Am I crazy? Thinking about raising sheep and lambs

[Budweiser John]

OK, my wife and I have had the farm for 46 years and all of those years there have been 3 or more horses in the barn. At age 75 (me) and 71 (spouse) the time has come to stop playing cowboy/girl and sell the remaining horses. However...
A barn with out life is only a building and both of us would be hateing the silence of an empty barn.

We both prefer the homestead to extended vacations, have a dependable source of hay, and a young man that has helped us out with the heavy lifting and in our absence, farm sitting for the last 10 years.

Are we nuts? Can a small flock be at least a break even proposition?
Letter Rip guys and gals, all comments are sincerely appreciated.

B. John

 

[widefat]

I have never raised sheep, and have nothing substantial to offer. But, I have a friend who used to raise sheep along with a cows, goats, chickens.
He stopped raising the sheep, due in part to, and I quote, "sheep are the only animals I have ever seen that look for ways to die."

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I've looked into this myself. Sheep can be raised for wool or meat. (Some intrepid souls milk sheep but I won't go there.) From what I can gather about the wool business right now, China dominates the world market, and the Chinese can produce wool and ship it to the US for less than it costs to have an animal sheared here. I've read of people who have breeds that need shearing for their health, who have the animals sheared and then burn the wool because it's not worth selling. The exception is if you produce exotic wool that commands a premium, but that seems to be a demanding and competitive business.

For small producers, I think the only way to go is selling whole, live animals to people who are looking for that. This blog post explains why: meat: 217: 1 years of farming

I would market to ethnic communities that have a tradition of serving whole animals for holidays. This link gives an idea of what some of those holidays are:
https://www.gov.mb.ca/agriculture/l...hnic-holiday-calendar-for-lambs-and-goats.pdf

I have no idea if there are communities close enough to you to make that a viable strategy.

It is very hard to have a small herd of anything if there aren't other people around you raising the same thing. I've read that 100 animals is the absolute minimum to maintain genetic diversity in your herd. Otherwise you need to constantly be bringing in fresh blood to keep your herd from becoming inbred. If you're having to bring in animals from far away that becomes problematic.

I think you could cover your costs with a small herd where once a year you bring in a stud and time breeding so that the lambs are born right around when the grass starts growing in the spring. Have them on pasture all summer, and in the fall do a culling where you decide which animals you want to carry through the winter and breed and sell the rest live.

 

[John Fitzgerald]

I have never raised sheep, and have nothing substantial to offer. But, I have a friend who used to raise sheep along with a cows, goats, chickens.
He stopped raising the sheep, due in part to, and I quote, "sheep are the only animals I have ever seen that look for ways to die."

That's been the experience of some around here that try it.

 

[DrRod]

I have a teacher friend who raises sheep. He sold the wool and got a 1-1 matching subsidy from the federal government -- not sure that still exists. He always said that it was surprising that sheep farmers were held in such low esteem -- anyone who can raise an animal so bent on its own self destruction should be honored. And he was right. We could be out hanging around and then go in for lunch and by the time we got back to field there would be a sheep tangled in brush and laying in a stream.

I also know a doctor who raises sheep and then sells the lambs each spring -- all dressed out and frozen in a big box. My mother and neighbors always bought one and so we had lots of lamb-burger. I never thought the quality was as good as supermarket lamb but he sold out each year.

In any case, as with any livestock, they get out, they get sick, they need watching. I would think you would need to be there every day just to keep things under control.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

We always had a few around as "lawn mowers" for small pastures close to the main house. That was about all they were good for. If you've had horses before this, you may need to look at your fencing. Lambs and smaller sheep can get through a lot of cow/horse fence. Little buggers are mini escape artists, but not as bad as goats.

They are not really much work if you have graze and water, but they do collect a surprising amount of vet bills for their size and weight.

 

[groundcover]

This is a tractor forum, nothing that eats or poops ! :laughing:

 

[300UGUY]

I had a friend of mine that raised 100 lambs a year, sold them to folks in the Detroit area for Easter and other holidays. They did their own butchering, as some have pretty rigorous rules for that.

 

[WM75Guy]

Don't see many sheep around here but goats do well. I have several friends that raise them. Easy to sell at the sale barn or by local advertising. If done right makes good BBQ.

 

[showcattle]

Wool isn't worth anything. So getting them sheared is a liability, and hard to find dependable shearers. I'd look into some of the hair sheep that don't require shearing. They kind of resemble goats, but are sheep. Katahdin and Dorpers are two I'm familiar with.