Shepherd / Sheep Herder Resume Examples & Writing Guide
A shepherd resume gets an interview when the ranch manager can see the flock size you have run, your lambing percentage and death loss, whether you handle dogs and can work alone for weeks, and which health tasks you do without a vet on site. Below is a full sample plus bullets and skills.
Shepherd resume example (1,200-ewe range and farm flock)
This sample runs a commercial ewe flock on range and irrigated pasture, and has moved up from herder to flock manager. The ranch names are invented. Notice that lambing percentage, death loss and flock size sit in the first three lines, because those are the numbers ranchers compare.
Elias Cordova
Shepherd / Flock Manager
Rock Springs, WY · (307) 555-0134 · elias.cordova.sheep@email.com · Valid driver's license, own working dogs
Summary
Shepherd with 9 years on commercial sheep operations, currently managing a 1,200-ewe flock across summer range allotment and irrigated winter pasture. Lambing at 158% weaned with ewe death loss under 3%. Handles all routine flock health: vaccination, drenching, FAMACHA scoring, hoof trimming and lamb processing. Works two Border Collies and two guardian dogs, and lives on site through lambing.
Experience
Flock Manager · Bitter Creek Sheep Company (1,200 ewes, range and irrigated pasture), Sweetwater County, WY
Mar 2021 – Present
- Manage a 1,200-head Rambouillet-cross ewe flock through a full year: breeding, winter feeding, shed and pasture lambing, summer range and fall shipping.
- Raised weaned lamb crop from 141% to 158% over four seasons by tightening the ram turnout window to 34 days and pulling thin ewes into an early feeding group.
- Hold ewe death loss under 3% and lamb loss from birth to weaning under 8%, with a written loss log by cause.
- Run a 9-paddock rotation on 640 acres of irrigated pasture, moving the flock every 4 to 6 days and keeping residual grazing height above 3 inches.
- Give all routine treatments on site: CDT vaccination on ewes and lambs, deworming by FAMACHA score rather than blanket drenching, hoof trimming for the whole flock twice a year, and lamb processing at 24 to 48 hours.
- Manage 2 Border Collies for gathering and sorting and 4 livestock guardian dogs across two bands; predator loss dropped from 41 head to 12 head a year after adding the second pair.
- Coordinate 3 shearers over a 4-day shearing, sorting and packing roughly 11,000 pounds of wool a year with clip prep to grade.
Sheep Herder (Range) · High Desert Livestock LLC, Elko County, NV
Apr 2018 – Mar 2021
- Herded a band of 900 to 1,000 ewes on a public grazing allotment from May to October, camped with the band and moved every 3 to 5 days.
- Kept water and salt available across 6 developed sites, and hauled water twice a week in a dry year.
- Doctored sick and injured sheep in the field and radioed the ranch for anything beyond routine, keeping range death loss at about 2.5%.
- Worked alone for 10 to 14 days between supply runs, with camp moves, dog care and daily counts recorded in a field log.
Ranch Hand · Willow Fork Ranch (cattle and sheep), Fremont County, WY
May 2016 – Apr 2018
- Fenced, irrigated and fed on a mixed operation of 300 ewes and 180 cows, including 6 miles of fence repair a season.
- Ran an ATV, a tractor with a bale bed and a stock trailer, and hauled 40+ loads of sheep and hay a year.
Education
High School Diploma
Sweetwater County High School, Rock Springs, WY, 2016
Certifications
- FAMACHA certification for targeted parasite management, 2023
- Sheep Safety and Quality Assurance training, American Sheep Industry Association, 2022
- Wyoming private pesticide applicator license, current
- First Aid / CPR, American Red Cross, valid to 2027
Skills
What a ranch or farm manager checks first
Sheep operations are small teams, often one or two people responsible for a lot of animals. The manager reading your resume is asking whether they can leave you with the flock.
- Flock size and system. 200 ewes on a farm flock with shed lambing is a different job from a 1,000-head range band. Say the number, the breed type and whether it is range, pasture or confinement.
- Production numbers. Lambing percentage weaned, ewe death loss, lamb loss to weaning. These are the numbers ranchers use to compare each other, and most shepherd resumes leave them off entirely.
- What you can do without calling the vet. Assisted deliveries, prolapse, vaccination, drenching, hoof trimming, mastitis checks, tube feeding lambs. Say which ones you have actually done and how often.
- Dogs and isolation. Whether you have your own working dogs, whether you can handle guardian dogs, and whether you can be alone at a camp for two weeks. Both matter more than most applicants realize.
“Give me your ewe count, your weaned lamb percentage and your death loss, and tell me if the dogs are yours. Anyone can say they love sheep. I need to know whether the flock will still be alive and counted when I get back on Sunday.”
Shepherd resume summary examples
Three lines. Flock size, system, production numbers, and one thing that makes you easy to hire, such as your own dogs or a willingness to live on site through lambing.
Range sheep herder with 5 seasons on public grazing allotments, running bands of 900 to 1,000 ewes from May to October. Camps with the band, moves every 3 to 5 days, doctors in the field, and keeps range death loss around 2.5%. Works two Border Collies and lives alone at camp for 10 to 14 days between supply runs.
Shepherd with 6 years on a 400-ewe farm flock lambing in a shed on an accelerated 8-month schedule. Handles 60 to 80 lambings a week at peak with assisted deliveries, tube feeding and grafting, and holds lamb loss to weaning under 6%. Keeps full individual records in a flock software system.
Flock manager for 1,200 commercial ewes across range and irrigated pasture. Lifted weaned lamb crop from 141% to 158% in four seasons, runs a 9-paddock rotation on 640 acres, and coordinates the shearing crew for an 11,000-pound annual clip. Manages 2 herding and 4 guardian dogs.
Shepherd on a 250-ewe grass-finished operation selling lamb direct to customers and restaurants. Runs a 21-paddock rotation with daily moves, does all parasite management by FAMACHA scoring with no blanket drenching, and coordinates 14 processing dates a year with the state-inspected plant.
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Shepherd duties written the way a rancher reads them
Ranch work resumes tend to be lists of verbs. Add the head count, the acres, the frequency and the result and every line gets stronger.
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Cared for sheep daily. | Managed a 1,200-head ewe flock through breeding, winter feeding, lambing, summer range and fall shipping. |
| Helped with lambing. | Worked 60 to 80 lambings a week at peak, including assisted deliveries, grafting orphans and tube feeding weak lambs; lamb loss to weaning held under 8%. |
| Moved sheep to different pastures. | Ran a 9-paddock rotation on 640 irrigated acres, moving every 4 to 6 days and leaving residual height above 3 inches. |
| Gave medicine and vaccinations. | Vaccinated the whole flock with CDT on schedule and dewormed by FAMACHA score instead of blanket treatment, cutting drench use by roughly half. |
| Kept records. | Maintained scrapie tag records, individual ewe production records and a written loss log by cause for a 1,200-ewe flock. |
| Worked with dogs. | Trained and worked 2 Border Collies for gathering and sorting and placed 4 livestock guardian dogs; predator loss fell from 41 head to 12 head a year. |
| Helped at shearing. | Coordinated 3 shearers over a 4-day shearing, ran the wool table and packed an 11,000-pound clip prepared to grade. |
| Fixed fences. | Built and repaired 6 miles of fence a season across electric, woven wire and barbed wire, including a solar energizer system on summer pasture. |
Flock health and grazing skills worth listing
The health section is where an experienced shepherd separates from a general ranch hand. Be specific about what you do routinely.
- Lambing: pregnancy scanning support, jugging, assisted deliveries, prolapse management, colostrum and tube feeding, grafting orphans, docking and castration at the right age, ear tagging.
- Health: FAMACHA scoring and targeted deworming, CDT vaccination scheduling, hoof trimming and footrot management, body condition scoring, mastitis and udder checks, quarantine of new stock.
- Grazing: paddock design, stocking rate, residual height, mob size, water development, salt and mineral placement, poisonous plant awareness for your region.
- Records: USDA scrapie identification tags and movement records, individual ewe records, loss log by cause, treatment log with withdrawal times.
- Dogs: herding commands and gathering, sorting in a corral, placing and feeding livestock guardian dogs, socializing guardian pups with the flock.
- Equipment: ATV and UTV, tractor with loader or bale bed, stock trailer, hay feeding, corral and handling system setup, fencing tools and electric fence testing.
Certifications, records and what employers verify
Shepherding is not a licensed occupation in the US. A handful of programs and records do come up in hiring.
- FAMACHA certification. Delivered through veterinarians and extension services, this trains you to score anemia in sheep and treat only the animals that need it. Widely recognized and cheap to get.
- Sheep Safety and Quality Assurance training from the American Sheep Industry Association. Not required, but it signals you understand withdrawal times, injection sites and record keeping.
- USDA scrapie flock identification. Sheep moving between premises need official identification. Say that you keep the tag and movement records; do not claim a certification that does not exist.
- Pesticide applicator license. Required in most states to apply certain products on your own operation. Rules are set state by state, so check yours.
- Driver's license and towing experience. Say plainly whether you can haul a stock trailer and whether you have a commercial licence. Many ranch jobs need one and many do not.
- Wool handling or shearing training. If you have taken a shearing school or worked a wool table, name the school and the year.
Getting a first sheep job with no experience
Sheep operations hire seasonal help every spring for lambing and every summer for range work. Reliability, physical stamina and a willingness to be somewhere with no phone signal count for more than a resume.
- 1Target the seasonal openings: lambing help from January to April depending on the region, shearing crew help, fencing and haying crews in summer.
- 2Say plainly what you will accept: living on site, night shifts during lambing, weeks alone at camp, no days off during peak. These lines get read.
- 3Use any animal experience honestly, including 4-H, FFA, county fair projects, a horse barn job, a dairy, a boarding kennel or a veterinary clinic.
- 4Show the physical and mechanical side: fencing, tractor work, chainsaw, irrigation, welding, ATV. Ranch jobs are half livestock and half maintenance.
- 5Take the FAMACHA course through your extension office if there is one near you. It is a small thing that shows you are serious about sheep specifically.
- 6Keep it to one page and include a phone number that works, plus a note about how quickly you can start.
Farm worker seeking a lambing-season shepherd position. Two years on a 90-cow dairy handling milking, calving assistance and feeding on a 5am to 3pm shift, plus four years of 4-H sheep projects showing market lambs at county level. Comfortable living on site, working nights through lambing, and running an ATV and tractor. Available January through May.
Construction laborer of 6 years moving into ranch work. Built and repaired fence, ran skid steer and tractor, and worked outdoors year round in Wyoming weather. Raised a small backyard flock of 12 ewes for three years, doing own lambing, vaccination and hoof trimming. FAMACHA certified 2026. Looking for full-time work on a commercial flock.
Frequently asked questions
How do I write a shepherd resume?
Put flock size, system and production numbers in the first three lines: ewes managed, weaned lamb percentage, death loss. Then give each operation five or six bullets with counts, acres and frequencies. List the health tasks you perform routinely, your dog handling, and any FAMACHA or quality assurance training. One page is enough.
What numbers should a shepherd put on a resume?
Ewe count, weaned lamb percentage, ewe and lamb death loss, acres and paddock count, days between moves, lambings handled per week at peak, wool clip weight, predator losses before and after a change you made, and miles of fence built. These are the figures ranchers use to judge each other.
What skills does a shepherd need?
Lambing including assisted deliveries and grafting, flock health such as vaccination, FAMACHA scoring, hoof trimming and body condition scoring, rotational grazing, working dog handling for both herding and guardian dogs, fencing and water development, and equipment operation from ATV to stock trailer.
Do you need a qualification to be a shepherd in the US?
No licence is required. FAMACHA certification for parasite management and quality assurance training from the American Sheep Industry Association are useful and inexpensive. A state pesticide applicator licence may be needed to apply certain products, so check your state's rules before claiming anything.
How do I get a shepherd job with no experience?
Apply for seasonal lambing help, shearing crew work or general ranch hand roles and say clearly that you will live on site, work nights and take no days off during peak. Use 4-H, FFA, dairy, kennel or veterinary experience, and show fencing, tractor and outdoor work. Many shepherds start exactly this way.
Should I mention my own working dogs on the resume?
Yes, in the first three lines. A shepherd who arrives with a trained Border Collie is worth more to an operation than one who does not, and guardian dog experience is a separate skill worth naming. Say the breed, how many, and what work they do.
What is the difference between a shepherd and a sheep herder job posting?
In practice, "herder" usually means range work with a band on grazing allotments, often camping out for long stretches, while "shepherd" or "flock manager" more often means a farm flock with shed lambing and pasture rotation. Use whichever word the posting uses and describe the system you have worked.
How long should a livestock resume be?
One page. Ranch managers read quickly and care about head counts and results, not job descriptions. Give the last two or three operations full detail and put anything older into one line each.
Ready to write yours?
The builder suggests a summary from your own experience, then checks it against the job posting.
How this page was made: a first draft was written with AI assistance from cvplex's example library, then edited and fact-checked by the cvplex Careers Team. Examples are fictional composites; numbers are illustrative. Report an error via the editorial policy page.