From the Fields - Al Medvitz

By Al Medvitz, Solano County sheep rancher and vineyard owner 

Pasture conditions are very wet. At this time of year, we’re really waiting for the grasses to grow. They’re not very prolific now, but they are growing a little bit. We’re using a lot of our supplemental feed from our alfalfa stash that we grew last year. Pastures look very promising now with all the rain. In fact, we won’t have enough sheep to keep up with it. If the pastures are good enough, we can then harvest some of that as hay for next year.

The fleece of sheep is rich in lanolin, so it’s water repellent. They don’t get soaking wet. They’re fine in the rain. The major issue when it gets wet like this is the health of their feet. Sheep could get foot rot from the mud. We take the necessary precautions; we trim their feet and run them through a foot bath.

We don’t know what’s going on with prices, as they’ve fallen. We did very well last year on everything. Prices were very good on our lambs, and they stayed that way. We did very well, but we did not increase our flock; we keep it at about 1,600. We heard prices are going up again, but they’ve come down to more historic levels.

We are leasing out the management of our winegrapes to another family. They have established their own brands and have done very well. They make a couple of very nice pinot noir products, a rosé and a bubbly. We’re looking to expand. We’re working on establishing a reservoir because during the dry season, the Sacramento River gets salty, making the water not usable for grapes. We’re going to put in a reservoir so that we can capture water from the river during the winter when it’s not salty and blend it with our groundwater in the summer so that we have a good water supply for the grapes.