n THE CARILLON STEINBACH, MAN. C4
n www.thecarillon.com THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 2024
WES KEATING THE CARILLON The guardian dog with Randy checks the driveway for unwanted visitors while Opus, the border collie, has an eye on the flock, as he waits for Mitch to give him the signal to begin herding the sheep.
Seine River Shepherds expands along with the growing market
and Solange, approached him, hav- ing decided to sell to sell their place. Mitch and his wife moved in in April of 2022. Mitch now has increased his flock to 330 ewes and would like to con- tinue expansion to 400. To that end, he has been holding back more ewe lambs and renting more land from the neighbors as Seine River Shep- herds keeps expanding. The flock being pasture-raised this summer numbers approximately 850, including 550 lambs. A 20-acre pasture is divided into a number of five to seven-acre parcels, fenced in with portable electric fences, to uti- lize rotational grazing. The rest of the land is put into hay or seeded to other crops. Seine River Shepherds is located on the long and narrow configura- tion of the traditional Manitoba river lot, which is not the best for mod- ern farming’s large crop production equipment. It is a comfortable set- up for the family-run sheep opera- tion, with the shared-use arrange- ment with a neighbor nearby. Land is rented from their neighbor for hay production, and after four or five years it is turned back to be seeded to crops. The neighbor is a grain farmer who grows cereal crops and oilseeds, and that makes it per- fect. In the paddock, along the drive- way where the flock is grazing, huge guardian dogs are ready to take care of any predators that may manage to elude the electric fence.
by WES KEATING A fter more than 35 years of rais- ing sheep, it may have become time to turn the page for Seine River Shepherds’ Randy Eros. Like most family agricultural enterprises, there comes a time when it becomes a matter of expanding with the next generation taking over, and retiring. Today, under the watchful eye of Mitch Eros, and a number of guard- ian dogs of course, the Ste Anne flock has indeed grown by the hundreds, but the senior Eros hasn’t exactly re- tired. Since his son Mitch decided to be- come a full-time sheep farmer and was able to buy the property right next door, Randy says he has be- come “cheap labour” at Seine River Shepherds. His still busy schedule includes time to pursue his other interests, like publishing and editing Sheep Canada magazine and serving as deputy reeve for the Rural Munic- ipality of Ste Anne. Mitch and his wife Anna, who teaches at a Steinbach elementary school, bought the farm from Rob- ert and Patricia Brisebois in April of 2022. Before that the Eros had been renting everything but the barn for years. Mitch says moving to the yard and the addition of the availability of the barn during lambing season makes it that much more feasible to grow the flock. First-time lambing ewes do so much better when they are separated from the rest of the ewes during lambing season, he ex- plained.
WES KEATING THE CARILLON Randy and Mitch Eros look over the latest issue of Sheep Canada, a magazine edited and published by Randy, which he purchased in July of 2022.
at the farm east of Ste Anne came in the fall of 2021 when the neighbors, who shared a driveway with Randy
the year. Now he devotes his energy to the farm year-round. The opportunity to live and work
Mitch had been working full-time at the farm from April to October and at an off farm job for the rest of
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