The 13 yr old that I babysit is wanting to get sheep & start a little herd in the spring. He has the wire already bought for fencing & has an idea of where to put them. He bought a lil book on Sheep & how to raise them for the small farmer. He could just use a little guidance in a few areas. Here's his questions if anyone would be interested in answering them i'd appreciate it. Any other advice would be appreciated too.
1. What is a good breed of wool sheep that can withstand our weather here & likes brushy areas to live in? (he's putting them in a slightly cleared off area behind the house on a little hill side)
2. He would like dual purpose sheep.. what breeds would you suggest? he also needs a very docile breed, me not knowing much about sheep i have no clue if they are all sweet & cuddly or not. He wants them for wool & meat basically.
3. Suggestions on shelter types would be good. He had a large dog house that is a 3 sides shed type thing about 5 ft tall at the roof he was going to use. I wondered if he couldn't use square hay bales on 3 sides them put a roof on it since his fence will protect them from predators. Give them a bit more warmth when it gets so cold here.
4. He would like to know if its possible to feed them organic feed on a small budget? He'd like the feed to be as chemical free as possible.. but we are not sure about cost & his start up costs are very small.
5. He also needs suggestions on where to purchase lambs.. preferably bottle lambs bc he wants to hand raise them. I'm not sure about this idea.. what do you think? I'm not even sure where to start looking to buy them. Its not like a chicken you can go buy at a feed store.
ok i think that's it for tonight. His nose is buried in a program about sharks & he can't remember what else he wanted to ask. I'll post more questions as we think of them. This is helpful to me as well. I'd like to fix my barn & put a few sheep maybe a couple goats up there sometime in the next year. Thank you.
Sheep questions
Kyttyn, we raised sheep a long time ago, and started off with
1. Hampshires. They're blackfaced and were very nice. Rams are always at least somewhat aggressive, in my experience, so that's something to keep in mind. Most ewes I've known seemed fairly mild-mannered and they do respond to whomever is caring for them. Later we ended up with some mixed-breed sheep and they were fine, too.
2. By dual-purpose does he mean meat and wool, or meat and milk? We used to shear ours in the spring and send the fleece up to the wool pool at the state university. I did try spinning, but at that point in my life I had two small kids and a full-time job and there just wasn't enough time in the day to pursue something that labor-intensive! There's often a market for very young lamb, or they can be kept until they're larger. A friend in Washington State who raised sheep once tried milking them and got a black eye for his efforts.
3. We already had shelters on our farm; when we moved here in the early 1970's the previous owner had kept the occasional cow or steer and they also had a horse or two. I don't know how much shelter they really need; we used to pen ours up when they were about to lamb, but sometimes they were stubborn and tried to give birth out in the snow. If they have a shelter it does help if it's tall enough for the person caring for them to go inside.
4. If you have pasture for them, of course that would be organic assuming you don't spray. We used to supplement with alfalfa, especially in the winter, and that's very expensive even when it's raised non-organically. Maybe there's a good source or a sympathetic organic farmer near you who could help out? We don't have anything like that available. But most people would be happy to buy meat from a pasture-raised animal even if it weren't strictly organic.
5. Feed stores are good places to find out who is raising sheep; then you can inquire about whether they have lambs for sale. We have a lamb that a friend of ours got, along with one for himself, that we're about to butcher and cut up. He knows someone who raises them on pasture without extra medications and chemicals, although they're not organic. As I said, even our own weren't organic unless we could fatten them up totally on pasture.
Hope this helps! That is so neat that he wants to do this, and how interesting that you have those built-in helpers. It's great for them to be exposed to that lifestyle and nice for you to have the extra hands!
Thanks. I want sheep & if we can get his started I can bribe him to help work to secure my barn to put the sheep in there. :) He wants them for meat & wool.
Hmmm.... well I'm biased of course, but I like Icelandics. They are a medium sized breed; they are definitely a dual purpose sheep. They come in all kinds of colors. They will clear your land for you as they are very good browsers, and so they will make use of forage that some other breeds might not. They have a double coat - finer softer undercoat, and longer stronger outercoat. It can be separated to make different yarns, or left together and used that way. Felts really well too if you're interested in that.
The meat is very good - not "gamy", and fine grained/tender.
MO is definitely not too cold for them (they come from Iceland originally after all) but then I'd say that any wool breed of sheep would handle just about any cold weather in the US. Where you might have some issues with a wool breed is in the summer when it's really hot and humid. They will need shade, and plenty of water.
Ours do fine all winter with hoophouses made from cattle panels and a tarp. They are open on both ends. Our property also has a lot of trees which act as a windbreak. As long as they can get out of driving rain (if they so choose) and such, they'll be fine.
They can be docile - they can also be squirrely. Depends on the individual sheep. That's probably true of many breeds. Wherever he goes to look he needs to ask about temperament and visit farms and get a feel for the sheep before buying.
If he's never raised sheep I would not advise starting with bottle lambs unless he has a good mentor. At least stick with ewes to start, or wethers. Bottle raised ram lambs are very cute and friendly, and then they mature and get dangerous because they view you as just another sheep to be challenged.
He should research different breeds, then go online and check out the breed association websites for the ones he's interested in. They will have lists of breeders and he can contact the ones in his area. Here's a couple places to start: http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/
http://www.sheep101.info/breeds.html
There's always craigslist and such, but as always, buyer beware. A feed store would probably have an idea of who to call if he knows what breed he wants, or they usually have a "for sale" board in the store somewhere.