Jarboe Sheep Company

Jarboe Sheep Company Hair sheep for the profit minded rancher

05/29/2025

JSC 24240 "Ringo" is as nice as any ram we have raised. He's not perfect, but a long way in the direction of the balanced anmials we are trying to breed.

This isn't a great video overall, but I was trying to capture his rib and width. Not sure the video does justice, but he's nearly as wide as any Ram we have at only 12 months old. A grass converting money maker. His sister also earned her way into the flock.

Random photos. A deer that thought I couldn't see her. A super eerie storm with a single bright cloud, some nice looking...
05/29/2025

Random photos.

A deer that thought I couldn't see her. A super eerie storm with a single bright cloud, some nice looking lambs, and one baby moose (not really...just the goofiest looking lamb I've ever seen).

05/23/2025

It’s hard to slow them down when they get to an alley or gate. Especially with lambs.

05/22/2025

The video we posted last week and the same field about 10 days later. The harder grazing (or higher efficiency) is yielding much more tillering and significantly fewer seed heads than the adjacent field where we had low harvest efficiency.

That's not to say that high or low efficiency doesn't have a place. I think it's all a tool, and regardless of which tool, it will rarely go just how we plan. 😉

05/21/2025

Dogs can be the best and worst part of sheep. "Meat Loaf" (He's a chunk!) is featured on an evening prowl. He's not quite a year old and has always been trustworthy. That's rare even among good dogs.

To some extent, we treat our dog program like the sheep. We like to breed our own replacements and are always trying to narrow down to the optimal flock companion.

05/20/2025

Definitely in full blown animal performance mode right now. We let them get a bit behind over the winter on less than ideal hay, so we are just trying to let them get the max they can out of pasture.

Ideally, they would have come out of winter in excellent condition and we could continue to require them to be less selective. Grazing is constantly about adaptation.

05/20/2025

Controversial take: Yearlings are the easiest to lamb.

That's exagerated, but they really are very easy when they are alone and have enough grass that they don't have to run to a feed trough.

They never rob lambs. One mature ewe that get's wild within 12 hours of lambing can mess up 4 litters in a night. I'd estiamte 50% of my lamb problems are robber moms, 45% are when a lamb walks off while his mother is in labor with the twin, and maybe 5% are just plain bad mothers. Very rough estimates.

I'll take a field full of money making mature ewes every day, but I also don't dread the first timers.

05/16/2025

How many can you count before you fall asleep?
I wish I had a lot more alfalfa, to be honest. It has a very long growing season and doesn't mind the heat too bad.

Most sources will say that you can't graze alfalfa, but we have found that it gets better every year with grazing. We have also learned that grazing it very hard in the winter eliminates weevil problems and the spring with no loss of production (possibly increased).

We aim for a very high effeciency graze (high harvest %), and then return every 35-50 days or so depending on many variable such as weather and animal class that is grazing.

After the concerns of persistence in a grazing environment, the second most popular question is probably about bloat. In the last 3 years, we have logged about 13,000 sheep grazing days on alflafa withouth one incidence of bloat. I wouldn't usually risk a very valubale ram on it (though I did have my best ram on it for about 2 months last year). We let it get a little more on the mature side to increase safety, and it is mixed with orchardgrass.

We use back fences less often all the time. For a few reasons1) It's critical with very young lambs. When the flock move...
05/14/2025

We use back fences less often all the time. For a few reasons
1) It's critical with very young lambs. When the flock moves, they lose their mothers, so they instinctively go back to where they were last (and let move come find them....and she always does)
2) It tramples less forage. When they enter a gate, they always want to walk all the way to one end, and then come back to see what they are missing now at the front. It wastes a LOT of forage (yes, I do believe there is a such a thing as wasted forage)
3) It's just calmer. They don't get as amped up running through the gate.

We can't always avoid a gate or back fence, but we really like it we can.

05/13/2025

Nevermind the unconscious dog. We are trying to balance grazing utilization and high animal performance right now. I'm please with this graze as it oppened up the canopy pretty nicely to allow sun into the open spots so that it can grow back thicker. Animals are content and lambs are doing well. As the growing season continues, we will tighten their densities and require them to graze less and less selectively.

Rams are just about fully shed out.
05/12/2025

Rams are just about fully shed out.

Address

Campbellsburg, KY
40011

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 8pm
Tuesday 8am - 8pm
Wednesday 8am - 8pm
Thursday 8am - 8pm
Friday 8am - 8pm
Saturday 8am - 6pm

Telephone

+12703154447

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Who we are

We are David and Rachael Jarboe (and our 3 children). We are from Western KY where Rachael grew up on a small farm and David was raised on more of a homestead and worked in commercial agricultural most of his life. Our interests in self sufficiency and nutrient dense foods, combined with a history in ag production naturally led to what is now Lone Oak Pastures.

If you are what you eat, then you are what your food eats. Building and maintaining soil health is the principle underlying all of our practices. With healthy soil comes better water infiltration and retention, better nutrient cycling, less nutrient runoff, less erosion, and more nutrient density in plants. When animals eat these nutrient dense foods, it increases the vitamin and mineral content of their meat, and improves their fat composition for higher Omega-3 and CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) content. Additionally, a very good mineral source is not to be over looked.

Finally, we think it is very important that animals be in their natural environment. Sheep like to graze, pigs like to root, and chickens like to scratch and peck. Perhaps most importantly, they like and need sunshine. As mental health is important for physical health, we strive to allow every animal to express their natural behavior for a content life.