MSU Extension MI Ag Ideas to Grow With

Hello, wherever you
are, and I would like to welcome
you to my Ag Ideas to Grow With
virtual conference. My name is Charles
Gould, and I am a bioenergy educator
in the Agriculture and Agribusiness
Institute with Michigan State
University Extension. It's my pleasure
to welcome you to this session, Solar Grazing in
Michigan, Lessons Learned from a
Sheep Producer. This session is
the fourth of four agrivoltaic sessions
this week. Today we'll hear from Cy
Carl. Cy is a Shiawassee County sheep producer
and a partner in J&S Solar Grazing
and Mowing and owner of Cy Carl
Sheep Company LLC. Cy will share his
experience and lessons learned from
and grazing sheep over 330 acres in
two solar projects. I'd like to just
take a minute though, before we turn the
floor over to Cy, to thank the sponsors who are shown on the screen. Due to their generous
support, we can offer this event at no
charge to participants. Now, let's jump into
today's presentation. Well, I guess we'll start with, like, an
introduction. My name's Cy Carl. I'm from Davison,
Michigan, in Genesee County. Okay, sorry
about that. No, that's fine. That's fine. I was born and
raised on a dairy farm. We always
had – Grandpa always had a
flock of sheep. When I was 14, he taught me how to shear sheep. And then I moved on.
I sheared sheep for 25 years and as I was
driving around Michigan and other states I kind
of noticed that you know there was some
solar panels going up and as a sheep shearer
and you know a farmer I put a couple you know
two and two together and thought maybe you
know we could this is something we might be
interested in doing. So I three years
ago I retired from shearing I I was
shearing about 12 ,000 to 15,000 sheep
a year and decided I was going to be
a solar grazer. So that's where
we are today. We've always had anywhere from 180 to 200 ewes. We kind of, when
we got our first contract, I guess
you could say, we obviously had to
purchase some sheep. um but i guess we could
go into kind of what it takes to get on
a solar project the supplies you'll need um
there's a lot of a lot more to it than what
say meets the eye i mean everybody drives
around and sees the fence around there um yeah
the exterior is fenced off so when you go
into graze a solar farm you obviously have
to paddock that off into different paddocks
and that's how you graze these solar
farms that's where the rotational grazing the
grazing comes into it you can't graze it all
at once because sheep will eat the ice cream
and not the cardboard so in the start of
it the the thing that kind of helped me out
a lot was say google earth or maps where
i could get a bird's eye view of the solar
farm and and that's how i figured out how
i wanted to set my paddocks up and the
transformers there's usually two or three
transformers in a paddock all the transformers
have to be gated off so that's another
expense that we didn't really understand
at the beginning was what we you know how
many gates we needed so another thing on
startup is you need 30 40 gates just to do
a 150 acre solar farm so that was a little
bit something that we weren't prepared for
but we made it work and as charles has
showed some of these screens there there was
a watering system that has to be in place as
a good shepherd whether you're at home or whether
you're out grazing solar fresh water is
obviously one of the things that is very
very important so that this is an idea that
somebody made this on marketplace i mean you
can find this stuff every day um very good
investment portable we bring a water truck
in and fill this works great so and if you
notice there's we got a camera on top with a
solar panel powered uh wi -fi camera um keeps
track of the water when i first started we had
about 120 110 gallon tank and we realized
that the grass was so lush there that they
weren't drinking what we thought they were so
we went down to the smaller tank it's a
50 gallon tank and it provided a constant flow
of fresh water um i've talked to a couple
people out and different they sometimes even use
a five gallon bucket that way the water is
always fresh so that was one of the things
that that had to be addressed um on startup
and we went into this with a positive attitude
um the people that you're talking to
you're dealing with the the techs that come
out and check the solar uh rays uh they're in
and out of there you know you're the you're
on site every other day typically to check them
sheep and move fence or start your next
paddock so on and so forth we spent anywhere
from an hour or two every other day at each
site whether that was every day at one site
or however we broke it up um but you gotta
you gotta build your next paddock you gotta
check your sheep um there's a lot of
different you know setting up wool uh net fence
um we started with speaking of net fence we
started with the taller fence and realized
that like a 32 single post works a lot better
when you're pounding posts into ground in
the middle of july so and they there's any
of the solar farms that we've grazed have had
an amplitude of clover and white clover red
clover alfalfa orchard grass just the amount
of feed that is there they don't touch
the fence and in the like if you look at this
screen here the photo on the left that was
after we grazed even then they weren't
pressuring the fence so that that's one of the
things that is a lesson learned that we found
the shorter fence whether than the you
know not the 42 inch tall in that fence the
shorter i think it's 32 30 32 it works a lot
better um yeah the the picture here the screen
on the right that's what it looked that's
what this particular solar farm looked like
before we put sheep in so the the productivity
of the ewe out in the solar farm was
phenomenal um we took ewes and lambs to this
particular to this site and them ewes
never missed it i mean they milk
like no tomorrow them lambs ate
that grass grew phenomenally um
that's part of the the grazing thing is
there's a minimum that depending on your sow
your your service of work but there's a minimum
height that grass needs to be and there's
maximum height so getting that the six
inch minimum generally is pretty common it's
what i've heard all over the state getting
them to just eat it down to six inches
you gotta like normally you'd probably leave
them in there for another week or two
but when when you think you got enough to
get them in there at like at your own place
you would pull them out let that grass
Even though it doesn't look like a golf course,
you know, you can see it's still going
to look a little rough. It looked, once
it's been grazed, it looks like you went
over with a brush hog. It's how I sell
it anyways to the solar companies.
It's not going to look like a fresh
mowed golf course. And they're fine with
that for the most part, as long as
you, that's something you communicate with
your OM, whoever you're writing
your contract with. like in this screen
we came in when the thistles and the
burdocks and the bull Canadian thistles and
the bull thistles we tried to get them
before they flowered and we mowed them down
you don't want to mow them after they
flowered then you're gonna spread the seeds
around so you have to use a shovel or
something to that effect to get them out of
there they don't I haven't been asked to
remove them from the site just as long as
they're not growing anymore is some issues
that i've ran into um charles you go
back to the gates so you this was an
instance i had uh you're going to be dealing
with the techs the guys that come in and check
the solar farm itself they're going to have
to dry you're going to have fencing across
the road we've all seen the roads that
you know go into him this was a gate system
we had going across the road and the tech
that that we had at this particular place
he was perfectly fine with lifting that gate
on the left opening it up driving through
he got moved to a different region the
tech we got after that this was not good
enough for him he didn't want to pick anything
up we had to we had to buy some different
gates plus run some electric, you know,
a wire on the ground and coding to go from
one side of the road to the other side.
So there was some challenges there dealing
with different techs. The first tech was
perfectly great. When he left out of there,
it was like nothing. Everything we
did wasn't quite good enough for this guy. And those are the
people that you have to impress, But those are
the people that are going to their boss
saying, hey, I don't like this grazing. I
don't like the sheep. I don't like driving
through the manure. That's the kind
of stuff you hear from these guys
because they're union electricians.
They're not farmers. They're not
agricultural people. So that was one of
the bigger issues that we had to deal
with on that. So coming from a guy that's
grazed already, that's a lesson
learned. When you get a contract, you find
out who the tech is, you find out who's
providing a service. So as being a
service provider, I wouldn't walk in here
being confrontational, I guess maybe is the
best way to put it. um and generally like
i say the the the problems that i did
have with that tech he addressed them to me i
we fixed them it was it was over after that
but he just wanted something a lot easier
to like he just didn't want to really get out
of his truck for the most part to drive
around the site so that was like i say that
was a an issue that we dealt with a little
bit through the the the grazing process and
it was only at we were grazing two different
sites it was only at one site we had another
tech that hacky took us out to lunch when
we were up there if we ran into him he was a
great guy still still even still get got a
merry christmas from him kind of guy so
you know you get their phone number you talk
to them if something goes wrong they're the
person you're going to be getting in touch
with anyways because they're the ones that
are out there fixing it all the time and you
are on site more than they are they have a
route or whatever that you have they have
to go through before they come back to this
particular site unless it's a problem so if
they if you call them say everything's going
good or he calls you or texts you yep
everything's good you know i was just there today
everything looked good saves him a trip
makes him a happy guy One of the other things
about these solar sites, and we were
a little bit aware of it, but not 100%.
I mean, everybody knows we've got to
have steel-toed boots, got to have no
holes in your jeans, got to have PPE, got to have a hard
hat, safety glasses if you're doing
anything to that extent. You are now
abiding by OSHA regulations, not
just on the farm anymore. So that's
another thing that, you know, you
had to deal with. So when you get
onto these sites, you're going to
pull up to the gate. You are going to, you
have to call a number. There's a number at
every gate that you have to call and check
in. That's another, you know, it's 15, 10
to 15 minutes before you can actually drive
through the gate. You have to do
a safety check. You have to do a
tailgate safety. When you call these
numbers, they ask who you are, what you're
doing, how long are you going to be there, and
it's all recorded, and I'm sure to cover
everybody on both ends. And then you go
through these safety regulations before you
pull into the site. So that was something
that we really didn't plan. You know, if we
planned on being at this site for an hour,
an hour and a half, next thing you know, you're
a half an hour because you have 15 minutes
before you go in. in 15 minutes get out you
got to call them back make sure everything's
fine they ask you about if you had any
near misses or you know incidents or anything to
that effect so there's a lot a lot on their
end the the contract holder you and the the
contract holder that you have to abide by
their internal safety regulations because you
are a vendor working for them so and that's
that's all in that 20 to 30 page contract
that you will that you're required to sign
with them so really make sure you invest you
know read through that we printed it off on
a printer and me and my wife sat down and read
it from front to back just because we wanted
to make sure we knew everything that was
in there and what we had to do and coming
back to the contract um insurance you have to
insure yourself your company your sheep plus
coverage for them um what we did is we
had the power company send us what they
needed for insurance and there's not many
i'm not sure that there's anybody that
you know was grazing utility scale like what
we do so when we took that requirements
to we went to farm bureau um just who
we have our farm with through now and it was
about three weeks before they could actually
write a policy to insure you as the grazer
anybody that's going in with you um the
sheep the panels um right down to you know
now you're traveling with livestock so
there's there's a lot of different things that
that have to go through there through that
them channels when you get that insurance
policy to graze sheep on solar and i wasn't
i figured our normal farm insurance would
cover it and it did it had nothing to do with
off-site grazing now granted we graze sheep
on consumers high lines so we just assumed
that we you know everything was covered but
it wasn't so we learned a lesson there that's
a lesson learned on our on our end and
hopefully somebody else can can can go through
that but once once they came back with it
we had it figured out about you know anywhere
from uh i think it was about 15 ish per
acre for insurance wasn't wasn't outrageous
but you know that's something else that you
would have to figure into your cost of how
you're gonna you know how you approach if
you're approaching a solar company or if
somebody's coming to you wanting you to graze,
don't forget about insurance. That's one of
the bigger things that you have to have, and
it's a requirement to do that and get that
into your grazing cost because, as we know,
we're not doing this for free. Let's not
lose the fact of that, that there is a fee. You
are providing a service. You have to go to
these sites on a daily basis, whether it's
one site to the next. Fuel isn't cheap,
wear and tear on vehicles isn't cheap,
so on and so forth. You're competing
against the lawn mowing companies,
I guess, is the best way to
establish this. And your price per
acre, that's how you figure out how much
you're going to charge, whether you're mob
grazing or year-round. They graze in
Texas year-round. But here in Michigan,
we have an opportunity from about the 10th
of May, middle of May, depending on where
you're at in the state. We took sheep off
solar in Jackson, Michigan, or Albion,
Michigan this year, the 4th of November.
It was the best fall. You know, I
think last year was a good fall grazing,
but this year was a great fall grazing
for us. We kept sheep on site until
the 4th of November. So, getting back to
that, if you graze sheep right now at your home
place, like that's what we did. We grazed
about 110 acres. So, when our sheep
were gone this year, we put up that grazing
pasture into hay. That's what
we are feeding the sheep right now. They're right in the
middle of the lamin. We jumped from 180 ewes last year to about 900. cover some of these
acres that we had and we had more sheep on
hand in case there was more acres coming
available because each say say you take
desiree's a solar company or a management
company that that manages some here in
michigan they have solar sites anywhere from
albion to you know cold water jonesville
mylin adrian so the solar sites are are
spread out all over the the countryside obviously
we see that um but just because you ran
across the solar here 10 miles down the road
it might not be the same owner so that's
that was one thing about that is just because
they're either in in albion where we graze
the solar next door isn't even the same
owner the grazer that we're grazing so
depending on which company you're going to or how
you go through that it's going to depend on
your your safety before you go into the site
um we haven't found there's much difference
but there is difference between them on some
of those like the walkthroughs that we've
been through um as the as a grazer um we
kind of knew that a lot of this solar was was
coming into michigan and was was going to
be a thing regardless so our biggest thing
that we strive on is that they take the
solar company takes this land puts it into
silver nothing i can do about it that farmer
sold or leased his land did whatever he did to
to the solar company but as solar grazers
we one thing we got to be proud of and as
shepherds is we're we're putting this land
back into agriculture production agriculture
whether It's still feeding that ewe and raising
that lamb is still production agriculture.
We're not big grain farmers, totally understand,
but grazing sheep is still part of
production agriculture. So that's what JNS
Solar Raising and Cy Carl Sheep
Company, that's what we strive on, is
trying to promote putting this land
back into agriculture with production
sheep raising. raising sheep production
so if you want to get into solar
grazing it's going to be not really the
easiest thing to do if you don't have some
sheep or have some knowledge of
raising sheep um we purchased some sheep
from out west it was uh it worked but it
didn't work the best so as a sheep
farmer i would not recommend that i
would i would go more south i guess um
and i think if you guys can remember
we had kind of a hot dry summer
that really didn't didn't affect the
sheep in general but if your sheep aren't
used to that it will slow down their
production anyways um and and one
of the things that that rate
that promoting this putting it back
into agriculture and me and charles
have talked about this you
know before is they're not making
any more land if we can do our best to
keep that soil good um the sheep when they've
mowed these solars for three or four
years they've created like a thatch on top
and that's kind of a fire risk we do promote
that a lot is that you know if you've
been mowing the solar for three four years
whatever there's a layer of thatch and if
that's a fire risk and an osha issue um so the
sheep they push that that thatch break it
up and it's basically compound or compost
so that's a another thing that the grazing
sheep on solar why you know that's a
good reason that's why it's good to graze
these sheep out there um some of the some of the
you know that's that's part of the positives
um as far as actually having the sheep
there and dealing with it there was a few
neighbors that that really enjoyed the sheep out
there they brought their grandkids out you
know where they come if you know sheep they're
a little bit curious they come right up
to the fence let the kids pet them you know
that's how this solar grazing is going to
take off um and i and i see it coming here in
the next three to five years uh they're doing
it big time in ohio right now illinois
indiana it's just getting our foot in the door
and that's it took the first year i bid a
contract i i got denied just nobody wanted
any solar grazing they were happy with moment
um but one thing that that there's enough
solar right now that every person that's in
it that's into sheep could take a solar
project and probably not cover them all so
being this so new this being such a new thing
we got to uh we got to keep that positive
outlook on you know we got to do a good job and
that's what i noticed the sheep with the
neighbors i had you know if there was 10
neighbors i had one of them that was not
very pleasant um cut a hole in the fence i had
to fix the fence but he he did one thing
and never messed with it ever the whole
rest of the summer um one question was
hair or wool uh well i sheared sheep for 25
years so i have wool sheep now will we always
have wool sheep i i have no idea i wouldn't
mind some hair sheep um one of the things
that that we do on our farm is we are 60
miles north of detroit largest uh ethnic con
concentration in the state of michigan we've
been uh selling ethnic lambs for 20 years
uh that's generally where all our boy lambs
go so having putting more sheep on solar
helping everything we're feeding more people um
because right now we can't produce enough
lamb for the demand here in michigan and you
know pop getting bigger populations of sheep
whether it be solar grazing or other
shepherds growing their flocks is how we're going
to get the consistency to be able to get
lamb into our local restaurants because
charles will tell you i've i've been to a lot of
steakhouses any chef would love to serve
michigan lamb but it's not consistent he can't
get the same thing every time every time
he orders it And that's where he can get New
Zealand lamb or Australian lamb and get the same
thing every time. So growing the sheep
numbers with solar grazing, growing the
size of the flocks in Michigan, hopefully
will get us through that threshold to be able
to get our lamb into a local market, whether
it be a fancy steakhouse in Detroit or Grand
Rapids or Lansing, wherever. There are
markets for lamb in the state of Michigan in a
restaurant atmosphere. I've seen on there
about predators. We run guard dogs with
our sheep. Our guard dogs are nice as can
be. Never had an issue with the techs with
them. They gave them treats, whatever. Wasn't
a big fan of it, but that's just how it is.
but they were we never had any issue i've
had more issues at our home farm here in davison
michigan than i've had a solar farm and
i think a lot of it's got to do with the
sheep aren't in the same spot very long uh we
were moving every five to seven days so if
the sheep were you know here they were there
you know the next week the next five days
they were there if you kind of study or know
anything about predators they tend to get uh
livestock when they're in the same spot all
the time they can they can actually come up
with a plan of how they're going to get in
there and how they're going to do it but
that's that's what we've learned over the years
just more i guess farm theory than anything
but if you keep them moving that is one of
the bigger things that i think we could run
without guard dogs just because the
sheep move so often that that would be
my thought is that they're they're
they're never in the same spot longer than
five to seven days um i didn't see we
had some questions in the chat there so si
why don't um we've got a small enough group
here um why don't we just have people come
off of of um mute here just raise your hand
use the uh where you've got at the bottom where
it says react just click on that and
and press raise your hand and uh then we'll
call on you um jordan has put a number of
questions in there and she's a sheep producer
from the upper peninsula here and like
her to just raise her hand and we'll get her
on and and then ask you the question just
go we'll go live okay Julie go ahead this
has been super helpful thank you so much we
have been interested in grazing our sheep on
a solar farm down the road. And I had all
these questions because I didn't think that
I should just let them roam around in
there. And I didn't know that people were using
electric fence like we use on our pasture
here. So thank you. This has been super
helpful, but I'm having a heck of a time
figuring out who even owns this array. We
have several around us and And I have
contacted everyone, and no one seems to
know who owns it. Any thoughts? The best advice
I could give you is go to
your township. That's where all the
people are. I did. I totally did. She
gave me this whole, like, breakdown of,
like, it was sold to this person and
this person and this person and call this
number and here's the text number.
And I have called all of those things
and gotten nowhere. Okay. Like I say,
there should be some sort of, in
case of emergency, number on the
fence besides 911. That would be another
one to call. If you can just call and
say, you know, hey, who do I get a hold of about the veg
maintenance? Yeah. You're looking
for the OM guy. Or if you see
anybody ever there, go talk to them. Get their
email. You know, I had a fellow out
of California tell me that, you know, you
got to email him like the guy did in Shawshank
Redemption every week until they give
in. I know. I feel like that's what I've
been doing because I have the number off
the fence. And I'm to the point where I'm
like, OK, am I going to am I putting myself
into like this bad camp or like should I
just keep doing this? Julie, you got to be
persistent. That's that's the thing. That's
what I was going to say. Yeah. Unfortunately,
that's that's the reality here. And
just be persistent and catch somebody, you
know, when they're there. Brooke Watson is a
solar grazer from Illinois, and she is
on. Brooke, I know, Jordan, you'll be
next, but Brooke, can you unmute
yourself and just comment on
Julie's question? Yeah, so I just wanted
to say, and I just dropped that in the
chat, But we found it's really challenging
to convince a solar company that already
has a site built to go back and start solar
grazing it, especially if they already have
the mowing contract in place and it's been
in place for years. sometimes also depending
on the county there they might need an
additional special permit to allow sheep to
graze it because even which doesn't make sense
because even though it was agriculture
at one point it got rezoned for solar and
now you need a special permit to introduce
livestock back on to it and a lot of times they're
so scared of the permitting just going
back to the permitting phase again that they
aren't willing to do the special permit or
dabbles so um i always tell people even though
it's so frustrating and i think that's
how we all kind of get into this is you see
the solar site going in down the road but um
you're gonna have much better luck if you um
find sites when they're still in construction
or even still in the permitting phase
that's really the time to make the relationships
and where you might be able to get ahead
um on uh solar. And then I'll just also do
a shout out real quick. American Solar Grazing
Association is an incredible resource
to continue these conversations. They have
a solar grazing map that you can get put on
with your farm, even if you aren't actively
solar grazing, if you're looking for opportunities.
A lot of developers refer to that map and
will do cold calls when they are looking
for grazers or putting new sites in a
new area that they don't already have a farm
partner in so yep all right thank you brooke
jordan go ahead and uh unmute yourself and
ask the question hi so i have two quick
questions um what are your thoughts on the no
fence which is the it's kind of like invisible
fence for sheep goats sometimes uh they
use it for cattle um versus having a physical
fence uh to create the paddocks like if
you already have the perimeter fence established
by the solar company um would you still
opt for having the physical like electric
netting or do you think you would try a no
fence um with your flock i've never never tried
that um that that's probably an option our
biggest thing here in michigan is coyotes
so i'm using i don't know charles had that
that slide there i've got the biggest solar
charger you can get i'm using that electric
fence also as predator protection um so that
that's just another form of security in our
way in our aspect and the now does does that
invisible fence does that have something
you put on the sheep or how how does that
actually explain that to me yeah so it It
has a Bluetooth-enabled tracker, and it provides
you with the sheep's location, provides
you with information regarding the sheep if,
say, they've been kind of lethargic and not
moving around a lot. Right, okay, yep, yep. Yep, and then it
also provides you on the app, that's where
you would make your pen, if you will, and
then when the sheep get too close to
the barrier, they hear a noise. And
then if they cross the barrier, they get a
shock, which is about half of what a
standard fence throws, according to the
website's description. They didn't have. Okay. Yeah, you would
probably have to put one of them
on every sheep. And like I say,
we're doing, you know, we have,
there might be 400 ewes on a particular site.
so i i that's probably probably would work on
a smaller scale um i i do have a maybe a
project in mind locally here where uh you know
a 10 acre pilot program or something like
that might be great instead of you know packing
up and rolling fence up every now and then
you know for something like that i could see
that definitely we're working on a on a
community scale um like that i would probably
you know if you could if you could pencil
it and make it work that you know compared
to fence i could i could see that
being something very helpful actually okay
and if i can ask one more question about
biosecurity is that okay yeah sure go ahead
so how do you When the sheep are moved from
either your property to the solar farm
or they're moved from the solar farm
back to your property, online I saw that
you should have the sheep standing in a
mixture for probably about half hour, 15
minutes, half hour, and then they should
have their feet completely dry before
running off into your pasture to prevent
things like foot rot. What do you do
regarding biosecurity and what type of
issues have you had? okay uh foot rot's
a good good question i i've seen that a lot
in my shearing days you know um but here's
something you got to think about you're
putting sheep on generally cash crop
or grain farmed land that is probably
say in the last 20 to 40 years
probably never had livestock on it so
we kind of look at them as clean paddocks
not dirty ones do you see what i'm
saying yeah i do that makes sense when it
comes to parasites we're we never we never
had an issue because there was you know maybe
there was some deer on this ground before
they put a fence up but he's like the
meningial worm we never had an issue with that
where if you're dry lot and use at home or
you're you're you know you're you're running
you got a dry year you're running your pastures
down to dirt that would be an issue would
be worms or parasites now now the biosecure
with the foot rot and that i wouldn't take
your flock of sheep and put them with my flock
of sheep do you see what i'm saying yeah
that more is that that more to me as a
shepherd is a bio is a biosecurity issue but but
putting them on the solar ground that has you
know 90 you can say has never had livestock
on it here in michigan it's been cash crop
farmed for generations what i am seeing
so far okay even even here give
you an example the solar farm
in albion that we grazed i think it's
been up and going four years there's
still corn stalks in that field in
that solar array you know what i mean
i am not surprised yeah yeah so that and
And that's another thing that I noticed from
one spot to another was the solar we did
in Gladwin, Michigan. It was sandy ground
down in Albion, heavy, nice top, got clay underneath, but
good topsoil on top. The production of
grass was night and day, you know, and
the solar up north in Gladwin, it was
on farm ground, but it was like an
old hay field or something it wasn't
like production production grain
agriculture the farm in Albion me and a guy
an agronomist guy were talking about it
that ground was probably filled with so much
fertilizer that's why we had red clover
that was up to your waist almost you know
alfalfa and trefoil that was in you
know ridiculous tall and that's
another thing that we've found on
the sites that i've i am where
we're grazing is the the mix that
they put down you know go going back
to the brooks comment here in michigan
they have to meet the pollinator score
so there's a lot of flowers and
stuff to go in there but we have found that
they they back down the array and broadcast
clover right down through it as thick
as they could just to cover up a lot of the
ruts you know these were construction
sites at one point you know we found pallets
we found you know the long beam the drive
beams that there's a lot of a lot of things
that once you graze it you're like man i
didn't see that there so so you gotta take in
take into consideration that these were
construction sites before you're grazing
them that was another thing that was off
the wall to me but all right thank you si
uh danielle danielle is a graduate student
at michigan state university working
on a capstone project and uh she always comes
up with intelligent questions so danielle
you got the floor hi um i you kind of
answered this just a minute ago but i was
just wondering if there's any regional
differences in forage growth or soil type
that would influence grazing success in terms
of how often you rotate the sheep? And then
building off of that, what does that
rotation or time span look like for commercial
-sized solar farms? I would say that,
say, here in Michigan, if you're from
Michigan or whatever, I kind of break it up
by highways. South of 94, you can
probably get on the end of April, first part
of May. You've got i've i've i've seen
some solar down there that's in swamps
but most of it is in agricultural land
so you've got good dirt that's been taken
care of or whatever um you get up by 69
it's a little bit it's a little bit
different than you know you've got
some black dirt up here that There's
one in Shiawassee County that's on
black farm dirt. The one we did
in Gladwin, now you're in sandy soil. So in the spring
flush, that did really good right up until
about the 10th of July. We had five to seven
sheep on that per acre. we covered
that 140 130 acres in about five weeks we
we took it was broken up into like four
different sections four different solar
arrays i guess you'd call them um we call
them gates different gates but so when they
were anywhere from i think the smallest
was nine acres to 45 acres you know
different sizes split up so we grazed that off
in about five weeks we came back in a month
the first of first the middle of august and
was like all right we had a we had a graze
left to graze that again well i came back
and the only thing that grew after that now
we had a dry late dry summer here in michigan
the only thing that grew at that particular
solar farm was queen anne's lace so i
couldn't put my sheep out just with queen anne's
lace to eat so that was a a farm that got
mowed instead of grazed the second time
because there wasn't enough and you probably
could have made the sheep go in there and
eat them eat it but but we're a hybrid company
so it just made more sense to us than instead
of going and checking sheep and moving
sheep all the time to go in there and mow it
in four or five days just as at a business
expense it just made a little more sense
because there you we were going to be moving
them it would have took you know what it
took less less time they're grazing but
the production of the sheep wouldn't have
been as good and we're not here to do that
we're i'd rather keep my sheep at home on my
own good pastures than to force them to eat
cactus the kind of thing so from different
areas to different areas and it all depends
on your rain i mean we have a wet summer
you could be grazing all the time them
sheep could never leave um like back to kind
of like the biosecurity question and the you
know with parasites the site in
Albion had so much lush grass in the
spring that it took us like 75
days to graze that so the first paddock
that we were on we'll call it paddock
number one took us 75 days to get to
paddock number 10 so even as a shepherd
as rotational grazing we could have you know
we were past our 60 day parasite mark we
could have put the sheep right back on we
decided that we were going to take the sheep
off and then put wait about it we waited
about a month the first of september we put
them back on same spot paddock number one
went all the way to 10 and we never had a
worm issue now the only we had a trucking
expense to and from twice but we didn't have to
handle the sheep and worm them and i'm more
of a we'll call it an or not an organic but
if the sheep are doing fine we do eyelids
we do ***** counts if everything's good we're
not going to force a warmer down their
throat so um i seen a question on there about
the price you you were chat gpt's pretty
close i mean if you can get into a company
that's mowing three times a year you can go on
the higher end probably more southern michigan
um if you can get on if you're the middle
of the state or a little bit north you're
going to be a little bit on that that lower
end um to the lady that's sheep farming
in the upper peninsula there is a solar farm
that's being grazed in Pickford Michigan I
don't know if you know anything about that
but I know the fellow that's grazing it so
if you ever want to go check that out I'm sure
you could do that or i can get you in touch
with him you could go check that out actually
uh real quick that would be amazing um
pick pickford's probably two or three hours from
where i am but that would be really cool
yep yep isn't it rudyard and then pickford
it's either rudyard or pickford i think they
call it the kenross solar farm is what
they call it okay i'll look that up i went to
uh lake state college which is up in the sioux
so you have to like go through rudyard yep
yeah like i want to say it's highway 48
you take it all the way to the east and you
drive right by okay thank you so much i'll
look into that yep all right let's get next
next question here he's been very patient okay
yeah this has been interesting thank you um
you might have touched on this but uh i think
i've seen most of those solar farms
have like a perimeter fence in place already
um are you using the electronet fencing just
to subdivide that or are there cases where
you have to rely only on the uh electronet
fencing to keep the sheep in place there uh
we're using the electronet just for subdividing
making our paddocks that's it um everything
that we have have been around i've been
fully enclosed with with locks on everything
okay yeah and one good thing one sorry one
good thing about that exterior fence if
you're running a solar charger you can ground
off that exterior fence because right they're
not going to let you pound a post in this
solar because there are buried cables some
are above ground but they still have buried
cables they're not going to let you pound
a post so that was a kind of a challenge
that we had to work with so you always got
to have your charger next to the next to
a pole or next to something that you
ground to and that's what we found that
worked the best was grounding to the
exterior fence there is we've checked
it there's no low voltage no nothing
on that fence at all all right uh nick is
did that answer your question questions
uh it did i had another quick one if
he's got time um which is just about whether
uh how you load sheep onto a trailer
to move them from one place to another
whether you need to use um like a mobile
handling facility or dogs or whether
you just bring along some panels or
whatever you find works so without showing a
diagram um like i was explaining uh pen one
pen 10 we i lay it out like i say through
google earth and we lay the paddocks out so
that our pen 10 is where we're going to load
out at that's generally at a gate um charles
had a picture up there that's what we used to
load that's what was used to load a semi the
***** the ***** we use a loading ***** um like
i said before you're gonna have about or
i might not have said how many but you're
gonna have a lot of gates at these solar farms
to fence off the transformers anywhere from
8 to 13 gates depending on the size of the
transformer you're gonna have 50 gates at this
place depending on the side okay but but
but you're gonna like we use the i don't know
if you've seen in them pictures them green
gates they hook together you get all your i do
have a dog charles's matter um good border
collie um the guard dog really good yep she
you know so and nothing that you can't you
know if you might have to round up a couple
buddies to hold some gates or something um
we've hauled with livestock trailers we've hauled
with semis i wouldn't necessarily say to
put ewes and lambs on a semi i would maybe
haul all the ewes in a semi and then the lambs
and livestock trailer but depending on how
big or what you're going to do would that's
what i would recommend so si uh selma has a
question and then i'd like you to talk about
your marketing strategy for your lambs if
you would please and um we're we're approaching
the top of the hour here i mean i'm i'm
free to stay on if you want to stay on and
talk more but uh i don't know si what your
schedule is but here's selma's question um it's
regarding pasture when do you do the agreement
with the developer do you need to establish
the pasture or the contractor needs to
establish it before you start grazing well in
our situation um kind of like what brooke
said um we we didn't get in pre-construction
we got on after it had been in production
the solar had been in production for a while
most of your contracts are bidded they're up
for bid in december ish area i would be getting
and i would have a email uh something by
october ish as far as contract wise um if
you can get in prior to construction like charles
has has put on things that that is obviously
the best um how we got in after they'd
mowed it for a while so like i say i was bidding
against a lawn mowing company for the most
part of it and that and and in our aspect
here in michigan let them you know if
you've got one down the road it's been in
production for a while and the contract's
not up until 2027 or 2028 however it is let
them mow it you know and watch them say
okay they mowed it like like say in southern
michigan they might mow two three times
well there's a fee every time they mow
that and if you can come in lower than that
or competitive to that when these million
and billion dollar companies are doing
their bottom line that's gonna matter and
generally we can graze it and be profitable
cheaper than mowing but i really really
want to emphasize that point okay si if i can
just interrupt for a minute because we don't
you know as as uh sheep producers we do not
do this for free never uh never take on the
the grazing of a solar site just because it
gives you extra forage or um you know uh expand
your pasture because they already have
funding their operation and maintenance budget
is already there for um you know vegetation
management so you know let's let's let
our sheep do the do the things that they do
best and get paid for it and one thing i
want to emphasize coming from a farming background of a
retired sheep shear are you know i wanted
to look at it as i wanted to do a lot of
grazing and a little bit of mowing not a
lot of mowing and a little bit of grazing
so so that's kind of you know i'm not going
to say we don't mow anything because when
you get the contract there's still grass
outside of that fence that you have to manage
so that's going to be you're going to
be we didn't touch on this you're going to
be required to mow that per contract so there
is going to be some mowing involved even
though you're still you know you're grazing
your sheep there or you can subcontract
that out i i i mean it's all what you
want to do we do the mowing whether that's
inside or outside the fence because we want
to be a one-stop shop a lot of these power
companies they don't want to have three or
four different bids or contracts if they
can do it all in one um whether that comes
down to spraying the driveways spraying
the the transformers mowing the outside of
the fence mowing from the road to the fence um
so there's there's that too that comes along
with graze and sheep on solar that sometimes
gets overlooked. All right, Cy, take just a couple
of minutes and talk about your
market strategy. How did you,
because at one time I think you told
me you had 1,100 ewes and lambs.
Is that correct? All right, and I know you don't have that now. Right. So what happened?
how did you market the the lambs the
the lambs that that we raise here in in
michigan at our place um i had them use
available this summer because i was ready to
go full bore grazing we we bred them use in
the in july the ones that didn't lamb we
we didn't take them through the winter
the ones that weren't pregnant so we got
rid of about 200 there um what we've got
normally what we would do is we would feed
lambs out in the summer there in the
winter so this year we're right in the
middle of lambing like crazy wise you know
um going to the barn every two hours so this
is something that trying to grow the full
flock because there is more grazing available
this year that we have we have been offered so
instead of purchasing the sheep or or
in that aspect or subcontracting it out to
somebody else we're gonna we're trying to keep
all our own but as charles was saying when
it comes to marketing the sheep um we have
one of the biggest ethnic markets in the
united states at least in the midwest right
here in our own backyard um dealing with them
are are can be a challenge but just remember
that you know you're selling a premium
product that you know has been raised on your
farm been taken care of been properly fed
been had fresh water every day that is a big
selling point if you're trying to market your
lambs off the farm um there's a lot of
options here uh in michigan another one is
united producers in manchester um about 1100
sheep go through that auction every monday
and about seven six five five to 600 every thursday
um a lot of people don't understand that
here in michigan we have a processing
facility in detroit that processes about 500
plus a day lambs for the michigan consumer for
the the midwest the the east coast um lamb
is a a very hot topic right now in the protein
aspect because you know you can go to kroger
and buy it for eight nine dollars a pound
and your 90 10 ground beef is going to cost
you 11 12 dollars a pound so ground lamb
versus ground beef it's it's very it's it it's
very demanding right now um lamb prices right
now are through the roof like cattle i
don't know if anybody pays attention to the
livestock market itself um you know this
time last year you could buy a what
they call a three to five year old short
mouth you out of the west for 175
dollars that you today is probably
going to cost you 350 um so and i just spent
some time in reno at the american sheep
industry conference and was told out there
by the USDA that the demand for lamb was
higher than the amount of lamb produced in the
United States in 2025. That's why we have
imports, because we as sheep people can't
produce enough lamb for the demand in
the United States. So the solar
grazing is a way to promote growth in
the American sheep industry, in the
Michigan Sheep Breeders Association, in any
of the surrounding states that are
participating, you know, your
local sheep breeders association. This is a way to grow
all these aspects in the sheep industry
in the United States, and it's a great
opportunity for every sheep producer out
there. that is willing to, you know, do a
little bit of work for a lot of, you know,
for pay. You're going from a sheep farmer
to a service provider. If you're going
to, you know, if you're going to
do scale, utility scale solar grazing
here in Michigan. I think that's
a perfect place, Cy, to leave
this conversation on a very positive note. want to thank you
for taking your time to share your
experience i've learned some things that
and you and i've had many conversations
uh you know over the last couple of years
and and i learned some new things
tonight so i appreciate that and i'm grateful
for everybody that uh that uh tuned
in and hope that's been a benefit to you
the the things that si shared with you i gotta
get one more thing in um anybody out
there that that's you know talking to charles
or dealing with charles i say this every
i put on a couple presentations here in
michigan usually i'm the one watching the webinar
so this is a little bit different for me
but i just want to i just want to emphasize
uh your extension agent charles i mean i
tell this story every time i i talk about
it but you know three years ago me and
charles rode around in our farm truck talking
about dreams and and here we are we've
been grazing now we're doing seminars charles
i just want to thank you for the time you
spent to come over to my place to drive
around and and and talk to these you know look
at these solar farms and get me right you
know i was riled up when i met you but get
me going in the right direction yeah well
it's my pleasure si this is this is a great
situation that we have here and i think uh
i know we've got some sheep producers on
the call here tonight that are uh looking at
this and i just hope that you uh find a way
to make that happen I think there's
plenty of room. That's another conversation
that Cy and I have had. There's room for
everybody so we can learn from each other
and make the sheep industry here in
Michigan better for it. And like I say, if
anybody wants to reach out, I'm sure Charles
has no problem giving my phone number
or my email out. Don't be afraid.
I spend a few hours in a pickup
every day. So, you know, when
we're running around grazing
in the summer, as Charles will tell
you, you know, if it's something you
really are serious about doing and might
want to check one out, you know, you're
more than welcome to come for a ride
along or something. You know, we can
show you what we're not. We're not hiding
nothing. We're not afraid of nothing.
We can show you what we're doing. Like
Charles says, there's plenty enough for
everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll conclude this
virtual meeting and wish everyone
a great evening. And again, thanks for
coming. And thanks, Cy, for the great
information you shared. And just have a great
rest of your evening. Yeah, you too, Charles.