More sheep coming next week! (was: need encouragement)

[Farmfresh]

I know it can be stressful, but maybe you have just not found the right place to buy from as of yet. Remember this is modern times. You can buy from almost anywhere in several countries!

When my aunt first decided to raise Longhorn cattle she did LOTS of research. The place she finally decided looked the most promising was in Colorado while she lived in Missouri. Her husband had to go that direction on business and while he was there he went ahead and checked out the farm and even selected and PURCHASED a registered Longhorn heifer calf with an awesome pedigree and then mailed her home! She traveled via a big dog crate and went by air. My aunt went to the airport and picked her up. She got an awesome bloodline from a very respected farm at a great price. What could be better? Later that cow became the matriarch of her herd. By using AI and frozen semen she was able to increase her herd by keeping all of the good heifer calves.

When we went to tour the Katahdin farm near us recently she quoted a price of $100 to $150 for a registered high quality ewe lamb. This would be a lamb that about 90 days old, recently weaned, wormed, shots and from a certified Scrapie free herd. This breeder breeds for successful lambing, good milk, and ability to thrive on grass only.

They are out there. You just haven't found the right one yet.

 

[Beekissed]

The good thing about pricing the lambs in your area and finding they are somewhat expensive? This means that your lambs will make other lambs that will sell for a good price and recoup your original investment!

At least...that's what I keep telling myself and my family....these sheep are an investment!!!! And one sheep will make maybe two sheep for you each year...sometimes three! That's a good return on your investment.

 

[patandchickens]

They can say closed herd, but it doesn't mean their animals don't have any diseases. Its entirely possible they do.

Again, I just think we are talking about very different things here, Lupinfarm. I have been around livestock long enough to have no illusions about there being any guarantees a herd "doesn't have any diseases", goodness

I just want to buy from someone with a reasonably comprehensive health program, and a closed herd where animals are tested for testable things on input (Johnes is not really testable on an individual-animal basis). As I originally stated. Rather than an auction animal, or someone whose flock is composed of random former auction animals and their progeny. You know?

Farmfresh, I am afraid I am not really in the "buying by mail" kind of price bracket, LOL, and I don't think sheep can cross the Canadian border, but I do like your story about mailing home the heifer

At least...that's what I keep telling myself and my family....these sheep are an investment!!!!

Yeah, it was funny -- when I told DH that I really think we have to buy two $250 ewe lambs and start from there, he was like "aaack!", but then when he found out that sheep often have twins or even triplets, you could just SEE him doing the math in his head. He said "gee, if they both had twins and we could sell the lambs for even just half what we pay for these, we would have earned back the purchase price in just the first year..." And suddenly he was a lot more cheerful about the whole thing ROTFL

Mind you, my next-years-lambs (assuming there ARE any, what with Bad Sheep Things that can happen and the whole issue of getting them bred) would be coming in May, and I have no clue whether lamb prices are quite this high in summertime... but I guess we will find out

I haven't heard back from the other two dairy-sheep breeders, so I am going to go ahead and call the one over t'other side of Sunderland later today, and say 'Hey, wanna sell me a coupla sheeps' At this point in life, I think any two ewe lambs from a commercial-dairying flock are about as good as any other two ewe lambs from a commercial-dairying flock, so may as well go with the close one.

Pat

 

[Farmfresh]

The added benefit of buying close to home is "customer support"!

I don't think my aunt would have bought her heifer long distance either except for the fact that she was able to buy a much better animal far cheaper than she could of if she had bought local. Even with the shipping she still came out ahead! Of course part of the problem in her case is that she was interested in a breed that is hardly ever seen in our area. Go out west and Longhorn cattle are quite common and so priced far LESS.

Sheep do seem to be a lot more cost effective than many farm animals. People always talk about raising horses for a profit, but when you do the math it is horrible. They are 4 or 5 years old before you breed them and then the average rate of conception to live foal on the ground is less than 50%! Sheep are far better ... at least as far as the math is concerned!

 

[freemotion]

Yeah, it was funny -- when I told DH that I really think we have to buy two $250 ewe lambs and start from there, he was like "aaack!", but then when he found out that sheep often have twins or even triplets, you could just SEE him doing the math in his head. He said "gee, if they both had twins and we could sell the lambs for even just half what we pay for these, we would have earned back the purchase price in just the first year..." And suddenly he was a lot more cheerful about the whole thing ROTFL

Have you checked out this article? Bee and I discussed it a while back. I flushed my does with pumpkins and beet kvass and beet pulp this past fall, since my root crops ALL failed in the cold rain that was our summer. It amazed me that my mangel seeds could sprout and stay 2-3" tall for months and only have roots that were as big as a pencil lead after 4-5 months!

The article is pretty amazing, though. Get your mangel seeds now from www.RHShumway.com

ETA: forgot to post link! Here it is: http://www.sheepmagazine.com/issues/25/25-3/Nathan_Griffith.html

 

[patandchickens]

Good heavens yes, horses are the poster child of what NOT to go into breeding if you want to make money!!!!!!

Except for people running the equine equivalent of puppy mills, not very many honestly make money breeding horses, if you add up ALLLLLL the costs. (If you consider facilities, showing, etc to be hobby expenses, it gets a bit more favorable, but even so...)

Seems like the main weakness of sheep, from a bookkeeping standpoint, is their tendency to depreciate suddenly into Coyote Chow.

I am really going to have to get that new fence charger hooked up, that's been sitting in the box for the past eight months

Pat

 

[Beekissed]

This year, Free, I'm giving mangels another try....along with kale and turnips. I plan to plant the kale and turnips after my corn and pumpkins are done, overseeding with some winter wheat.

By the time this lot is growing well, it will be time to turn the girls into it. They say that frost actually increases the nutritive value of kale. I usually winter pen my gals in Nov. around Thanksgiving and I am planting all this in their pen. They can use the kale, winter wheat and turnip tops for flushing for their breeding in Dec.

Meanwhile, the ram and this fall's lambs will be in the larger garden plot munching on the winter wheat planted there. Then the ram will be in the winter pen with the Bettys for breeding and they can all be turned into the hay feeders/winter pen full time.

Then, in Jan. the lambs can again be placed into the winter wheat in the big garden to finish off for market in Feb.

The turnips can remain in the ground until spring when they can be unearthed and used for additional spring munchies along with the new grass for flushing in Mar./April.

I will also be feeding any mangels, carrots, pumpkins, winter squash that I have stored. I've found that they really love it when they are fermented! Thanks, Free, for that little tip!

Really, if one wants to keep the costs of raising sheep down by not buying grains, it can be done pretty cheaply depending on how many sheep one is running.

 

[Farmfresh]

I love going back to the old idea of grazing grains and growing crops specifically for the animals to directly harvest. So much better for the land and the animals than growing a monoculture of a plant and then using our time, energy and fuel to harvest it and then feed it to the animal.

I have a bunch of old 1940 and before Ag books that I have collected over the years. Practices like that were common place years ago. We need to return to the old wisdom yet again.

 

[patandchickens]

OK, so I am now verbally committed for 2 ewe lambs - the breeder wants to sort out her Easter lambs first, then look at the pedigrees etc of the keepers so she can decide what she wants herself, and will call me back in 10 days or 2 wks so I can come up then and pick two out.

I am starting to feel really bad about a flock of just 2, but DH totally put his foot down when pushed on the issue, so I guess it will have to be just 2 for the moment. Although if I can manage to sell the oldest TB's saddle -- which I have never liked anyhow and would never want to use on another horse -- perhaps I can buy another lamb or two from someone else later this spring with "my own" money...

Thanks y'all, I will post pics in a couple weeks once I have got the lambs,

Pat, has to knock together a little portable 'sheep shack' for them I guess - I have some metal panels from an old shower that might work really well for a roof...

 

[miss_thenorth]

You can always keep some of the offspring later on if the milking etc goes well, too.