Nanaimo woman extolls the holistic benefits of hobby farming in an increasingly urban society
The shearing of a Nanaimo senior’s sheep was a neighbourhood affair last week, attracting family friends to see their first shearing, a neighbour’s hand to help out and, of course, a professional shearer needed to make it happen.
At its height, the couple had a hundred north country cheviot breeding ewes, but now it’s just four: Beanie, Beanita, BWX and GGW. The sheep are bred for lambs which then are either sold to larger operations or used for mutton. “Your biggest thing is having safe perimeter fences, number one. The next thing us having divided pastures,” she said. “Unfortunately when you’re like me who is no good at fence building it’s pretty difficult because all … lifestock can be difficult on fencing. Especially Beanie’s mother over there, Beanita.”
Along with a cut, she gives each an oral boost of de-wormer, and the young get their ear identification tags, done similarly to a piercing.“The economics of feed production has been really hard hard because the animals eat ‘x’ amount of hay per day or feed and it’s so expensive,” she said.
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