For a long time, I tried leader/follower with the sheep and cattle, and it was a disaster. The hardest part was keeping them separated in a row even though they shared a water trough.
I then combined the herds so that I had all the ewes and cows together in one herd, and the rams and bulls in the other herds. This was a lot easier to manage.
I wanted to target the minerals more effectively. Right now, I see the sheep eating the cattle minerals and the cows eating the sheep minerals and I don’t think this is good. I also don’t want cows trampling on lambs.
The new herds will be the rams and the cows, and then the ewes and the bulls. I only really need to keep one bull separated from the cattle. I’m keeping him just in case the bull I bought doesn’t work. I have a steer to keep him company.
I’ll keep the two herds separated by 180 degrees of rotation. That means that if I am on a 14 week rotation through the field, then the herds will be offset by 7 weeks.
In the heat of the summer, I like to give the animals plenty of shade, so I may skip rows that don’t have shade. I also forego twice daily rotations. I just turn the animals out into the row and move them twice a week. This way they can retreat to the shade as often as they’d like. It doesn’t give optimal grazing, but it’s not too bad.
As the weather cools down in October, I can go back to twice daily moves, at least until I run out of grass and have to start rolling out hay. Speaking of which, when I go to roll out the hay, I’ll try to limit the amount of ground that that animals have access to. I don’t want them grazing grass that has just started growing. For the sheep, this is going to be a big challenge. I’ll keep the wire hot and run 3 or 4 wires if needed.