Brenda Hsueh, owner of Black Sheep Farm near Chesley, Ontario, and program coordinator with Farmers for Climate Solutions, presented at the CFGA’s 15th Annual Conference, Roots to Success: The Foundation of Resilient Agriculture in December. Her presentation discussed the evolution of grazing on her property. Here are some highlights from her talk. 
 
In 2009, Black Sheep Farm started as a vegetable Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). When Brenda purchased the property, this was the least capital-intensive way to start earning farm income. However, although she started with vegetables, she knew from the beginning she was destined to have sheep. 
 
She began with a few animals and slowly added to the flock through selective breeding and targeted acquisition. Today, she has a breeding flock of about 40 ewes and grazes between 100 and 120 sheep on rotating pastures.  
 
Her farm is 40 acres, 25 of which can be grazed. She uses another 10 acres at her in-laws to pasture her rams to avoid breeding out of season and with the wrong rams. 
 
Today the focus is on breeding for fibre and meat. She breeds Romney/Gotland/Shetland hybrids with a focus on breeds which are pasture hardy, friendly, good mothers and easy lambers. 
 
She also uses genetics to manage parasite resistance, with support from pasture rotation. Additionally, she says epigenetics is important, saying the rams pass on to the next generation whatever their biology has learned from being on the land.  
 
“It’s very hard to take animals who have only been sort of fed TMR or something and just expect them to all of a sudden understand grass and eat out there really easily.” 
 
Black Sheep Farm continues to evolve as Brenda and her partner experiment with winter bale grazing, ways to add shade and water to paddocks, improving usable fibre, silvopasturing and adapting to new grazing technologies. 

2024 conference recordings   

To hear all of this presentation, you can purchase access to it, and all of the recordings from the 2024 conference proceedings. Note, the recordings are available for free to those who registered for the 2024 conference. For more information, email [email protected].