What Are Sheep Doing in the Desert?

They come to farmland in Eloy every winter

Sheep from the higher elevations of Northern Arizona are brought down to the agricultural lands of Central Arizona every winter. This is a long-standing seasonal migration—formerly by foot (”trailed”), but now mostly by truck. It is designed to take advantage of the winter alfalfa fields in the lower desert for grazing and lambing. The large flock below was in fields in western Eloy.

Accompanying the sheep are a breed of dog developed by Basque Sheepherders who came from the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France. The dogs are called Great Pyrenees. They stand about two and a half feet tall and can weigh well over 100 pounds. They are guard dogs, not sheep dogs. Their job is to protect the flock from predators.

The cool desert winters are perfect for lambing compared to the cold winters of Northern Arizona. After the harvest, the alfalfa fields provide good quality feed for the sheep.

The lambs are pretty darn cute!

The ranchers use a portable electric fence around the fields that the sheep are in. Once the sheep has grazed most of the alfalfa, they are led to another adjacent field. The electric fence seen in this photo (the red line) is moved to the new field to keep the sheep in that field. The pattern repeats itself while the sheep fatten themselves and the lambs grow.

A tighter crop of the photo above shows a sheep with an alfalfa twig in its mouth. The sheep stopped chewing while it was watching us. I guess it couldn’t chew and watch at the same time.

At some point in late winter, the flocks of sheep are trucked back north to spend their summers.