My Four-Legged Fuel Reduction Strategy
When I took this job as the UC Cooperative Extension Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor for the Central Sierra Multi-County Partnership, I purchased a home on six acres between the Calaveras County communities of Mountain Ranch and Railroad Flat. My home sits at the bottom of a grassy, south-facing slope. The fire scars on my oaks, ponderosa pines, and incense cedars confirm what my new neighbors have told me: the 2015 Butte Fire burned the vegetation but not the house.
Like anyone who lives in the foothills, I take the threat of wildfire seriously. Fortunately, the previous homeowner had done a good job of removing vegetation and flammable materials from within five feet of the house (what my fire colleagues call “Zone 0”). Similarly, the planted and natural vegetation within 30 feet of the house (“Zone 1”) is well-separated to eliminate pathways for fire to get to the house. But the area of my property beyond 30 feet from my home (“Zone 2”) takes annual maintenance. I’m chipping away at cleaning up downed trees, turning much of them into firewood and pile burning what I can’t use in my wood stove.
Beyond the trees (both living and dead), however, I’m most concerned about the shrubs (mainly buckbrush, or wedge-leaf ceanothus) and the fine fuels (a combination of native perennial and introduced annual grasses and broadleaf plants – including yellow starthistle). These surface fuels need annual management to reduce fuel continuity and fire danger. I could mow this vegetation (which seems like a LOT of work, especially on the steeper parts of my property), or I could spray it with herbicides (which seems like a LOT of expense). Instead, I’m opting to use grazing as the cornerstone of my defensible space strategy – I’m turning this fuel into meat and wool by using sheep!
After raising sheep commercially since 2005, I decided to sell most of my sheep when I moved to Calaveras County – keeping two yearling ewes to give my old livestock guardian dog (LGD) something to do in his semi-retirement. Two ewes were not going to keep up with the spring flush of vegetation, so I decided to purchase an additional 12 feeder lambs to graze my property until the grass dries out in late May or early June. Specifically, I bought a dozen Dorper and Dorper-cross lambs (hair sheep that won’t need to be sheared) weighing an average of 72 pounds. This year is an experiment – I suspect that I may need more lambs, but I wanted to start small!
Why feeder lambs? Why not simply build up my breeding flock again? I may consider this option in the future, but for this first year, I wanted to have the flexibility to travel during the summer, fall, and winter months. Since I no longer have access to irrigated pasture (at least for now), I didn’t want to have to purchase hay to feed my sheep during the months when the grass is NOT growing (June through March). Finally, fire danger was part of my thinking here, too – I didn’t want to have to worry about evacuating a trailer load of sheep if we do experience wildfire this year.
Viewed through my agricultural economist’s eyes, here’s how I’m hoping this strategy will pencil out! I paid $2,200 for the 12 lambs; I’m hoping they’ll be worth at least that much when I sell them in 45-60 days. My other costs are minimal – my time moving fence and feeding the livestock guardian dog, dog food for the LGD, mileage to pick them up and mileage to the livestock auction when they are done. My quick, back of the envelope economic analysis suggests that I’ll be able to make my 6 acres fire safe this year at a total cost of less than $100 per acre.
So How’d It Work?!
The 12 feeder lambs I purchased on April 18 weighed an average of 72.5 pounds, for a total purchase price of $2,200. They grazed on 5.5 acres until July 10, when I loaded them for the auction in Escalon (they were on my property for a total of 83 days). On sale day, they weighed 77 pounds each and fetched a price of $2.12 per pound, for a total price of $1,971.60.
I obviously incurred additional expenses, including my own labor (moving fences, driving the truck and trailer, and feeding the livestock guardian dog), transportation (picking them up and hauling them to the sale), and supplemental feed (alfalfa to provide enough protein in their diet to keep them grazing the dry vegetation). On top of the purchase price, I calculated that the sheep cost me $566 to own for 83 days. My total cost per acre treated was just over $144. I had hoped I would at least break even, but this is cheaper than hiring someone with a string trimmer – and the sheep grazed portions of my property that are too steep and/or rocky for a mower.
So what went well? The sheep were healthy throughout the 83 days – I treated one for pneumonia, which was not unexpected given our cool nights and hot days. We experimented with virtual fence collars, which reduced the amount of time I needed to move electric fence (more on this later!). I had no problems with predators, thanks to Bodie, my livestock guardian dog. And the sheep definitely reduced the fuel load – fenceline shots with an abandoned property next door clearly show that my side of the fence is less flammable!
Could this have worked better? Absolutely! As I suspected, I needed more sheep. In retrospect, I also should have started earlier (by the first of April, at the latest). With an earlier start and more sheep, I suspect the lambs will gain more weight – this year, I needed to graze well into the dry season to cover the entire property. I suspect the lambs didn’t gain much in the last 30-45 days, as the nutritional value of the forage declined. Based on this, I plan to purchase 25 feeder lambs (or maybe a combination of lambs and goats) before April 1 next year.
The Bigger Picture
My very personal approach to preparing my little piece of Calaveras County for fire season is part of a larger, statewide acknowledgement of the importance of grazing in managing our fire prone landscapes. Our UC Cooperative Extension Rangeland Management Specialist, Dr. Leslie Roche, and I recently collaborated on developing a strategy for expanding the use of prescribed grazing as part of California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan – click here for a UC Rangelands blog post about our policy brief.
Thinking about this strategically, there are landscapes where we need large targeted grazing flocks (county properties, common areas in homeowner’s associations, infrastructure landscapes, etc.). But we also need to help rural residential landowners understand how to use livestock for fuel reduction. In talking with neighbors whose families have lived in this community for 75-100 years (or more), just about everyone had a handful of goats or sheep at one time to help manage brush encroachment. Perhaps we need to return to that model!
For more information on defensible space, see https://ucanr.edu/statewide-program/ucanr-fire-network/defensible-space.