Gate for t-post fence?

[SheepGirl]

Why not sell him, if you can, and buy a new one. Then you could find a really nice (as in quality) one and breed him to your girls? I know you said yours are percentage somethings and maybe you could make some nice big ones to sell for meat. lol

I wanna sell him so I can use that money to buy a new ram, butttt I wanna keep him around to use as a terminal sire if/when I get my Katahdin hair sheep so I won't have to buy a new ram right away. But i dunno lol. Can't really sell him as a breeder cause he's 75% Babydoll Southdown and BS folks don't wanna crossbreed...so there's no market for him there. So my only option is to really sell him at auction but I'd only get like $80 for him. Which isn't enough to buy a new ram. So I might as well just keep him around until I need him lol

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

In that case I would keep him too. So you want Katahdins? Do you have any of them? What are your ewes? Are the same as your ram? Does your ram have a name? lol

 

[SheepGirl]

Nope no Katahdins yet. I have one 1/2 BS 1/2 Montadale, a 3/4 BS 1/4 Montadale, and two 5/8 BS 3/8 Montadale. My ram is 3/4 BS 1/4 M. My ram's name is Billy...it's short for Wooliam lol

 

[boykin2010]

Sheep girl you will love Katahdins! They are my favorite. Such easy keepers and great mothers too. I have 6 registered Katahdin ewes and several more ewes that are percentage. Several of them will let you pet them and scratch them all over and they weren't even bottlefed. I have found that the Katahdins are a lot more friendly like that then the other breeds I have had.

Are you getting registered Katahdins or commercial stock?

 

[SheepGirl]

I'm going to get some registered ewes and maintain a small flock of them, but I will cross some ewes with a Finn ram and a Texel ram to hopefully get a ram lamb of each cross and then I plan on using those rams on ewes to create a shedding ewe with better prolificacy and better carcass qualities.

So to answer your question, I will start off with registered Katahdins but I will cross some of them to create a commercial sheep.

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

Why not get Katahdin ewes and a Katahdin ram? (I almost called it a buck lol) I'm just curious. If you did that then you could sell registered Katahdins, providing they are all registered, and wouldn't it be a bit easier?

 

[SheepGirl]

Well I would get a ram and ewes to start, but the resulting ewe lambs out of the original stock would be bred to Billy so I don't have to buy a new registered ram right away. I would probably only sell a ram or two a year, keep most if not all of the ewe lambs and then market the rest of the rams and the ewes I decide to not keep. Then once I have one to two hair x wool lamb crops then I would sell the original registered ram and buy a new one and then probably get rid of Billy at that point lol.

 

[Straw Hat Kikos]

lol I got it. Sounds like you got it all down!! Do you know of any good sources for Katahdins?

 

[boykin2010]

Sheepgirl: A friend of mine down the road has been crossing registered Katahdins with Texels every year for a while. She has like 100 registered Kats she breeds but also has 2 Texel ewes she breeds every year. I saw the lambs they produced this year and they were very good looking. They grew fast and produced large meaty carcasses. She kept a few lambs to that were 50/50 and has been breeding them. As far as I know, it takes many many years of breeding back to Kats for them to get the hair coat quality back once they have been crossed with something like a texel. You should have seen those wooly lambs standing in the middle of 150 or so other Kat lambs. IT was hilarious. One thing she did notice was that the Texel cross lambs did not have the parasite resistance as the pure Kats. They didnt have any problems though. She just did fecal tests to find out they had higher egg counts.

Are you a member of KHSI yet? If not, I would. It is a great place to advertise and you will need it if you are selling registered stock. I don't know if you have seen this or not but here is a list of members in Maryland that are selling registered stock. http://www.countrylovin.com/KHSI/map/md.html

Good Luck!

 

[SheepGirl]

Nope, I'm not a member of KHSI yet. But I really want stock from the Baalands or Whitmore Farm, since they are closer to me.