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| Flooded pastures could force Michigan farmer to sell sheep |
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By SHELLY STRAUTZ-SPRINGBORN
Michigan Correspondent
WEST OLIVE, Mich. — Last Sunday, Gary Holt donned his waders and headed outside. But the Ottawa County farmer wasn’t going fishing; instead, he was on a mission to round up his 300 head of sheep and herd them to high ground.
Holt’s farm, near West Olive, was in an area of record rainfall in western Michigan, which flooded portions of Allegan, Barry, Kent and Ottawa counties June 6-8, dumping 4-12 inches of rain in a little more than two days.
“I’m not sure how much rain we got,” Holt said. “I emptied my rain gauge twice and it holds five inches.”
As of Sunday morning, Holt said his farm was flooded and the water just kept coming. “Our barns flooded. We had other animals in there that we had to move to other farms,” he said.
Of his 40 acres, he was able to “gather up my sheep and move them to three acres of high ground.” The rest was underwater. At one time, the water was so deep that the only visible pasture boundaries were the tops of the fence posts.
A week later, Holt said the water was receding, but the flooding has dashed his hopes for a good year.
“This is the time of year that I would have been putting the sheep out on pasture,” he said. “I buy most of my feed.”
Before the rains, he had enough hay to get through until the sheep were turned out. Now he’s buying more feed. “I have always depended on the pasture,” he said. “With the breed of sheep I raise, most of my fattening is done on pasture.”
But that won’t be the case this year.
As the water recedes, all Holt is left with is a dirty reminder of the rain. “It’s pure mud,” he said. “The pastures are all black.”
During a normal year, he would raise about 300 head of sheep through the summer, pasturing them from late May until sometime in October. By December, he would sell down his herd to about 100 ewes.
“This year is going to be different,” Holt said. “I have to feed them hay every day. I can’t afford to take that expensive of hay and corn and feed them all year.
“I’ll probably weed them out and sell them as about 50-pound feeders this summer. With sheep, we have a market that hasn’t caught up with the cost of production.”
Even with the challenges, Holt is trying to stay optimistic. “I don’t think I’m going to have any health problems with the sheep, but I don’t know for sure yet,” he said.
As for the flooding, he said, “We’re doing the best we can to wait for the water to recede, and then we’ll see what kind of mess we have to clean up.” |
| 6/18/2008 |
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