Sheep Breed
When deciding on raising sheep, breed characteristics will be your foremost concern, and finding just the right sheep breed based on these factors can be a bit confusing. You will want to determine whether you intend to raise your sheep for hobby and pleasure, if you are more interested in breeding for milk products, whether you can realistic pull in a profit from wool, or if you want to raise them for lambing and meat production. There are over 200 sheep breed families to choose from, with just over half of them being indigenes and habitually suited to life in North America. Below, we will discuss a few of the most common types of sheep available for farming today, and what they will bring to your venture.
Some of the most common hobby or 4H sheep breed families include the Katahdin and the Dorset. Both are graced with an easy and amiable temperament, giving young children confidence and experience with handling livestock. The mothers are greatly maternal, and it is very seldom that human intervention is needed with either sheep breed, even when multiple births occur. Sheep’s milk is very sweet and high in fat, and many hobby sheep farmers will use this tasty products for cheese and yogurt production. Some of the finest and most sought after cheeses are made from private farms with sheep’s milk as the primary dairy source. The milk can be used for a multitude of purposes, or you can just enjoy you sheep and watch them grow.
If you are looking for a sheep breed whose primary yield will be wool or hair, there are a great many choices for you to consider. The Romney sheep breed is a highly prized type which is just as valued for its wool as it is for its meat. You may run into this quite often, as the entire premise behind the strained bloodlines of every sheep breed over the past two hundred years has been to optimize both wool and meat renderings. The good news is that there are a few breeds who are prized for their shedding hair coats, and rooing is much more cost effective than shearing these days.
Finally, the sheep breed families most prized for their meat production would be either the Jacob or the Dorper. Offering the best of all worlds, these species are easy keepers, they gain weight fast, they are very hardy and capable reproducers, they give quality wool, and their meat is considered as a mild and delicate gourmet rendering. If all else fails to spike your interests, you may want to consider the miniature sheep breed. There is a great demand for these lovable little guys across the country.