Used to be sheep were a big thing here early 1900’s. Probably most farms had sheep, cattle, hogs. I’ve heard people say that there’d be if I remember right 400 or more lambs at the market every week, and when the train came to the station there be a bunch of lambs on Depot street to be loaded onto train cars.
I’ve go friend that says when he was young and at home, his father and another man would buy and old ewe at the stockyards fairly often and slaughter it and split it between the families. He said the other man could eat sheep meat but not other kinds of meat was his reason and my friends family went in with him on that because it was cheaper eating. He said they ate it like they liked it, in other words they ate what they had and were appreciative to have food.
We are in the hills and foothills of the eastern Ky mountains, but even in western KY sheep has been popular to eat. I believe that western KY and Owensboro in particular is known as the mutton capital of the country. They barbecue mutton there and it’s good. In more recent times though they say that pork has become their biggest seller.
There’s 2-3 real good restaurants there that serve bbq mutton.
I will say though that while I’ll eat mutton and it can be good, if you get a hunk of mutton fat in your mouth it’ll ruin your day.
When my mother was a child and still at home they raised Southdown sheep.
20 years ago I had Suffolk and Suffolk crosses, and some polled Dorsets. Had a few Rambouillet and Columbia ewes too, but I didn’t those 2 breeds. They had a lot of wool and wool would get over their eyes. I liked the Suffolks because they didn’t have much wool and were clean headed and legged. Nowadays outside of the club lamb stuff, it’s mostly hair sheep that people have.
The folks that had sheep here at the time I did, would often try to coincide selling lambs around a certain ethnic holiday,
