{"id":446232,"date":"2026-09-24T12:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T12:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/446232\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T12:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T12:44:12","slug":"this-el-paso-county-agriculture-operation-turned-bullish-on-sheep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/446232\/","title":{"rendered":"This El Paso County agriculture operation turned bullish on sheep"},"content":{"rendered":"

BLACK FOREST \u2014 It\u2019s not just that the grass is greener on the other side of Will Vogl\u2019s portable electric fence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Within the rectangular paddock where a few dozen of his hair sheep \u2014 a type bred primarily for meat rather than wool \u2014 have been grazing on half of a homeowner\u2019s small acreage, the animals have already given this slice of high plains pastureland a buzzcut. It\u2019s time to move on to the second course.<\/p>\n

And so Vogl, a 37-year-old fulltime firefighter and steward of the flock, funnels his charges, scampering and bounding, through an opening into the adjacent pasture. Here they\u2019ll spend the next few days chowing down on the taller vegetation, reducing weeds, stirring up the ground and leaving pebble-sized droppings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Repeated over three years or so, the process helps the soil grow healthier. Thicker grasses crowd out the weeds. And thanks to the animals\u2019 affable personalities, residents of these homes Vogl describes as \u201crural suburbia\u201d pay him to provide the aesthetic trappings of the ag life that also allow them to skip the costly rituals of mowing and pesticides.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His agricultural operation, Vogl Homestead Farm<\/a>, aims to rehabilitate properties all around his El Paso County base by restoring healthier soil, improving water retention and mitigating wildfire danger. It\u2019s a small-scale solution, essentially a one-man operation. But it attacks the problem acre by acre with a strategy of rotational grazing, one small part of a regenerative agriculture<\/a> movement gathering momentum in Colorado<\/a> and nationwide.<\/p>\n

In the Cherry Creek Springs development, a collection of 115 parcels of at least 5 acres about 10 minutes east of Monument, Vogl has found an eager clientele among individual homeowners within this rolling landscape on the northern edge of the Black Forest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want the space,\u201d he says of the residents. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to be on top of their neighbors anymore, and they kind of get to a point where they realize they need to do something with the land. But they just don\u2019t know exactly what they want to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vogl offers conservation-minded alternatives. Throughout the summer, he removes the stress of owning and caring for animals while letting residents feel the joy of having them around. A small solar array electrifies the portable fencing he uses to subdivide a property for the most efficient grazing. If necessary, he can provide his own water troughs. He explains how targeted grazing, rather than mowing, improves the land.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Often, he says, it becomes a multiyear process. It can take that long to fully reclaim the soil and push out the weeds. But also, people tend to like having the sheep around.<\/p>\n

Vogl encourages them to interact with the animals, top off their water or feed them some excess produce. So the operation becomes more than a grazing service. It\u2019s an experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a strong belief after doing this for so long and seeing how much people love being around this that we instinctively have a connection to animals like this,\u201d he says. \u201cGrazing animals, that\u2019s the oldest form of agriculture we have, and I think there\u2019s an instinctual part of us that still connects to that a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Occasionally, Vogl finds that after a year or two, a client considers keeping some animals permanently. He might end up selling a homeowner one of his ewes and advising them on splitting their pasture into smaller paddocks for rotational grazing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Hair sheep owned by William Vogl gather in a grazed pasture before being released into an ungrazed pasture on Sept. 9 in the Black Forest area of El Paso County. The breed doesn\u2019t produce wool, but their grazing improves soil health and provides wildfire mitigation. (Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)<\/p>\n

\u201cHow fast can I get him in here?\u201d<\/p>\n

Not far from where Vogl rotates his flock to new territory, Jennifer Cameron tends a 5-acre horse property with about 3.5 acres of pasture. The previous owners, she says, didn\u2019t manage the land well, which means for the past 13 years she\u2019s been fighting weeds and learning to avoid herbicides that never seemed to work anyway.<\/p>\n

This year, Cameron stumbled upon Vogl\u2019s operation through the subdivision\u2019s HOA, which last year had invited the sheep to graze on the open space, which she says now looks better than it ever has. So she thought: Why not? Besides, Vogl\u2019s price to let his sheep loose on her pasture turned out to be less than a single chemical application.<\/p>\n

In a little more than five days they\u2019d grazed her pasture with results she calls \u201cabsolutely incredible.\u201d Additionally, she found that Vogl deftly moved the flock from property to property with minimal disruption to the community\u2019s everyday routine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t hear what I thought we might hear,\u201d Cameron notes, \u201clike neighbors saying they make a lot of noise, or it was inconvenient because his trailer was on the road. Nobody said that \u2014 everybody was like, wow! And our next door neighbor is like, \u2018How fast can I get him in here?\u2019 Everybody loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She particularly enjoyed sitting on her deck just after nightfall with the sheep bleating softly in the distance as they settled in. Grandchildren made trips to the house just to stand and watch. Neighbors showed up in the morning with a cup of coffee to take in the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She noticed only one potential downside.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re working in your yard, you\u2019ll get nothing done because you\u2019ll be so busy watching them,\u201d she laughs. \u201cEspecially if there\u2019s little ones, because they\u2019re hilarious.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Vogl takes the conservation outcomes quite seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can improve the soil by working with nature\u2019s processes,\u201d he explains, \u201cwe can actually long-term push a lot of these weed varieties completely out without using chemicals at all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The connection with Cherry Creek Springs began last year through Vogl\u2019s acquaintance with Norman Habermehl, the caretaker for the HOA\u2019s common interest property. Habermehl was looking for a way to help manage 65 acres of common space, primarily through wildfire mitigation and weed control.<\/p>\n

He reached out to see if Vogl would be interested in paying a nominal fee to graze his sheep on the landscape. It\u2019s close to his home property and provides convenient grazing when they aren\u2019t otherwise deployed. The HOA gained some income. Vogl gained clients when homeowners like Cameron got curious about his sheep.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that\u2019s been quite interesting for us is some of this land that\u2019s been grazed has come back green and lush,\u201d Habermehl says. \u201cIt\u2019s probably just natural aeration from the hooves, and a little manure never hurts anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first year, the manure did trigger some complaints from residents who didn\u2019t like stepping in it along the community\u2019s trails. Modifying the portable fencing to keep the sheep off the trails solved that problem. Habermehl notes that reaction to having Vogl\u2019s flock on the land has been generally positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a great tool for fire mitigation,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I look at what we\u2019ve got grazed down from last year and this year, it\u2019s not much of a problem anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameron figures she\u2019ll have Vogl\u2019s sheep back every other year. Meanwhile, she\u2019s eager to see how the pasture responds in the spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven how it looks now,\u201d she says, \u201cI am so excited about it. It is such a neat concept.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early lessons of drought<\/p>\n

As a kid, Vogl watched his parents raise beef to sell direct to consumers and followed those footsteps through his involvement in 4-H, which helped him develop a small herd of his own. But in 2002, when he was 12, drought struck, and the family\u2019s full section \u2014 640 acres \u2014 in far southeastern El Paso County didn\u2019t see a drop of rain for nine months.<\/p>\n

The conditions triggered a familiar sequence: Nothing grew. The cattle couldn\u2019t feed on the land, adding the expense of buying hay to the budget. Ranchers sold their stock, sometimes for pennies on the dollar, while feed prices skyrocketed.<\/p>\n

\"\"William Vogl sits for a portrait on his property on Sept. 9 in Black Forest. (Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)<\/p>\n

Vogl\u2019s parents abandoned their cattle operation and sold off their land to cover the bills. But he never lost his love for raising animals, and knew that some day, in some capacity, he\u2019d give it another shot.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, he took a detour to college, with an engineering major at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. But a fascination with firefighting, rekindled from his high school days, led him to drop out of UCCS and enroll in the fire science program at Pikes Peak Community College. At the same time, he started volunteering with the Palmer Lake Fire Department and eventually got hired by Monument, which offered a program that paid for his college.<\/p>\n

He joined the department fulltime in 2013. But his agricultural roots remained close to the surface, cultivated on a 7-acre property he and his wife, Karissa, purchased on the northern end of the Black Forest. His firefighter\u2019s schedule \u2014 48 hours on, four days off \u2014 created the window to revive the interest that had withered with the drought.<\/p>\n

They began with a garden. Then came chickens. And more chickens until their collection hovered around 100 laying hens and Vogl started thinking maybe he could turn their little operation \u2014 market gardening and eggs \u2014 into an actual business that would, at the least, become a self-funding proposition.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, he started learning about regenerative agriculture, which he describes as \u201creally just a broad term for farming in a way that improves the land instead of degrading it over time.\u201d Built on principles around soil health, the topic induced him to read extensively and seek to adapt the practice to Colorado\u2019s arid climate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Discovering hair sheep<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, something else caught his attention: sheep. They presented a viable livestock alternative for his own property that, he knew from experience, was too small to support cattle. And as he looked further into sheep, he discovered hair sheep, a type generally bred for meat that grows and sheds hair, rather than produce wool.<\/p>\n

The Vogls bought a flock of 22 hair sheep, 14 adults and eight lambs, in 2019. From that initial investment, Vogl has seen the flock peak at about 185 this summer. Grazing fees he charges homeowners on their small acreage go right back into the business.<\/p>\n

\"\"A hair sheep owned by William Vogl grazes a pasture on Sept. 9 in the Black Forest area of El Paso County. (Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)<\/p>\n

He has added another facet to his operation. On heavily forested properties where clients are looking for wildfire mitigation, Vogl removes small ponderosa pines during a narrow window in the spring, when they can best tolerate transplanting. Then he sells them to landowners playing \u201cthe long game\u201d of forest reclamation. The practice, which grew popular in the Black Forest in the immediate aftermath of the 2013 fire<\/a>, now accounts for about half of the farm\u2019s income.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt kind of fits back into the whole theme of good stewardship,\u201d Vogl says, \u201cbecause a lot of these patches that we\u2019re digging up, there\u2019s literally hundreds of them within just a couple hundred square feet. We\u2019re thinning them out because there\u2019s no way for these trees to survive in that density.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salaries from their day jobs \u2014 Karissa works as a paraprofessional in their sons\u2019 school \u2014 cover living expenses, leaving whatever revenue the agricultural side brings in to be reinvested and grow the operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vogl used to sell meat, but processing and delivery became too labor intensive to make economic sense. Now, he sells some of the live ram lambs, but most of the sheep remain with him. Vogl says he\u2019s getting better at identifying when one may not survive another winter, and then finding them a better home.<\/p>\n

Composting, while a big part of his work on his own 7 acres, hasn\u2019t reached the point where he\u2019d consider doing it commercially. Although federal grant funding helped him expand his composting operation, the Trump administration slashed that money and Vogl shifted to a state grant that helps continue his work using compost as a means to hold soil moisture longer and improve grass growth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Piles of compost in varying levels of decomposition line one dirt drive on his property, some with protruding pipes that conduct oxygen to accelerate the process. The Vogl farm has become a community repository for everything from neighbors\u2019 horse manure, to slash from wildfire mitigation, to post-Halloween pumpkins to animal carcasses. He accepts roadkill or deer that randomly die on nearby properties \u2014 or even horses that have been put down.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that have followed our farm for a while really like the idea of actually composting them, so that we could take them and turn them back into a soil that we put on our pasture,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it becomes a circle of life thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, he sets a goal of creating between 80 to 120 cubic yards of compost per year. While Vogl sees \u201cphenomenal benefits\u201d from spreading it across his own pasture, he\u2019d like to accrue more long-term data to determine if the methods should be applied as a model for creating more drought-tolerant landscapes. Vogl also keeps tabs on the water table on his property, where a side channel from East Cherry Creek gives him the opportunity to track whether compost-treated land holds moisture longer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not like we get a big rainstorm and it flushes out right away,\u201d he says. \u201cInstead, we\u2019re actually turning our soils into a bank account for water, essentially.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Will Vogl\u2019s hair sheep graze on Bob Griffis\u2019 forested acreage in the Black Forest. Griffis initially requested the sheep to help with wildfire mitigation, but has since come to appreciate their positive impact on the soil. (Photo courtesy of Bob Griffis)<\/p>\n

Fire mitigation \u2014 and entertainment<\/p>\n

Bob Griffis bought his property off Black Forest Road in 2020, seven years after wildfire swept through, claiming 500 homes but sparing his 4 partially forested acres. As the new steward of the property, he didn\u2019t want to rely on luck, if there was a next time. Three years ago, he approached Vogl with a single goal: wildfire mitigation.<\/p>\n

The flock of sheep itself, in addition to applying the tools of appetite, soil disturbance and waste to restoring grassland, also can serve the same fire-preventive function that migrating herds of deer and elk once provided in forested areas. Those wild herds, a big component of keeping forests thinned out and healthy, trampled seedlings, stripped away lower branches and generally reduced excess fuel that could make the forest susceptible to ground fire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were looking for ways of making our property more secure,\u201d Griffis says.<\/p>\n

The first year Griffis hired Vogl, 93 sheep grazed the property over about two and a half weeks. In the second year, only about 14 to 16 animals grazed for an extended period. Griffis noticed more native plants springing up. Now, in the third year of hosting the sheep, he has expanded his aim toward improving the soil and helping the forest regenerate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As he has cut down trees infested with drought-driven bark beetles, Griffis has also noticed that the sheep grind the wood chips, sawdust and pine needles into the ground, further improving the soil profile.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting to see more of the native plants returning, so more wildflowers,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a particular ground cover that, according to my neighbors, hasn\u2019t been here since the fire. It started coming back in patches on our property.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griffis estimates he\u2019ll have the sheep on his property for another couple of weeks before they\u2019ve grazed all of his land, which he says is about 50% forested areas. Already, a neighbor has jumped on the bandwagon to enlist the sheep in clearing out and improving a large garden area.<\/p>\n

But for all the convenience and economy of the animals\u2019 visit, he\u2019s found that it\u2019s hard to put a price on the sheer joy of having them around.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t charge much for this,\u201d Griffis figures, \u201cand I\u2019m just, like, \u2018Will, here\u2019s 50 more bucks for the entertainment.\u2019 These things are just fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Sheep owned by William Vogl graze a pasture on Sept. 9 in the Black Forest area of El Paso County. They had just been moved from an adjacent paddock, where their grazing provided weed control and soil improvement for a client in the Cherry Creek Springs development. (Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)<\/p>\n

Type of Story: News<\/p>\n

Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BLACK FOREST \u2014 It\u2019s not just that the grass is greener on the other side of Will Vogl\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2389,4258,138,140,139,14769,153910,62321],"class_list":["post-446232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-agriculture","tag-conservation","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-farming","tag-regenerative-agriculture","tag-sheep"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}