'm trying to trudge out there to take care of these, all these crazy sheep. And, ⁓ Marilyn actually, I think at that point, she really started taking some major responsibility in the barn. Like she was like, don't worry, mom, I've got this. And she's like, Rachel Hester: ⁓ naturally. Lydia: taking care of the births, like attending all the births and getting up at four in the morning to go check on everybody and late at night taking her little land by herself. It's like, I don't know, quarter of a mile to the greenhouse where the sheep are and she'd go out there and take care of everybody. so, I just, yeah, I don't know what I'd do without her. She's amazing. And now she's milking. She's really taken to that. She loves to milk them. Rachel Hester: ⁓ Wow. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Okay. Lydia: I'm great with that. like, you take it away, girl. I've, yeah, not that I don't love it. It's OK. But. ⁓ Liv Fox: You Rachel Hester: Yeah Liv Fox: No, but it's nice to have a break sometimes. It really is. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lydia: It really is. I'm grateful. Sheep are just so wonderful for that because I don't have to worry. They're not going to step on her or pick her or do something that is going to really harm her. So I love that. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. I feel the same way. That's part of the reason why I chose sheep as a dairy animal versus a cow. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because even when they get ornery, you know, because Nat right now, we're lambing. And so he just loves, you know, when they're wet and goopy and slippery and snuggly and don't really move. So he can basically hold them like a cat and drag them all over the lambing jug. Like, that's his jam right now. Once they actually start, like, frolicking and being all cute and bouncy, he has no use for them because he can't boss them around. Right. And so he was in there and one of. Right. Right. Liv Fox: Right, because he can't catch up. Rachel Hester: because we have a very healthy crop of lambs this year, thank God. ⁓ But there's this one you and she was telling him to back off and stomping at him and he just walks right after he's like, you don't mean it and grabs her by the face and hugs her and then goes for the lamb. And she just looks at me and looks at him and sneezes and just like control your young, like what is this? And I'm like, you know what? She's my Her Queen's daughter. Like she's the heir apparent and she is such a brat. I'm like, know what? Giselle serves you right. Okay. Like we will kill you with kindness if nothing else. So if you're milking about 10 sheep and you're getting half a gallon per you, ⁓ So are you freezing a lot of the milk for winter consumption or are you cheese making or how do you manage the glut and then the dearth? Lydia: Yeah, okay. So as you know, we are off grid up here, so I don't have freezer space, unfortunately. We're actually on the fifth wheel currently, still waiting to build. So my freezer is very tiny. So the way that I am managing this, right now I'm doing the milk sharing. So I'm not, I'm only milking once a day, if I want to even. At this point, I'm not even milking once a day. It's... Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Lydia: kind of just when I feel like it. And the rest of the time, I am just letting the lambs back with their mamas. So that's allowed me a lot of flexibility there. But I will freeze a couple of gallons at a time and then make soap with it right away. So soap, of course, has a really long shelf life. ⁓ So that has worked really well for me. It's something I can do ⁓ now where I'm not in the best setup for Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Liv Fox: Hmm. Lydia: All the homesteading wonderful things that I want to do like the cheese making or having a cheese cave or you know all of that. I'll make soft cheese. I'll make chev and ice cream occasionally and yogurt and that kind of thing just for us. But primarily it's all going into the soap and then I'm selling that soap. Rachel Hester: Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, so the Sheet Milk Soaps sells. I I haven't made it in a while just because it's not been feasible with my life going on right now. But I will still get messages from people going, when are you going to have that back in stock? And I just pumped them to the other dairy shoppers. And I'm like, they've got it right now. Don't hold your breath. It'll happen when it happens. I need to make some for myself because I have like one bar of my Sheet Milk shampoo left. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: Someone who's a wonderful person gave me a whole bunch of goat milk shampoo and I'm like, my scalp is just like, it's not the same. It's just not the same. Liv Fox: It's not. Lydia: it is I I understand ⁓ this happened to me like last year I ran out of sheet milk soap I didn't make any soap ⁓ when I was trying to get pregnant and pregnant because I was just worried about all of the you know even essential oil where you have to be so careful about what you're putting on your body so I just said I'm just gonna not do it ⁓ for a while and I ran out and I was given some goat milk soap also and my husband was like Rachel Hester: Yeah. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Lydia: When are you going to make soap again? This is just not. And I don't know what it is. I think the sheet milk has so much sugar in it. It's so much like, and sugar makes soap lather really well. ⁓ I don't know if you know, you can add sugar, like actual table sugar to make it, to make soap lather more. And so I've kind of wondered, is it because the sheet milk Rachel Hester: ⁓ interesting. Lydia: has more sugar in it, that it lathers so well, it's so different from goat milk, I don't know. Rachel Hester: Well, sheep milk actually has the lowest amount of lactose. Yeah, I think it's the fat, because it has like two to three times the amount of fat. It has the least amount of lactose. I think that's the only form of sugar in sheep milk. I need to go back and look at my notes. yeah, it's human breast milk, camel milk, and then sheep milk in order of the amounts of lactose. And then goat milk and cow milk actually has the highest amount, I think. ⁓ Liv Fox: Yeah, maybe that but I think it's also the fat. Lydia: Okay. Rachel Hester: Unless you want to get into like water buffalo and who has time for that? No offense to water buffalo people, but which is funny because She milks taste so sweet, but it doesn't have a whole lot of milk sugar in it but it does have so much fat in it and ⁓ So, I mean I I have a very underactive thyroid like I Used to have to just slather with lotion and use like tons of conditioner and hair treatments Until I started using the sheet milk soap and shampoo Lydia: ⁓ sure. Happy New Year. It is a speed effect. Yeah. Rachel Hester: And I mean, I forgot how frizzy my hair would get and how dry my skin would get. And I've been using this goat milk stuff for probably a month or two now. I mean, Nat's in a magic school bus right now and Miss Frizzle will come on page and I'm like, I understand what's happening right now with you, ma'am. like I said, my husband, the other day, I'm like, I'm going to have to go buy a lotion for like the first time in years. And he's like, I mean, I know it's winter. What's going on? I'm like, I'm out Sheet Milk Soap, I'm using that goat stuff that I won't say her name in case she listens to this. I really don't want her to be offended, but it's just not the same. ⁓ I've ruined myself for ⁓ anything but, the highest of qualities. ⁓ And it kind of seems to what I do. Like I handle acrylic yarn anymore. It has to be 100 % animal fiber. can't do, ⁓ you know, someone offers me a dish with Velveeta cheese in it. just like, I'm fasting right now for ⁓ Lydia: Vietnam. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: a religious holiday that no one has heard about since the first century. And so don't be offended. Liv Fox: Hahaha Lydia: Yes, we are so spoiled. Rachel Hester: on note, of ingredients, so ⁓ how much of your lamb crop are you ⁓ butchering? Like how lamb are you doing mutton or what's the animal consumption look like? Lydia: unfortunately rather poor. ⁓ Lamb is my favorite meat. I ⁓ love it. ⁓ Love love it. ⁓ And have butchered ⁓ maybe two sheep in my 20 years. ⁓ So that's we have not taken advantage of as much as ⁓ I like to. ⁓ The is that both my husband and me ⁓ Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Lydia: are so attached to the sheep and love them so much that even like the ram lambs, we just look at them and we go, I can't do it. So we're really, ⁓ unfortunately, ⁓ kind of faking it there as far as the homesteading goes. We raise them for the milk and the wool, but as far as the meat goes, we're not really like processing them at this point. We'll sell them to other people for meat and sometimes we'll raise them even for other people. ⁓ Rachel Hester: Hmm. you ⁓ Lydia: grass-fed lamb and then they will come and butcher and process that. But we're just kind of softies. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: if you're doing dairy, you slam dunked and you don't need to garden. You don't need to be an herbalist. You don't need to harvest meat because if you're doing dairy, I'm just like, this is like the 400 level homesteading right here. OK, like anyone can can pick a tomato and can it. OK, that's like your Liv Fox: Yeah Lydia: I don't know. Rachel Hester: Freshman level class. Lydia: really appreciate that. I feel so much better. I really do because yeah, it is so hard to do all the things, know, I really do feel like we need community. need ⁓ doing what they love to do and then sharing between ⁓ other because ⁓ man, you just can't do it all. It's just so much and it's exciting. Yeah. ⁓ Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: No. No, you can't. Liv Fox: There's not enough hours in the day. Rachel Hester: I haven't had a vegetable garden since we got sheep, which, I mean, and I come from like multi-generational gardeners. So the fact that I don't have this blossoming garden of Eden somewhere on my eight and a half acres just has all my relations scratching their heads. But it's like, I'm keeping sheep alive and making my own clothes it's okay. There are so many Amish and Mennonites around here that have. Lydia: It's the Rachel Hester: farm stands and they can like you said it's community and I hate canning Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Lydia: Yes. Support them. Absolutely. Oh, I know. Yeah, I have done quite a bit of canning too, and it's kind of one of those things. It's fun sometimes, but it is so much work. And yeah, you just can't do it all. That's just the bottom line. It's just, yeah, and the garden too. I try to grow a garden most of the time, but. Rachel Hester: Yes. Lydia: I'm just disappointed with it because one way or another the sheep end up figuring out how to get in there or the deer, like we have a terrible deer problem. They're always eating at it. So I feel like I put in a lot of effort for not getting much out a lot of times. I don't know. Rachel Hester: it is what a lot of us think at this point, what we ought to be doing if we want to call ourselves homesteaders. ⁓ I think I think of us have been in this long enough where we're ordinary enough. We're just like, you don't you don't have to do the homestead aesthetic. mean, like the farmhouse decor was a thing 10 years ago when we first started with our farmhouse. And I was like. Where did this farmhouse decor moniker come from? Because the only farmhouse that looks that decor way are in Hobby Lobby or retirees or not farmers. Like actual farmers don't decorate like that. So did we come up with this, farmhouse decor, because farmhouse decor is you have put all of your hay in your carport so your car can't fit there anymore because you didn't ⁓ the weather with the last six hours and a freak thunderstorm came up and you need to salvage the $800 worth of hay you just bought. So into the carport it goes ⁓ now you have barn litter in your kitchen because you don't have an entryway. You tracked it all into your house. Not that that is based off a true story at all, but. Lydia: Yes. Rachel Hester: That's my farmhouse decor in my mind. Liv Fox: Hahaha Lydia: my gosh, that is so true. And why white? Like why do we have to paint all the cabinets and everything is white? Your couch is even, like when I see a white couch, I just, just giggle. It's like, yeah, no, never, never in a million years. Rachel Hester: Yeah, yeah, it's to show the fly guts when you kill have your fly plague come in in August. That's that's what the white walls are for. have about 30 sheep, their cross breeds, you you have a really good milk harvest, you're predominantly making soap. You're not eating the meat because dairy sheep amazing. that's totally fine. So are you, do you kind of have like your breeding rams set or are you bringing in new genetics consistently or how are you doing that? Lydia: So that is trick. ⁓ man, that is so hard because ⁓ finally get something that you love. You you've got your genetics just what you need and then it's like, ⁓ I have to get some new genetics what I will do is and this might be a little controversial, but I will do some line breeding. I will breed back a father to a generation or maybe two of daughters. And I have not had any issues so far with that. I've had pretty good success. So I will carry a ram for two or maybe three years, and then I will get something brand new. I'll take a chance and get something brand new and just hope that his ewes turn out the way that I want. And then sometimes I will also keep one of his rams, one of his progeny, and breed it to everybody that's unrelated to him. Rachel Hester: Mm-hmm. Lydia: That has ⁓ helped a lot too. Rachel Hester: Gotcha. so the number one question I get all the time is parasites. So I mean, you're in a drastically different part of the world than I am. health challenges and the flock, how do you manage that? specifically parasites, how do you those? Lydia: has an evolving situation sure for me. ⁓ I started out very much ⁓ conventional ⁓ and I'm just kind I feel like I'm still just kind of dabbling in the more holistic ⁓ ways of doing things. It's not that I'm really super familiar with, I'm, ⁓ you know, ⁓ that's something that really trying learn and trying to get better. Rachel Hester: you Lydia: but for the most part, ⁓ genetics. So early on I was taking ⁓ samples. I had a microscope and I was taking frequent ⁓ samples and seeing which sheep tended to have more of a parasite load and which didn't. And then I would call those ones that were ⁓ struggling more with their parasite loads. Rachel Hester: Okay. Okay. Lydia: had a lot of purebreds at that time. I was doing the purebred fins and purebred border lusters ⁓ and high percentage yeast frusions. ⁓ And always found that my really nice ones that I loved ⁓ that purebred tended to be a little bit more wormy and they were struggling. So yeah, so there was a little bit of breeding that went into parasite resistance. ⁓ And then here, Rachel Hester: Okay. Yes. Lydia: We are mostly grass-based, so we're doing the rotational grazing where the sheep were not having access to... They were not getting reinfected with the parasites because we're moving them not daily, maybe every three days or so. And that helps a lot also. And then let's see, I've tried like the natural, the tinctures, and those have worked for me. Rachel Hester: Okay. Yeah. ⁓ Lydia: ⁓ But you do have to keep up on it. It's something that you have to use frequently and I struggle with the hets with like being really consistent. I have really just gone to a safeguard or ivermect twice a year. I can ⁓ deworm right before breeding and then again after they lamb ⁓ with something like safeguard. So yeah, that's what I'm doing at this point. Rachel Hester: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Lydia: I've heard something about using lye in their water, which I'm really curious to find out about that if that really works. Liv Fox: Mm-hmm. Rachel Hester: ⁓ Yeah, I soak their feed in a lie solution, ⁓ which absolutely freaks and terrifies and angers many people on any social media that I discuss this on. And that's OK, because apparently that's my calling in the life is to irritate other people. But I do like it. What I what I have learned is that it doesn't seem to address coccidia, which is a big issue. Liv Fox: Well, you do it in their feed. Lydia: I like it! Rachel Hester: ⁓ in our area. And then anytime you administer any kind of warming, anything, ⁓ it temporarily shuts off a sheep's ability to produce B12. And so ⁓ people that I know, ⁓ a farm in Florida that was giving the lye solution. ⁓ Lydia: ⁓ yes. Yeah. ⁓ I to speak. Rachel Hester: and it was taking care of the parasites mostly, but then their sheep were collapsing because they didn't have enough B12. And so they have to figure that out. So I think you don't, I don't think you notice it as much if the sheep are on green pasture because they're getting the B vitamins and all the chlorophyll from the grass. But a local shepherd here in Kentucky, he always puts tobacco leaf in the lye solution, nicotinic acid is a very odd substance that I've started looking into just with long COVID and whatever. ⁓ And ⁓ something with nicotine and tobacco offsets B vitamin deficiency that the can produce. So ⁓ I may not have a vegetable garden, I am strongly considering growing some tobacco just to see. ⁓ if I put some tobacco with a lye solution. And then I'll just need to get a corn cob pipe just for the aesthetics of it and really terrify all of my civilized relations because that's just how I roll. Lydia: Thank That is so cool though. How neat that there's I mean there's options out there Rachel Hester: and with for us at least, there is no silver bullet, I don't feel like with the parasites, you are, unless you're moving your sheep's pasture twice a day, letting that paddock rest for 60 days. ⁓ And ⁓ that pasture is really, really excellent pasture designed for dairy Like one farm in New York who used to do that and they've retired out of dairy sheep, so they're not doing it anymore. And they didn't have to use any other parasite management besides that. But I mean, realistically, I can't move my paddocks twice a day or let it rest for 60 days. And I've tried reseeding my pastures on my old soil, said that money just went down the drain. we the best we can and try to keep our sheep Lydia: That's not enough. Rachel Hester: alive. That's just how it is.