Sleepy Shepherd Farm

Sleepy Shepherd Farm Tamworth Pigs, Icelandic, Finn and Oxford Sheep, Sebastopol Geese, Armenian Gamprs and Poultry, regnerative grazing following organic principals.

We are a family farm located outside of Lunenburg in Eastern Ontario. We moved from the city to our farm in 2009, seems so long ago. Our farm is made up of pasture. hay fields, forest and a stream cutting across it. We keep 40 acres in it's natural forest and state for wildlife. The other 40 acres are fielda that we use to pasture rotate our herds and flocks. And this year we will be haying accord

ing to Milkweed and Monarch butterfly life cycles to try and do our part for this iconic butterfly. We believe that our animal have the right to enjoy their lives and be happy in their own way so we give to them before they give to us. All of our animals are outdoors with access to shelters or the barn year round. They live in family groups and free range on 40 acres in the summers and eat only appropriate feeds. Our ruminants are pasture fed ( hay in winter). The birds are free-range in the warm month and recieve sprouted and fermented non-GMO or organic grains. We employ Livesrock Guardian Dogs, Gamprs and strong fencing for predator friendly ranching to keep our stock safe. We do not alter animals (dehorning, docking, castrating) and administer no antibiotics unless life-threatening. Our livestock are raised Chemical free.

We have a few spots left for the pork and lamb if anyone is interested DM me
08/17/2026

We have a few spots left for the pork and lamb if anyone is interested DM me

08/12/2026

If you need to watch 20 minutes of me in 28C trying to figure out what and how to catch the bees, then here you go. I'm pretty sure there is, or was 2 queens.

Did they swarm together?
Are they going to stay together?
Did they battle Royale?
Was I suppose to catch one ( in my defence, it did occur to me after a bit that there was 2 queens and maybe I should catch one) but by then they seemed to have settled down into the frames. Maybe?

Why did they swarm after yesterday's hail storm?
Alex checked all the hives on Friday, he said all would be good, no need for me to do any bee stuff

Are these our bees?
Did we have queen cups hatching?
Am I suppose to check on the hive tomorrow? In a week?
Do I put an entrance reducer on it?
Should I move them away from the tree to the bees yard area? (That's only 20 feet away)
Should I be checking the other hives?

Aren't swarms suppose to be the old queen leaving with part of the hive, and leaving behind queen cups and such?
Why are they not marked then?

I'm obviously not the beekeeper just the bee watcher. It is super amazing just being with them. Them doing their thing and just feeling their energy, I had no clue I would like the bees so much. Like I don't want to have to learn anything, but I like suiting up and just hanging out while Alex usually does all the stuff. Without Alex I'm completely clueless when it comes to the bees.

08/12/2026

oops, he was suppose to make sure all was well with the hives before going on a week long canoe trip.

Guess the ladies decided he was wrong.

Now I have to try and catch and set them up. I really should have gotten that EpiPen.

07/25/2026

The excitement of catching a swarm. And they really are so calm it's kinda crazy ( but also makes sence since they don't have a territory to defend). All those bee pictures of bee beard - swarms and they put the queen in the middle and all her daughters climb on. Did not know that.

A good neighbour called us to see if Alex would want to try and catch a swarm on their property.

Couldn't have been a better set up, just 8ft up, on a lilac that was okay to cut the branch.

Queen must have been on the branch that once cut Alex claims it "snapped' but I'm pretty sure he wasn't prepared for the weight of the whole swarm on it.

Anyway the rest of the swarm calmly marched into the NUC box and away we went. ( 2h time lapse)

Honestly couldn't have gone better. And Alex is happy he finally caught his first swarm after 1 yr of trying to find one.

1 step closer to BrotherBeeEmpire

07/10/2026

It was a hot one this week.

Some of our pastures got way to overgrown so I decided to hay part of the front field. I've never hayed this field, it's wet, even 5 days without rain the ground is moist.

As usual Lil and her minion followed me. We've taken free ranging to a new level this year. Incoming Iong explanation; because Ozzy the horse, who we usually pasture with the cows behind the sheep as a clean up crew, had Lyme this winter, then foundered, had/has laminitis and now even grazing with a muzzle he flares up. Can't even be on a round bale of hay from our hay field. So he gets to hang out with his cow family over night and some small squares to snack on. But Lil and Pika need alot more caleries to stay on condition and grow.

So by day Lil and Pika randomly wander around grazing. I'm wondering if I'm going to regret this when Pika enters her dreaded heifer stage. We will see. She is a little s**t already. Chasing the dogs, playing with the geese. ( She really needs a calf buddy but I'm not rich)

Anyway I learnt that cows are either really dumb, I make amazing hay, or cows are insanely lazy. Because rather then graze ( the other 2/3rds of the field is still fresh pasture) Lil AND Pika decided to eat the dry hay, then the round bales rather then graze. I was super not impressed. The rubbing, cute, but pulling out the centers of my crappy soft core bales, that is not okay.

06/18/2026

The Tamworth Gilts ( 1 year old females) and the 2 year old sisters moved our to their summer job, plowing through the smooth bedbstraw that has taken over one of our fields.

It's a win win, the girls get lots of exercise and fun snacks doing what the low, rooting. I don't have to spend hours on the tractor plowing. Then come fall I'll run the disk over it, and then again in the spring. And then we will reseed a bit, adding alfalfa and chickory, but mostly the seed bank in the soil will do the work and establish grasses and clover The sows will have the second part of the field next year.

By turning it over and keeping the field fallow for one season the pigs kill off the annual smooth bedbstraw seeds. It's worked better than the 100's of hours I spent fixing our hay field with the tractor. Unfortunately non of the methods deal with the smooth bedstraw along the fence line. I think ill have to pull that by hand.

Hate that stuff so much.

Anybody have a method of dealing with it along fence lines?

06/18/2026

Icelandic's with lambs and the weaned ewes have been out on pasture for a few weeks now. It's so much nicer seeing them on the grass. Some of the weaned Finn ewes are up there as well and we are way Hong to see how they do recovering just with pasture.

But the shade trailer, love it. Technically Canadian standards of care do not require shade, the sheep would be fine in the tall grass. But it makes me feel better that the sheep have somewhere to go in the sun. Don't get me wrong they do use it, but they will use trees of they are available.

I was not on a honey locust for silvapastures rabbit hole recently.

Now I need to find honey locust.

Side note : I do find the dark Icelandic's are more affected by the +25C days then the lighter coloured ones. I have not noticed the black Finn's having the same reaction with the sun and heat. I wonder if it's the dual coat thing. The Oxfords struggle with the heat the most. Not sure why, maybe their tube like body? They do best with fans on them. On a positive the cool rain is making all the sheep much happier then that oppressive heat with had last week.

06/18/2026

Shhhh
Don't tell the Icelandic people, but the Finn lamb is very similar tasting. I am slowly being won over by the Finn's.

I am also still terrible at photographing food.
We are not fans of ground lamb, so for us I get all the lamb in cuts, and we generally keep all the cuts others never ask for, so tried neck slices today.

New favourite, delicious and tender like shank but in steak form.

combined a few recipes, 100% writing this so I remember.

Set oven at 320
In a Dutch oven, add and salt and pepper the lamb neck slices, then brown on butter
1 onion, 2 carrots chopped, brown
1 big can of tomatoes
1 can of coconut milk
1 TBS Thyme
2 Anise
1 TBS Cinnamon

Cook for 2-3h, lid on

04/29/2026

She is so cute!

Lilith calved on Friday. With the price of beef calves right now, this is not what I wanted ( 9 months ago someone AI her with the wrong semen)

S9 now we have a registrable MSH heifer calf. Of course everyone has decided we're keeping her but can't agree on a name. This year it's a P letter year ( Naming convention in Canada).

Pied Piper was the first suggestion. I feel like we're setting ourselves up for a brutal heifer yearling year. All I need is for her to be breaking out and leading the Icelandic's on a merry chase because that is exactly what would happen. I need a lazy, chill P name.

We will see if by the time she is a yearling the boys will still want to keep her when she's a brat like all the heifers seem to be. Even innocent sweet Lilith was a terror as a yearling.

All this means we're back to milking Lilith, because this tiny thing cannot drink her body weight in milk, which seem to be what Lil is making.

04/29/2026

Even Mut litter of 11 piglets are starting solids and will be weaned in a week or 2. Earlier than usual This group is the first ones to have found the pasture and hay field by the sheep area. I do not need them rooting through all of it just before we start pasturing thank you very much you group of hooligans.

Address

Finch, ON
K0C1R0

Telephone

+16133300272

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