What's the deal with sheep?

[Kell-inKY]

2 places near me suddenly have sheep, and or goats. What's going on? I wouldn't mind having a few on our place, the wife likes the way they (sheep, not goats) look, and if they were easy to keep in (heard they are not) I might consider it.

Anyway, is there suddenly a market? I heard some hear say that muslim's were buying them and the price is getting inline to be worthwhile? Most of the ones I have seen are the hair sheep type, for meat I assume. I did see on craigslist that there is a salebarn type thing going on for them locally now.

This is not another alpaca/ostrich thing is it?

 

[ANAZAZI]

Sheep is more down to earth, no hype.

 

[Bigfoot]

I used to keep a few really big ewes around when the kids were young enough to muttin bust. One child still is young enough, but she practices on donkeys. A sheep is not as bad as goat to keep in. Gotta watch them on getting in your cow mineral though.

 

[greybeard]

They call 'em pasture maggots around locally. I've heard of people that had some, but never actually saw it happen here.
(not that there's anything wrong with it)

 

[pricefarm]

I use to run a couple hundred ewes. There a lot more work than cattle. I had sheep for 15 years finally sold out last spring and haven't been happier. Now if I can only restock all my pastures with enough cows I will be happy. The lamb market is up and down all the time. One year there high the next your lucky to break even. I would lamb all my ewes in the fall so they would be ready for the Easter market. I would have all my lambs shipped to New Holland Penn.

 

[cow pollinater]

Hispanics will always buy them as well so if you have a hispanic population there will always be a market.
I think that with the price of grocery store food,especially beef, a lot of people are thinking that they can start producing their own and sheep and goats are cow-lite

 

[chrisy]

Top call of 145,000gns at Lanark Texel sale | Taking Stock
http://www.fwi.co.uk/...sales.../second ... tish-tex...
22 Aug 2014 - Trade topped 145,000gns at last week's Scottish National Texel Sale, Lanark. The sales 82% clearance rate for the ram lambs was the highest

This sheep sold for 145,000 guineas; that is a record £220,000 that is a staggering 307319.19USD .
guineas is an old English money system and most animals are sold in this way.

 

[VAAngus]

My wife bought 6 sheep one time just to use for training a border collie pup we had. Hadn't been here a week before I found the first one hung up in a woven wire fence with it's neck broke.
Found the second on laying in the middle of the field with somebody's dog chewing it's hind leg, sheep just laying there looking around while the dog chewed away. (Dog got to sleep with that sheep in the same hole) Third just disappeared never did find it. And finally the final 3 decided they liked the neighbors place better than ours(may have been safer). Took a week to get them back home and I couldn't sell the damn things fast enough. All this occurred in about a two week period, and I swore there would never be another sheep on my place.

 

[prairietrail45]

Some people graze sheep and/or goats with cattle to help the pasture. Sheep and goats eat different plants than cattle, so if you graze different species together a larger range of plants will be eaten. The biggest problem with goats is they are more designed to be browsers, not grazers. When goats are on grass they are more prone to worm problems and don't do as well. Goats are also not as easy to raise as cattle, they have more kidding issues (typically multiples), they are hard to keep contained and tend to not thrive as well on a grass only diet (unless you get Kiko's or Spanish goats). Goats can have copper, so that is one benefit and if you have a very brushy or wooded area they will clean it out really well. I have also found they are excellent at eliminating weeds.

I've never had sheep, but my neighbor does. He has a 10 strand barb wire fence around the sheep pasture, they stay in pretty good but he does lose one occasionally to coyotes but not often. I usually end up with a lamb or two every year when he has a ewe lamb with no milk, or not want to take care of it. All of his are hair sheep so no shearing He also says he has a lot of problems with foot rot, although I think if he trimmed their hooves once or twice a year that would help. Copper can kill sheep so you would have to either put out a sheep safe mineral and supplement your cows' copper or have a feeder for the cows that the sheep can't get into.


Studies in Kansas have shown that keeping a bell on a sheep or goat will help prevent predation. I keep bells on a few of my goats and have yet to have a coyote problem. If you really want some you could always look into a livestock guardian dog, but I've heard some horror stories about them too.

If you want to look up markets, go to goatrancher.com and click on Markets. It gives most of the markets around the country that are reported to the USDA.

 

[wbvs58]

Dorper sheep have been popular in Australia for both commercial lamb production and the hobby farmer. They are a great meat sheep and have the advantage of shedding their coat so saves the hassle of shearing them.
Ken

 

[slick4591]

2 places near me suddenly have sheep, and or goats. What's going on? I wouldn't mind having a few on our place, the wife likes the way they (sheep, not goats) look, and if they were easy to keep in (heard they are not) I might consider it.

Anyway, is there suddenly a market? I heard some hear say that muslim's were buying them and the price is getting inline to be worthwhile? Most of the ones I have seen are the hair sheep type, for meat I assume. I did see on craigslist that there is a salebarn type thing going on for them locally now.

This is not another alpaca/ostrich thing is it?

Eid al-Adha. Was told last year that they will pay in the $500 range for goats.

 

[cow pollinater]

Eid al-Adha. Was told last year that they will pay in the $500 range for goats.

I never paid much attention to ethnic holidays but when my wife was selling small livestock we would get customers that would pay top dollar for certain animals and wouldn't give a cent for anything except that animal. You can't give a white turkey away but the dark ones are gold if they're ready to butcher and someone is getting married. Black hens that are done laying are $20 a pop. Goats will sell here year round and you're losing money if you cut them. Same with hair sheep. There's a Hmong buyer that shows up at the sale barn a couple of times a year that will buy red bulls for whatever he has to give but he only wants a certain red bull.
I remember a family from merced(three hours north of me) that bought fifteen turkeys for $80 a piece and showed up on on the morning of the wedding to pick up their birds in their Sunday best and they still had to drive to el centro(seven hours south). They pulled out with a van load of forty pound turkeys in feed sacks sitting in their laps.

 

[John SD]

Sheep are good property, perhaps better than cattle, but a lot more work. I ran a small flock of 100 ewes but dispersed them in 2002 before my heart surgery. Still miss having sheep. Can't say that about hogs or chickens

It was a lot of work especially because I had the ewespretty much lambed out in Feb before I started calving in March. May lambing is much more enjoyable as is May calving :banana: 8) Not fun lambing or calving on a day like today with -30 wind chills Neighbor calving out 80 heifers ahead of his cows right now :shock:

You couldn't pay me enough to keep a goat or a horse around :yuck: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[TexasBred]

Stocking up to feed all the mexicans and muslims about to invade this country.

 

[msplmtneer]

If you think cows do stupid things sheep are worse!
Jamaicans like goats also!

 

[Kingfisher]

The goat auction here has all the Muslim holidays printed on their calender. Big difference in the market at those times. They just built a goat/sheep only processing facility last year. Good business and them goats allways seem to drop twins or triplets.

 

[Luca Brasi]

If interacting with your stock is important to you, sheep are dull and stupid compared to goats and cattle. Expect predator losses unless you get a LGD or have an intensive management situation.

Some of the newly developed hair breeds are impressive out on the pasture, but are a niche which require specialized marketing to certain hunting groups. They include Texas Dall, Black Hawaiian, Painted Desert and a few others. They require fences that are good or better than for most sheep.

If your fences are not adequate for sheep or goats, it's not that they are difficult to keep in, it's that you don't have the correct facilities for sheep or goats. Would you keep a canary in a parrot cage and then blame it for getting out?

The ethnic market has been increasing for a while, even in areas which haven't seen a lot of agriculture, especially if convenient to a big city. Some of them want to slaughter on site because Allah wills it or something. If you care to cater to that, more power to you. Since he seems to be willing a whole lot of other slaughtering techiniques recently I'm not interested, but a few local places that I've seen seem to be doing well with it.

 

[Bez__]

If your fences are not adequate for sheep or goats, it's not that they are difficult to keep in, it's that you don't have the correct facilities for sheep or goats. Would you keep a canary in a parrot cage and then blame it for getting out?

Well said.

Some of them want to slaughter on site because Allah wills it or something. If you care to cater to that, more power to you. Since he seems to be willing a whole lot of other slaughtering techiniques recently I'm not interested, but a few local places that I've seen seem to be doing well with it.

That type of slaughter is illegal in Canada. I no longer knowingly allow islamics on the place. We might do a little farm gate sales I will not sell directly to islamics. Only because I am tired of radicals who like to cut off the heads of westerners - and tired of the so called moderates living here, who will smile and hold your ankles. All the same to me now.

There is far more to the sheep industry than the ethnic market - if you concentrate on that market you miss a lot of opportunity.

All our animals go to the the feed lot chain and then off to the grocery store - contracted through Safeway and Loblaws - working on a couple of others - where all have the same chance to buy the product. Sales tend to average about $2.50 to $3.00 per pound for 80 pound animals going to the feed lot. We send them in groups of 50.

They are raised to 120 pounds and killed and sent off to stores - small operation but it is working so far.

 

[AllForage]

Do not put sheep in the same category as goats when it comes to fencing. Stop associating sheep with Muslims. I have never sold a lamb to one and don't plan on it. Regular folks enjoy it.

Why do you see sheep? I don't know, maybe 3000 dollar beef cows and all the investment associated with them??!! Run some numbers. Just like anything else, you are rewarded for direct marketing them with a lower overall cost to produce.

 

[Bez__]

Do not put sheep in the same category as goats when it comes to fencing. Stop associating sheep with Muslims. I have never sold a lamb to one and don't plan on it. Regular folks enjoy it.

Why do you see sheep? I don't know, maybe 3000 dollar beef cows and all the investment associated with them??!! Run some numbers. Just like anything else, you are rewarded for direct marketing them with a lower overall cost to produce.

All well said

They bring in about $40K here on an annual basis.

Best part? Wife does all the work. LOL