Greg Judy explains his one hot wire sheep training process

Rotating sheep with one polybraid temporary wire opens up a world of opportunities for your farm profit and sheep performance. Sheep are healthier being moved onto fresh pasture.

[@HeyPedroBro]

nice video Greg - I like the mini lecture on the white board. its a valuable addition to the mix.

[@Digger927]

Greg, you forgot to tell folks to be sure to never let your sheep get hungry. No matter how well trained to hot fence, if you over graze a paddock and there is nice forage outside, they'll go right through/over/under electricity to eat. As long as they have good forage they seem to be pretty happy to stay where you want them. I agree on the 8000 volts for sure. I'm still running mine in netting, I have ran them in two wires with no issues but I don't feel like I have enough to gamble on losing over night so I would run them back into a netted in pen at night and let them run in a two wire paddock during the day. Worked fine but a lot of fence to move. Now I set up a big net pen and cut it up with single strands of poly. It focuses the sheep on each small paddock and if I can't get there to net them in of an evening...I know they are safe. I hate moving the net, as soon as I feel like I have numbers to spare, I'm going to single strand for sure. The effect they have on cleaning up pasture for manicured cattle grass is just astonishing. I can have the sheep graze off the brambles, serecia and junk and within two weeks I have grass coming in...it's a beautiful thing.

[@chriso2275]

Good point, we just had this happen to us, kept sheep in behind the hot wire for last 3 months, all of a sudden they got hungry and we didn't realise, boom, straight through the 5 wire polybraid fence!! Now have to sell the lot as the ones that broke free have trained the rest to do it.

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

Never stop rotating them. They will rotate themselves if not moved frequently

[@chriso2275]

@gregjudyregenerativerancher we were moving them every week, with no issues for 3 months. But they were lambing during the dry time here in Australia and the pasture just wasn't giving them enough. Like you said, we should have been moving them more often, it was day 4 when they moved themselves.

[@nickviney4912]

Thanks again Greg. We’ve got our sheep down to one wire and it is a game changer. Saves so much time. Loving your work. NV

[@AndrewGasser]

Oh this is amazing! We have to fence our farm soon. This is so timely - thank you Professor Judy.

[@brandonkrause6401]

I have a tiny solar unit and they are still afraid to death of getting shocked LOL. Now that they are broke it is so easy to contain them with a single wire!

[@tomcurran1538]

I like Greg's culling method.

[@vn3593]

Thank you for your wisdom😊 Would you please turn up your volume a little it would be great!

[@servihomestead4324]

Thanks for sharing the fruit of all your experiments with us!

[@narellewilliams1400]

This is so great, I'm gonna share it on facebook for friends and family to watch.

[@przybyla420]

Well managed sheep, in time, turn forests into parks... They are master landscapers.

[@champherren2159]

Thank you Greg! It really answered some of my questions.

[@rockinghorselivestock2491]

Great information Greg. Thank you.

[@estherkaufman3776]

Thank you Greg.

[@MarkShepard]

thanks again Greg! making progress every day!

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

That is awesome Mark, keep up the good work.

[@winchesterpre64]

you the man!! thanks for teaching us

[@emilmoldovan1789]

Amazing! Fantastic speech

[@kathrynwhite8482]

This is awesome advice. Thank you...I'm going to give it a go. I've got Damara sheep and it should work great. They like to stick together, so I'll definitely be culling the escapees.

[@manny-perez]

Extremely informative video!

[@johnscarboroughregenerativ7240]

This is amazing can’t wait to try this

[@Forester-qs5mf]

Your right re the wire heights. 30 cm or 12 inches is optimal for sheep I find. I strip graze my 250 Dorpers, 2 goats and 1 Llama in Australia using 1 poly braid wire with step in posts every 8-14 meters depending on the slope. Wire must be tight and hot. Moving morning and night without a back fence so they can walk back to water. I think part of the challenge is just getting your head around that it can work when it looks like the sheep could easily jump over it. If they accidentally run into it, you have the wire too high. It needs to be at eye level when they are grazing with heads down low, esp in tall grass, ie 30 cm.

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

You are 100% correct on your comments. Awesome job and thanks for sharing.

[@JRileyStewart]

Do the trained sheep somehow 'train' new additions to the flock (new rams, new ewes, etc), or do you have to train newbies in a separate paddock before releasing them into the trained herd. Didn't see any mention of this situation. Thx!

[@russsherwood5978]

thank ya sir,, i was wondering how ya kept yer sheep in the pasture,, thanks fer the video

[@VisoMoraine]

Greg I hope that ou would make a video on how to handle a cow. You often speak of getting rid of an under performing cow and I’m curious how you do that in pasture where you might have very minimal facilities built without stressing other cows. Thank you and I’m loving your videos and I’ve subscribed and watch regularly.

[@shannonjones6500]

I'm not sure if anyone has asked but, how do you train new lambs? Do you go back to the 3 wire method each lambing?

[@Skashoon]

One question comes to my mind. If I buy new sheep, I’d have to separate them from the trained flock, right? Yours are all birthed from within, but I’m just starting and will buy some ewes and rams to add to the flock.

[@lynncarrington9862]

Thanks for the great information. Obviously your flock trained but what do you do in lambing season? Do you add a wire?

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

We do not add a wire in lambing season. The lambs always come back to the mom if they duck under the wire.

[@seller559]

I can use this. I had cows that didn’t get it and they got gone.

[@NS-pf2zc]

We truly look forward to running sheep! Thank you for explaining so in depth! Question: Do you still run goats inside a 5 wire? Or do you feel that the sheep are just as hard on brush and I can skip the goat headache?

[@arringtonfamilyfarmsllc5841]

I see you comment a lot on other channels Natasha S. Would love for you to post some videos.

[@NS-pf2zc]

@@arringtonfamilyfarmsllc5841 I've considered it, just because I love the exchange of ideas and information and teaching, but I kinda like being private as well, haha. I may one day though. I'd probably write versus post videos, but who knows? I'm curious where else you've seen me. What circles do we share? 🙂

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

Sheep are much easier to fence in and you can build parasite resistance into St Croix, goats are a bit tougher to manage.

[@NS-pf2zc]

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher Having dealt with goats on and off since I was a kid, I totally hoped you'd say that!

[@arringtonfamilyfarmsllc5841]

@@NS-pf2zc Roots and refuge, hollar homestead, Greg Judy, etc..

[@Bartimusblue27]

I have a friend in arcadia fl. Who tried something like this but build his own high volt, "low" amp transformer box (electrical engineering degree) and inadvertently barbecued his 3 escapee rams. He was confused, his wife was mad as hell, and I was laughing so hard I almost pissed myself.

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

That must have been one very hot fencer!!!

[@FarmerBrad]

Does this work for lambs?

[@clint4472]

What percentage of your sheep were culled for boundary violations? Is this still a frequent problem?

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

3 sheep were culled

[@slaveofjesus3878]

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher So, all your baby lambs grow up trained to one strand by staying with the flock? Thanks

[@Joshua_Henderson]

@@slaveofjesus3878 In my experience the lambs automatically pick up whatever level of training their mothers had.

[@MrEzekiel1982]

Hi Greg what would you say is the approximate percentage you cull due to not respecting the wire(s) ?

[@Eric-gi9kg]

Could you use this for goats?

[@prayerangel1]

Is it a good idea, with sheep new to electric and this type of managed grazing, to give them a little room in the paddock at first? I can just see my few sheep getting "bit" by this wire and running like crazy through the opposite side of the fence in a space too small to get away from the "predator".

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

gardener great advice!!!

[@jasoncowan4357]

How do you connect the three wires so they are all hot

[@andreafalconiero9089]

What sort of fence wire spacing do you use when you run the sheep together with the bulls in a flerd?

[@lukeconway3454]

Flerd is my new favourite word thankyou

[@zachnix5151]

I hope to get to Greg's 1, but I am at 2 wires with my flerd. My holstein steers are tall so I put the top one at the highest spot and bottom at 12". I will experiment with 1 wire this winter after the steers are gone. I watched the steers step over 1 low wire this summer when I tried it. The sheep will go under 1 high wire. I can get away with 1 wire on my back fence.

[@andreafalconiero9089]

@@zachnix5151 Thanks for the reply. What you say makes sense -- I didn't think it would likely be possible to contain animals with greatly different heights using a single wire.

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

@@andreafalconiero9089 when their broke well to hot wire you can hold them. The fence needs to be 8000 volts minimum. If you touch it, I promise that you will not touch it again.

[@andreafalconiero9089]

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher So one wire works for you? Do you raise the height a bit, or do you have very _obedient_ cattle? ;-)

[@kylegrandy498]

So should i put a single strand of twelve gauge hi tensile around the perimeter then use polly braid For paddock shift shifts? I'm on 20 acres and have 12 chicken and 2 goats, with 6 more Saint Croix on the way and were planning on expanding. Can you run netting and high tensile on one energizer? Also, if you could recommend something for a property like mine, I would really appreciate it.

[@StevenSmith-sn1xh]

For dwarf goats what do you think about hot wires?

[@flyingpigpreserve8562]

What happens when you have Lambs? Lambs can easily go under that and don't know about the wire.

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

They come back to mom always to nurse.

[@icryostorm3727]

Just to add re posts - sheep are akin to deer and see verticals better than horizontals, no idea why.

[@davidwalters9462]

"...we just ate them..." !!! LOL!!! Mutton? How they taste? I like "older lambs" myself. Love the flavor.

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

Older sheep are much tastier

[@russsherwood5978]

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher have to agree with ya on that one,, most people dont like the taste of older sheep,, say its to gamey fer them but that were the taste is

[@davidwalters9462]

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher Yes!!! Bring back mutton!!!

[@rafah4329]

I wonder, would this also work with goats?

[@earthsskin]

I cant find a charger with voltage listed for 8-10k. Its all measured in joules. Is there a strong sheep charger anyone will recommend?

[@lionbearcat]

This is what I came to ask!!

[@kylegrandy498]

Any luck with this?

[@earthsskin]

Never tried this system. I used second hand netting which not always effective at conveying shocks and was difficult to move

[@kylegrandy498]

Thanks 😁. Still have sheep?

[@earthsskin]

@@kylegrandy498 "naaaaaah"

[@ellenl.5581]

NO1 get a great hat.

[@42660]

Mr.Judy..Have you every tried this with goats?

[@downbntout]

My goats were highly trainable to hot fences, just scared of it as proper, unless they were more stressed about some other factor. Came home and saw neighbor dogs killing a couple, the rest had flown over the fence to save their lives. Brought home a shy little goat who got bullied hard, body slams, and she'd have jumped out if I hadna pulled her out quick. Keep em happy and they'll be fine all year round for decades.

[@rockinghorselivestock2491]

@@downbntout thank you for the information. We would like to try running sheep and cows together with just a few goats in the mix. Do you think the sheep and goats might mix together if we have enough browse for them?

[@paulormsby316]

@@rockinghorselivestock2491 The problem I had with running sheep and goats together was the minerals. Goats need copper and copper kills sheep.

[@andreafalconiero9089]

@@paulormsby316 As I recall, Greg Judy gives free choice minerals (which includes copper), and said in a previous video that it didn't seem to be a problem for his St. Croix sheep. Either that breed isn't affected by the copper or choose not to eat it. With only a mixed mineral block it could certainly be a problem.

[@paulormsby316]

@@andreafalconiero9089 I'm not sure, but I am sure that I lost a lamb to copper toxicity that I kept with my goats. I can only go by my own experience and it didn't end well for that particular lamb. It's always interesting and informative to see that others have a different outcome and to see what I could change or do differently.

[@Kberrysal]

How do you sell your animals at auction can you please do a video on that

[@davidhickenbottom6574]

His livestock rarely goes to auction. Only junk goes to the auction barn.

[@Kberrysal]

@@davidhickenbottom6574 Then what's another way to sell your livestock if you don't want to do people buying individual animals

[@Ptitnain2]

@@Kberrysal There's not many other choices.

[@Brahmdagh]

Anybody here running central Pivot Irrigated Livestock operation?

[@truthseeker5890]

"Mr. Greg," have you ever raised Suffolks? This might work with your sheep and the volume of grass that you have, but even with an 8' tall standing field of corn with 2' tall grass growing between the rows, it would be a problem with Suffolks. This may work with Suffolks along with an onsite Shepherd, essentially walking the fence line and living in a shack with the sheep; that might work but finding such a person would be a bit difficult in today's world. I'm mid-50s and have raised Suffolks since I was ten years old, actually before that. A healthy Suffolk would jump over a 14" wire like it didn't exist; heck, a healthy Suffolk would "step" over it. If a person had a flock of 100 Suffoks and culled on the basis of not respecting the 14" fence, that Suffolk flock would no longer exist after thirty days. The sale barn would certainly take the commissions from the sales but the Suffolk business would be history. Suffolks are magicians.

[@victorleforestier]

why would you raise Suffolk in the first place ?

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

I think I will stick with my hair sheep!! Thise suffolks sound tough to keep in.

[@truthseeker5890]

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher For sheep we run 4 wires with the top wire placed at ~40" or so; it's mainly "Turbo Wire" (you know the brand). We've been using that since at least the early 1990s; over the years, we've certainly purchased at least 100 miles of that wire. When we started using that wire, it was essentially the only thing like it available. Most people wanted to attempt to kill themselves stretching barbed wire. For cattle, we can easily run just one wire, for temporary fences. The sheep require attention but they're quite profitable. I won't mention any numbers in this public forum because the simpletons will lose their minds but it pays well. It's not quite as good as it was in the 1980s but it's still good. We try to sell at least 100 ram lambs and yrlg rams per year, along with some ewe lambs and mature ewes. Most of the rams go to western ranches. You're doing a fabulous job with those cattle. That grass appears to be in fabulous condition. Recently, I've been researching that breed of cattle. At the moment, we're neck-deep in Black Angus, Hereford, and Simmental but I have been researching the South Poll breed. Sometime, if we want to try some of those, we'll contact you. It certainly seems that that's the breed for hot weather. It looks like you're doing a wonderful job though.

[@hanorabrennan8846]

You put most homesteaders to shame with your knowledge and experience. Teach from the field, record it and no need for these time consuming vlogs. Your true nature is dampened here. Can't learn about farming in a classroom. Get it online to save 'time. Love your channel. Just purchased some land so look to you for education.

[@DukMuppets]

what about pigs, im going to go 1 wire 9 inches in a big area. have pigs and goats and sick of herding them.

[@HiddenMeadowFarm]

Why sheep and not goats?

[@andreafalconiero9089]

He said previously that these St. Croix sheep are almost as good at browsing as goats, and are much easier to contain. There's probably also a better market for lamb than goat meat. Aside from the fencing problem, goats would be a good addition to the mix, as they can browse higher than the sheep and would probably eat a few things that even the sheep find inedible.

[@gregjudyregenerativerancher]

@@andreafalconiero9089 be careful, goats and sheep share the same parasite. Goats can train sheep very quickly not to respect hot wire.

[@andreafalconiero9089]

@@gregjudyregenerativerancher Great to know! Thanks for the advice.