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Southwest Sheep & Solar
About Southwest Sheep & Solar
Southwest Sheep & Solar is a New Mexico family business being built to provide professionally managed sheep grazing for community and utility-scale solar facilities across the Southwest.
How We Got Here
When COVID shut down our annual Pumpkin Patch, we faced a choice: either get rid of all our animals or turn them into an asset by starting a prescribed grazing company. We chose the grazing route. Since then, we have grazed over 2000 acres and increased our overall herd size from 30 animals to over 600.By constantly seeking out information and learning from our own mistakes, we have become the largest grazing company in New Mexico.​Operating as a vegetation management service for a wide variety of customers introduced us to Solar Grazing through a job with Central New Mexico University to manage vegetation on their solar site. From there, having multiple solar sheep grazers on our podcast about prescribed grazing, including Beau Stafford, a member of the American Solar Grazing Association (ASGA); the vice president of ASGA, Jess Gray; and the President of ASGA, Chad Raines, further informed us about the need for vegetation management on solar sites.​By learning from established solar grazers and becoming certified grazers with ASGA ourselves, we have expanded our capabilities through a service-first approach, acquiring the animals and equipment needed to manage vegetation at both community- and utility-scale solar sites.
Our Mission
Provide top-quality vegetation management by implementing innovative agrivoltaic strategies that enable us to continually improve the service we provide to our customers.
Max Wade is the owner and ceo of Southwest Sheep & Solar. He began his career in homebuilding, but in 2008 he pivoted to pursue a dream. With the intention of making the world a better place, he started a nonprofit geared towards teaching kids about agriculture, giving them the opportunity to be around farm and ranch animals so they might learn where their food comes from.
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From that nonprofit grew many new opportunities, including the Galloping Goat Pumpkin Patch, which started as a fundraiser but quickly became a yearly event where people of all ages, especially young families, could come and be part of the agricultural world.
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When COVID hit and the Pumpkin Patch was prohibited, Max realized that the many animals he owned would need to be sold. Just when they were nearly all gone, his daughter and son-in-law asked him if he had seen anything about prescribed grazing. Max saw the potential right away, and as they say, from there, the rest is history.
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Now, he works daily to improve the grazing companies and to promote the industry of prescribed grazing and solar sheep grazing through his social media, where he has over 1 million total followers, and through his podcast, The Goat Grazing Podcast.
Max Wade
Meet The Owner
Meet The Team
Nick Hunt
Operations Manager
Lucas Goodrum
Operations Manager
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