>>1170854•6-10 sheep per acre
•4 to 4.5 pounds of a medium quality hay (or pasture equivalent; 1460-1642.5lbs per ewe per year) and from .5 to 1.0 pounds per ewe per day of a grain (182.5-365lbs per year per ewe)
•wheat gives you about 37 bushels of grain per acre (2220lbs of grain)
•hay gives you about 3.4 tons of dry hay per acre per cutting, up to 2 cuttings per field max per year for 6.8 tons
1 acre of wheat and 1 acre of hay together can feed 6 ewes (8 max on grain alone and 6 on the hay alone.) If you have open pasture then you could probably have 8 sheep without problems using 3 acres of land. 1 acre for wheat, 1 for hay, 1 for pasture. However, you will want more land than that just to have redundancy and crop/pasture rotation. Personally, I'd feel comfortable with 5 sheep per acre on a 6 plot of land where 3 acres are crops and 3 are pasture with everything being rotated every year (total of 15 sheep on 3 acres of pasture fed with 3 acres of crops). If a crop does poorly or fails, then I'd need to supplement their diet with purchased food.
>Best dog breed to guard the herd?The one specifically bred for the purpose. A sheep herding Border Collie.
Get a local vet to come out and check the animals every so often. Learn how to keep them healthy. Watch out for Wool Maggots/Fly Strike and learn how to help prevent it.
