Why to raise sheep?

[Jesusfreak101]

Ok I am interested in sheep for meat but what do you do with all that wool from the ones you keep?

 

[Latestarter]

Generally speaking, wool sheep are not used for meat... Meat sheep are referred to as "hair" sheep as they "drop/shed" their hair in the spring and generally need no trimming. Some clumps may "stick" and need to be pulled off, but most breed for ease of shedding as well as meat.

 

[Jesusfreak101]

Oooooo that's good to know that would explain the reason I kept seeing hair sheep I just assume all sheep where. Hairy/woolly lol guess there a difference.

 

[Jesusfreak101]

I suppose that means doper and katahdin are meat breeds not wool breeds. It gets hot(110°f highs) in summer so I was worried about getting woolly breeds. We dont really get cold weather (lows normally 20°f in winter very rarely teens) what ever breed I end up getting (way down the road not anytime soon) I want to make sure they can do well and not have sever health issues or suffer from the heat.

 

[greybeard]

It's my understanding that hair sheep aren't as 'tallowy' tasting as wool sheep....

 

[Jesusfreak101]

Oooo ok so wooly sheep taste some what like soap.... Eww ok hair sheep it is. What breeds would be best for south Texas. (Near San Antonio).

 

[Latestarter]

The wool has a lot of lanolin (priority ingredient in soap)... hair sheep don't. Yes, Dorper (bigger butts) and Katahdin (smaller butts) are the predominant meat breeds but not the only ones. To my understanding, the Kahtadin is a milder tasting meat but he Dorper produces a heavier carcass weight. Many cross the two, male dorper to female Katahdin to add meat to the smaller frame. @Baymule has been doing this. @Mike CHS has been breeding straight Katahdins I believe.

 

[Bossroo]

To clarify a few points -- traditionally the "meat sheep" were the Southdown, Suffolk, Dorset, Hamshire and a few others. About 50 years ago the wool market crashed in the US and has not recovered.Most sheep breeders whent out of business, including me. Today it costs more to sheer the sheep than what you can sell the wool for. So, breeders developed several breeds of sheep using wool shedding characteristics. Among the most successful is the Dorper which was developed using the Dorset ram crossed onto the Persion ewe in S. Africa to produce a meat lamb carcass more economically on sparce feed , able to withstand extreame weather conditions, and without shearing costs.

 

[Baymule]

I studied the sheep breeds and decided that wool sheep were not for me. I bought Dorper/Katahdin mix ewes, already bred to a Katahdin ram. Then I bought a Dorper ram for two lambings and am currently ramless.

Hair sheep are all over west Texas. You should have no problem finding what you want.

 

[The Old Ram-Australia]

G'day, this is an interesting topic.Until recent times all of the meat sheep were derived from mainly British Shortwools (as Bossroo described).After the "wool crash" ,which by the way was brought on by growing greed of industry leaders who pushed the "floor price too far".It is still the case that a lot of Merinos are joined to Meat rams to improve the resulting lambs ,the ewe portion are always in demand to be crossed with meat rams again to produce a 2x lamb which meets supermarket and export requirements and the 1x ewe still cuts a decent amount of wool.

IMO, there are differences in the meat from Hair and Wool breeds ,but its a lot to do with the feeding regime and the base line genetics.Aussies were brought up on British Shortwools and so accepting the meat from the Hair breeds has been very slow,in fact in the supermarket meat cabinet the two types are displayed quite differently...T.O.R.