# New to sheep, need some advice



## cugrad (Mar 24, 2013)

Hello BYH,

I'm a good ways out from purchasing my first sheep, but I am enjoying reading about them. Basically, I want a small herd as a hobby. I doubt I will have a huge acreage, and I want the sheep to be a hobby more than a way of life if that makes sense. With that said, I'm looking at specifically hair sheep since they do not need to be docked or sheared. Or if there are some other sheep that do not require docking or shearing, feel free to mention them so I can take a look. It looks like I am in luck, I live in South Carolina so our mild weather should aid me in having a low maintenance herd. I do want to do a small breeding setup versus just keeping a "pet herd". I enjoy raising animals.

So I have some questions that I could not find answers too in my basic research. I would greatly appreciate some help!

1) In your opinion (I know it varies), how many sheep per acre am I looking at if I want to let them live off grazing the majority of the time? 

2) Just to give me an idea, if pasture size is not the limiting factor, what size herd would you consider low maintenance?

3) I am set on owning a ram or two. They are nice to look at, and as mentioned I want to breed. For hobby herds, do you still recommend housing the rams separate? And do rams fight a lot? Can you keep 2 rams with a small herd of ewes if I decided to keep the rams with the ewes year round?


4) If I buy 3 ewes and 1 ram to start with. After my first lambing season, would I have to buy a totally new ram in order to keep building my herd? I'm trying to wrap my head around genetics of sheep.

5) How hard are lambs to sell? I want to go through the yearly process of raising a few lambs, but I don't want to end up with extras if my pastures can't handle them. 

If a specific breed of sheep seems ideal for me, be sure to chime in. Right now, it seems like Katahdin fit the bill, but the more exotic looking breeds appeal to me more. Any other tips are appreciated.

Thanks!
CUgrad


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## BrownSheep (Mar 24, 2013)

It's a little late right now so I'll just give you what pops up and come back tomorrow to add. 
Rattail breeds like Finn do not need tone docked but do need to be sheared.

As for grazing " most" of the time what are you looking at. March- November? April - October? Regardless you'll end up buying at least some hay for winter.

As for rams, please be aware rams can be dangerous. My two rams are with the ewes from about August until april/ may.  During the fall they split up into breeding groups. For the most part rams will only fight when be ( re) introduced. My two guys get along splendidly and fight very little even after being reintroduced. That being said rams can kill one another. We had a yearling polled ram that died after one of our older horned rams butted him.

Since you are looking at hair breeds you will most likely need to separate the rams at some point till breeding season. Hair sheep can breed year round. Keepin them in year round can lead to a very random and spread out lambing schedule. If you do want to keep track of breeding dates I would look into a breeding harness. 

Rams can be bred back to daughters. We breed father to daughter but we won't breed that offspring back to him. After breeding that ewe to another the inbreeding coefficient would be small again. Theres a jacob breeder that explains it well. Ill see if I can find her site for you. For an example.....
Say a and b produced ab. Ab can breed back to a to produce aab. Aab then needs to be bred to an unrelated ram we will can him Z. So then Zaab can then be bred back to A.

The old adage that if works its line breeding if not its inbreeding is always a good thing to remember as well.


We actually tend to eat all of ours and to be honest we come from a huge sheepherding area so finding lamb lovers isn't hard. It really depends on your market.

That's all for now. I'll see what else I can think of later.


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## SheepGirl (Mar 25, 2013)

Great animal choice!  Sheep are great! 

1. Usually you can get 5-6 ewes and their lambs on the same amount of land you can put a cow/calf pair. So for SC, I would guess maybe 5-6 ewes per acre or so.

2. What do you mean by low maintenance? Less time to feed? Less health issues? Less management needs? etc You are going to have to trim hooves and vaccinate, and while it doesn't take a long time per sheep, the more sheep you have, the longer it will take. Personally I like having a large flock (30-40 ewes). More lambs to ooh and aah at haha.

3. We've always had the rams separate, except for breeding season. Whenever the ram is with the ewes, he gets a marking harness put on. We've had up to 3-4 rams together and we've also had single rams. They will fight initially but after a couple days they sleep together and graze together.

4. No you don't have to buy a new ram. I've bred twin siblings together (not on purpose) and got two healthy ewe lambs that I bred to an outcross ram (though only one settled). My two ewe lambs I'm keeping this year I will probably breed back to their father.

5. If you take lambs to auction, they're always sold. If you want to sell direct to customers (breeding stock/pets/meat), you will have to do a little bit of marketing.

5) How hard are lambs to sell? I want to go through the yearly process of raising a few lambs, but I don't want to end up with extras if my pastures can't handle them. 

----

Personally I like my wool sheep so I don't have any hair recommendations for you


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## tiana29 (Mar 25, 2013)

cugrad said:
			
		

> Hello BYH,
> 
> 
> 1) In your opinion (I know it varies), how many sheep per acre am I looking at if I want to let them live off grazing the majority of the time?
> ...


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## EllieMay (Mar 25, 2013)

cugrad said:
			
		

> . . . So I have some questions that I could not find answers too in my basic research. I would greatly appreciate some help!
> 
> 1) In your opinion (I know it varies), how many sheep per acre am I looking at if I want to let them live off grazing the majority of the time?
> _*The general number is about 6 per acre. It, of course, depends on your pasture situation. If you have no good grass, then you'll need fewer sheep.*_
> ...


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## cugrad (Mar 25, 2013)

Thanks for the reply guys/gals! Extremely helpful. I noted all of your main points. Sorry if any of the questions sound silly, I have zero farm experience. We had horses when I was young, but that is about it.

As far as what I meant by "low maintenance". I'm starting a career in financial services. Basically, its a high stress desk type job, so I have to keep things at home manageable. I was reading through this forum section, and one poster made the comment that people these days are "playing farm", that is exactly what I want to do. Have a small enough number of sheep that I don't have to constantly fret over chores, but enough that I have some work to do to blow off steam. Some physical work is the best cure for being mentally tired in my opinion (works for me anyway).
I'll go with keeping the rams away from the ewes save for breeding season. I can see where having a consistent lambing season would be ideal for a lot of reasons.


A few more questions if ya'll don't mind:
1) I'm probably going to start with Kats. But are Dorpers a bad choice? I'm a newbie, so of course looks are a motivator right now.  I like the standardized look and their stocky frames make them look like small cows lol.

2) Does mixing breeds impact the price of lambs? I'm assuming not since there are terminal sire programs? 

3) Is mixing species frowned upon for newbies? 



CUgrad


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## SheepGirl (Mar 25, 2013)

cugrad said:
			
		

> A few more questions if ya'll don't mind:
> 1) I'm probably going to start with Kats. But are Dorpers a bad choice? I'm a newbie, so of course looks are a motivator right now.  I like the standardized look and their stocky frames make them look like small cows lol.
> 
> 2) Does mixing breeds impact the price of lambs? I'm assuming not since there are terminal sire programs?
> ...


1. Again I don't really have any suggestions for hair breeds because I'm partial to my wool sheep  I like Dorpers because they are meaty, but I like the Katahdins more because they are more maternal than Dorpers (more babies, heavier lambs at weaning). From what I've seen, Katahdins don't have as good of a carcass as Dorpers.

2. Not if you're selling them at auction  Obviously if you're selling breeding stock you can get more for registered purebreds if you sold private treaty, but all the meat buyers at auction care about is how meaty your lambs are & what they grade as, because that's how they're paid (better grading = more money because it's higher quality meat). In fact, pretty much all sheep are crossbreds. The only reason to have purebreds is to show (but sometimes even those 'purebreds' have other breeds mixed in...but that's another topic altogether), to produce replacement ewes and flock sires for commercial flocks, and for novelty.

3. No, actually it is BETTER if you start with crosses! Less expensive sheep to make your learning mistakes on  I know it sounds morbid but if you make a sheep sick or kill a sheep due to your inexperience it will be better doing it on a $150-$175 commercial ewe than your fancy $300-$400 papered ewe. Also, crosses tend to experience hybrid vigor, which means they tend to be hardier, healthier, and more productive. All good things


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## BrownSheep (Mar 25, 2013)

To be honest for hobby farms where your just looking for a relaxing hobby I really would suggest mix breeds. Easier to locate, less ailments then the purebred breeds. You could always do katahdins ewes and a dorper ram for meatier lambs with better moms.


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## cugrad (Mar 25, 2013)

Thanks guys.

I'll try and find some kat crosses to get started. Your right Brownsheep, sounds like all I need anyway, as I am just looking for a hobby with some free meat thrown in. My main concern was shearing, I don't want anything mixed in that affects the kats shedding ability.

I'm sure I'll change my mind real quick once I have to deal with it, but man those big muscular rams are cool. I think that's why the dorpers peak my interest.

Now I just need a basic farming 101 course. I know nothing about pasture methods, how much hay to feed, toxic plants, how to plant a pasture, ect. Any books to recommend?


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## EllieMay (Mar 25, 2013)

Also, keep in mind that most Dorper owners DO dock their tails.
Don't know what they do with the crosses, though.
A lot of folks have the Dorper/Kat crosses, so they should be easier to locate and way cheaper (maybe).
Very good for meat, too.

You will find that keeping sheep is very easy.
I do have a friend who has 250+ sheep and they both have full-time jobs.
They check their sheep in the morning before work to feed/water and they do any necessary chores after work.
They are now lambing (can you imagine lambing 250+ ewes?).
Since Kats normally have twins or triplets, you can imagine how many baby lambs they have running around.


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## SheepGirl (Mar 25, 2013)

cugrad said:
			
		

> Now I just need a basic farming 101 course. I know nothing about pasture methods, how much hay to feed, toxic plants, how to plant a pasture, ect. Any books to recommend?


Personally, for sheep books I like Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep, SID: Sheep Production Handbook, and also Lambing Problems and Managing Your Ewe. While I do love those books and learned a lot from them, I learned even more from my neighbor. He grew up on a commercial sheep ranch out in South Dakota running thousands of ewes, and he moved to MD and had a smaller flock of crossbred Montadale/Babydoll Southdown ewes. He crossed the Babydolls onto the Montadales to make them smaller since he was getting old (he was almost 80 when he finally got out of sheep lol) and he wanted them easier to handle.

My sheep lived at his farm for about six years, then he moved to a retirement community in Texas, so my sheep moved to my house. I'm using a lot of the same management practices at my house that we used at his. Like continuous grazing unimproved/native pasture. We never rotated nor did we ever plant seed. Only thing we did was mow the pasture in late spring/early summer to make it a more manageable height for the sheep to graze on (the grass would be taller than the sheep ). My neighbor always thought that rotating pastures was a waste of labor for the 'benefits' that are associated with it (the 'cost' of labor would be more than the profit made from running more ewes).

As for feeding hay, at my neighbor's he had enough pasture that the ewes could graze it all winter long and only get hay when there was snow on the ground (not that they'd eat it then). At my house, we only have two acres and my sheep really grazed it down by late December/early January (I think). So up went a fence around 'The Sheep Shack' and they are being fed hay and grain. They are getting 2% of their body weight in hay daily plus grain. So I have a 145 lb ewe, a 200 lb ewe, and two 90+ lb 10 month old ewe lambs. I'm feeding 525 lbs of sheep, so I give them 11-12 lbs of hay a day split into two feedings, to count for waste also. Plus my two mature ewes are getting grain since they are lactating & would otherwise lose to much weight, esp with the quality of the hay I'm feeding. And my two 10 month old lambs are getting grain since they are still growing a little (and one is bred). Once the grass starts growing again, they will be moved back onto pasture, stop getting hay, but continue getting grain until their lambs are weaned.

Toxic plants--you can do a search on google for toxic plants to sheep in your area. I don't worry about toxic plants in my pasture (nor did we worry about them in the neighbor's). Don't quote me on this, but I think most toxic plants to sheep are more woody/shruby type plants than plants that grow in a field of grass & legumes. But you do need to worry about decorative/landscaping plants--when I take my sheep out to weedwhack around the house for my mom, I make sure they don't eat any of the poisonous plants around the house (bleeding heart, yew, etc).

As for planting a pasture--we've never done it. We just let the sheep eat what grows naturally in our area.

Here's a picture of part of my neighbor's pasture after 10-15 yrs of running sheep on it with only mowing it once a year and grazing sheep on it year round. This was taken mid-March last year. Unfortunately right now the grass is getting green, but it is not that long


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## cugrad (Mar 25, 2013)

Thanks sheepgirl,
I honestly don't know anybody keeping sheep near me. But I have read about rotating sheep. I guess I'll have to research that subject a bit more. I should be able to afford 20-50 acres depending on where we end up building our house. Granted that won't all be pasture, but I should have some play with how I manage the grass.

I did not know people docked Dorpers tails. I guess that is not a big deal though, the process seems easy enough. I'll have to find out what they do with crosses.


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## cugrad (Mar 25, 2013)

Out of pure curiosity, is there anyway to breed in standardized color in Katahdins? Would a dorper ram produce more standardized lambs when crossed with kats? I just love the look of same color herds.


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## EllieMay (Mar 26, 2013)

With Katahdins you never know what colors you're gonna get.
For most of us, that's the joy of owning Kats.  
Of course, it also helps with identifying sheep from a distance while they're in pasture.
This is a pic of a few of my friend's lambs playing in the hay pile:


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## cugrad (Mar 26, 2013)

White seems to be the dominate color? Or is that just the color that happened to be dominate this particular lambing season?


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## Images (Apr 6, 2013)

What about babydoll sheep?


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## BHOBCFarms (Apr 6, 2013)

If you want wool, Shetlands are a good choice, and you don't have to dock their tails.  Shetlands come in many, many colors and patterns, even spotted.  I have mini Cheviots, so of course I like them, but I am biased.  They come in black, dilute and paint (spotted).  Usually Mini Cheviots tails are docked.


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