Thinking of sheep, Where to buy

[Horsefly]

I am thinking of getting some sheep but never see any advertised anywhere near me. Where do all of y'all get yalls sheep from to start off with? Also how do you pick the breed you want, do you just go by availability, or what would factor into your decition?
I'm not to particular about the breed I get I just want a wool sheep not a hair breed. I'm thinking about trying to track down some gulf coast sheep because they are a Louisiana native breed and are supposed to be pretty parasite resistant. I also really like the looks of the old English sheep.
One last question, do any of you keep goats and sheep together? I would probably pasture them together during the day and separate them at night into different stalls for feeding and sleeping. Would they be able to get the right minerals and stuff then? Thanks

 

[boykin2010]

Look on the internet to find breeders around you. I found about 3 breeders i never knew existed in my city. You can also get some from auction but sometimes they arent the best quality.

I know a lot of people keep sheep and goats together. I dont so i cant help you there

 

[Horsefly]

I've interneted around and I can mostly only find hair sheep people and they are all several hours away. I cant seem to find any good sites listing sheep breeders in my state. How do you find out about auctions in your area? I might try looking those up next. How much should an average sheep cost, I see them occasionally on craigslist listed for $50-100 and it seems like people have a hard time getting rid of them.

 

[patandchickens]

Be careful of auction sheep (for anything other than going into the freezer). Especially if you are new to sheep. But even if you're not. An awful lot of sheep sent to auction are sent there for a REASON.

I had quite a hard time finding the right sheep breeds available up here last year -- what finally did it for me was a combination of three things (I ended up with 2 kinds of sheep from different sources):

--- extensive googling to find breeders to contact (there were a whole lot of *different* sheep producers' associations here in Ontario, each with their own website and breeders' lists, with very little overlap of who was on which list! Probalby the same for you. So look hard, and make phone calls or send emails)

--- asking at feed stores (which is how I got my two dairybred ewes, who even KNEW there was someone around doing sheep dairying? one kid at one feedstore, that's who! And when I called the lady she was happy to sell me two British Milksheep X ewe lambs, which I do not think I could have turned up otherwise)

--- posting on relevant internet forums (in the end, my shetlands came from a guy a couple hrs away who saw me posting questions about sheep on an Ontario backyard-milk-cow-etc forum. Although, I *did* only want a ram and somehow got talked into also buying a much, much more expensive ewe too, but then also got her wethered lamb for free as a ram companion so I guess it was not so bad, and anyhow my own stupid fault LOL)

Good luck, have fun,

Pat