Showcasing a Little Part of Ontario Agriculture

Jun 29, 2012

Students from France and Normandy Make a Stop at Erbcroft Farms

Erbcroft Farms located in Perth County near Sebringville Ontario welcomed 35 agriculture students from Normandy and France where they got to learn about raising sheep. The students are touring farms across southwestern Ontario and Erbroft farms was their only stop in the region. The students will be touring more farms in Wellington, Waterloo, and Oxford counties. The tour was organized by Agri-Cultural Tours (ACT) based in Guelph Ontario.

Erbcroft Farms is a family owned operation run by Tim and Luann Erb, where they are proud to raise premium Ontario lamb in a natural free range setting. The Erb’s are accustomed to hosting visitors to their farm and teaching them about their business and often run tours throughout the year in partnership with the Perth County Visitors Association.

“I feel like it’s natural for [visitors] to come to our farm and see firsthand where their food comes from and who produces it” says Luann Erb.

The students not only had a custom tour of the Erb’s farming operation but they also were lucky enough to taste some of their home-grown lamb burgers and sausages that are very popular at local farmers markets. Erbcroft farms may be a small operation, but they make-up for it through their specialization of raising their animals from start to finish in a free-range natural way.

Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.