Ridgetop
Herd Master
It is great to hear that you are trying to find what works for you in the lamb market. You might find that you can trade lamb carcasses for beef with your neighbors. Until you increase your flock to warrant taking a trailer load of lambs to market, this might be a more economical project to feed a growing family. You may have to invest in another couple freezers, but you will have good cheap meat. For your quality of graze (poor), your stocking rate per acre is fewer head than on good quality or irrigated pasture so you need to figure out how many head you can carry. Remember that buying feed quickly eats your profit. Lambs do not convert feed into meat as fast as hogs either.
As to flavor of meat from hair or wool sheep, I have had both kinds of lamb. The hair sheep we bought to try was touted as lamb but the roast was half the size of our 4 month Dorset roasts, and was incredibly tough. The flavor was no difference than our own lambs but our family (sheep and goat eaters for 30 years) did not like it because it was so tough. I really don't see that much flavor difference between the breeds. We slaughtered and ate a 14 month old Hamp ram after using him for breeding years ago and he tasted fine. No gamey taste. The heavy gamey flavor some people say they taste could be from age, type of feed, or improper trimming of the meat. Leaving the chiton or heavy paperlike layer over the fat gives the lamb a very strong flavor. My grandmother always said you had to trim it off to avoid the strong flavor.
The difference in price you were told you would get between the wool breeds and hair breeds is due to where they are being marketed. You need to find out what your market is. Hair sheep are fine for niche markets, but the larger wool breeds are preferred by the commercial packers since their equipment is all regulated to a larger animal. Since you seem to be in commercial beef and sheep country, your neighbors are probably selling to the packer.
Katahdin and other hair breeds are a smaller, finer boned animal. They produce lambs at slaughter age around 50-60 lbs. This is the popular size for the ethnic market. It is a BBQ or lamb carcass to be cooked on a spit. To get them to commercial weight of 165-175 lbs. they have to be almost full grown. This is not feasible where you are trying to produce a sellable lamb in the shortest time period possible. On the other hand they can be raised on poor pasture and some of them lamb every 8 months with intensive management practices. They are good mothers, generally easy lambers, and milk well.
Black face wool breeds (Suffolk, Hamps, crosses) are a much larger animal. They produce a larger framed and heavier boned lamb that is desired by the feedlots because they can be grown out on milled feed to a packer weight of 165-175 lbs.
This is not the sort of sheep that does well on harsh terrain since it requires better pasture and a lot of creep feeding. These sheep only lamb once a year. They sometimes need to have lambs pulled, may or may not milk as heavily, and need good pasture. Make sure you select ewes that have easy lambing characteristics.
My breeds are white faced wool Dorsets, and wool shedding Dorpers. The Dorpers are new this year and I have not yet had enough experience with them so I won't comment on their performance. I have bred Dorsets over 15 years. They have lighter bone and do not have as much leg below the hock under them as the black faced breeds. In direct ratio to the amount of bone though their carcass carries more meat than the long legged black faced breeds. They will lamb every 8 months. The meat has a lovely mild flavor. They have few lambing problems, are excellent mothers, milk heavily, and raise their lambs on pasture to butcher weight of 90-110 lbs. by 4 months old. They do not do as well on harsh pasture as Dorpers, however, they have fewer problems than the black faced breeds which we also raised for many years.
If you are paid by the lb., the larger wool breed has a larger payback at the saleyard since they weigh more. Also, if you have wool breeds you should be docking tails. Since you have hot springs and summers, we think docking is essential to prevent flystrike in the manure under the tail that accumulates in the wool. The best dock is between the 2nd and 3rdth joint on the tail from the anus. Too short a dock is not good for health reasons. Now, here is a secret that sheepmen do to get the most out of their sale price. Some sheepmen leave the tail a little longer - say the 4th or 5th joint. It doesn't sound like much but of you are running 1000 sheep through a scale, that 1" of tail adds $$. It won't be anything if you are just bringing a few sheep or selling them privately, so you don't have to worry about it until you are running that many. LOL Main drawback to wool breeds is shearing (extra work or cost). If you can pick up a used clipper with sheep head and blades from a 4-H kid who is graduating, or at a farm sale, it will be quicker for you to shear than with a hand shear. On the other hand, that hand shear will come in handy if you want to breech your ewes before breeding or lambing. make sure to keep your hand shears and clipper blades sharp. Shearing sheep in the grease dulls the blades really fast. Once you finish shearing immediately send the blades off to be sharpened and they will be ready for next year. Shearing day is not the time to find out you forgot to sharpen your blades! LOL
As to flavor of meat from hair or wool sheep, I have had both kinds of lamb. The hair sheep we bought to try was touted as lamb but the roast was half the size of our 4 month Dorset roasts, and was incredibly tough. The flavor was no difference than our own lambs but our family (sheep and goat eaters for 30 years) did not like it because it was so tough. I really don't see that much flavor difference between the breeds. We slaughtered and ate a 14 month old Hamp ram after using him for breeding years ago and he tasted fine. No gamey taste. The heavy gamey flavor some people say they taste could be from age, type of feed, or improper trimming of the meat. Leaving the chiton or heavy paperlike layer over the fat gives the lamb a very strong flavor. My grandmother always said you had to trim it off to avoid the strong flavor.
The difference in price you were told you would get between the wool breeds and hair breeds is due to where they are being marketed. You need to find out what your market is. Hair sheep are fine for niche markets, but the larger wool breeds are preferred by the commercial packers since their equipment is all regulated to a larger animal. Since you seem to be in commercial beef and sheep country, your neighbors are probably selling to the packer.
Katahdin and other hair breeds are a smaller, finer boned animal. They produce lambs at slaughter age around 50-60 lbs. This is the popular size for the ethnic market. It is a BBQ or lamb carcass to be cooked on a spit. To get them to commercial weight of 165-175 lbs. they have to be almost full grown. This is not feasible where you are trying to produce a sellable lamb in the shortest time period possible. On the other hand they can be raised on poor pasture and some of them lamb every 8 months with intensive management practices. They are good mothers, generally easy lambers, and milk well.
Black face wool breeds (Suffolk, Hamps, crosses) are a much larger animal. They produce a larger framed and heavier boned lamb that is desired by the feedlots because they can be grown out on milled feed to a packer weight of 165-175 lbs.
This is not the sort of sheep that does well on harsh terrain since it requires better pasture and a lot of creep feeding. These sheep only lamb once a year. They sometimes need to have lambs pulled, may or may not milk as heavily, and need good pasture. Make sure you select ewes that have easy lambing characteristics.
My breeds are white faced wool Dorsets, and wool shedding Dorpers. The Dorpers are new this year and I have not yet had enough experience with them so I won't comment on their performance. I have bred Dorsets over 15 years. They have lighter bone and do not have as much leg below the hock under them as the black faced breeds. In direct ratio to the amount of bone though their carcass carries more meat than the long legged black faced breeds. They will lamb every 8 months. The meat has a lovely mild flavor. They have few lambing problems, are excellent mothers, milk heavily, and raise their lambs on pasture to butcher weight of 90-110 lbs. by 4 months old. They do not do as well on harsh pasture as Dorpers, however, they have fewer problems than the black faced breeds which we also raised for many years.
If you are paid by the lb., the larger wool breed has a larger payback at the saleyard since they weigh more. Also, if you have wool breeds you should be docking tails. Since you have hot springs and summers, we think docking is essential to prevent flystrike in the manure under the tail that accumulates in the wool. The best dock is between the 2nd and 3rdth joint on the tail from the anus. Too short a dock is not good for health reasons. Now, here is a secret that sheepmen do to get the most out of their sale price. Some sheepmen leave the tail a little longer - say the 4th or 5th joint. It doesn't sound like much but of you are running 1000 sheep through a scale, that 1" of tail adds $$. It won't be anything if you are just bringing a few sheep or selling them privately, so you don't have to worry about it until you are running that many. LOL Main drawback to wool breeds is shearing (extra work or cost). If you can pick up a used clipper with sheep head and blades from a 4-H kid who is graduating, or at a farm sale, it will be quicker for you to shear than with a hand shear. On the other hand, that hand shear will come in handy if you want to breech your ewes before breeding or lambing. make sure to keep your hand shears and clipper blades sharp. Shearing sheep in the grease dulls the blades really fast. Once you finish shearing immediately send the blades off to be sharpened and they will be ready for next year. Shearing day is not the time to find out you forgot to sharpen your blades! LOL
SO SORRY! MY COMPUTER JUST WENT BERSERK AND POSTED MY VERY LONG RESOINSE MEGA TIMES! GETTING OFF TO RESET COMPUTER. 
