Ranching in the Sierra Foothills

As anyone who has ever cared for livestock at a commercial scale will tell you, animal husbandry requires a wide range of skills. Ranchers must be animal behaviorists, veterinary technicians, bovine (or ovine, caprine, etc.

As a grazer of sheep, at least from a forage management perspective, I live by the rule, "If the worst might happen, it probably will." A corollary to this rule is that pessimists are often pleasantly surprised.

As you probably know if you've read previous posts on Ranching in the Sierra Foothills, my go-to tool for protecting sheep on our foothill rangeland and irrigated pasture is my livestock guardian dogs.

As I write this post, the first few drops of rain are falling on our part of the Sierra foothills since early October. Here in Auburn, those early autumn rains were enough to green up our annual rangeland; other parts of the foothills and Sacramento Valley weren't so fortunate.

The Camp Fire, which started a week ago today in the foothills northeast of Chico, has devastated the communities of Paradise and Magalia. As of this writing, the fire has consumed nearly 150,000 acres and destroyed more than 10,000 structures.