Farming For Self-Sufficiency
(Page 5 of 7)
November/December 1974
Copyright © 1973 by John and Sally Seymour. Introduction copyright © 1973 by Schocken Books. Inc.
A self-supporting family might well keep half a dozen ewes, and consume all or most of their progeny throughout the year. The one slight complication here is—what about the ram? Does it really pay to keep a ram to serve only six sheep? An answer might be to ask a neighbouring farmer if you could borrow his ram for a few days. In a community, of course, this problem is much more easily solved (as are so many other problems). If four families keep six sheep each it is quite justifiable to keep a ram for them all. If the people have any sense they will keep their respective sheep in one flock, which one person looks after. If grass is not short with you, well keep a ram by all means, even if he is underemployed. At least he will give you wool.
RELATED CONTENT
If you want a small sheep, and a small sheep is certainly best for the single-handed self-supporter, then I would suggest the Southdown as your best breed. She is not very prolific, which means less bother at lambing but fewer lambs, the mutton is very good and her conformation as a mutton animal unsurpassed; she is quiet and docile. If you live in the mountains, or on very rough ground, the Welsh Mountain is another small breed and has unsurpassed mutton. But you will have to fence well because he is as wild as a stag. If he can't get under he will get over, and he is quite unsuitable for folding, which we shall discuss later. If you want a big sheep, and are on good land, the Suffolk or a Suffolk cross is fine. But the advice I would be inclined to give would be—choose the breed that is native to the country you live in. We had Suffolks while in Suffolk and Welsh in Wales, but we crossed the Welsh with a Suffolk ram.
As to the husbandry of sheep, if you are not doing it commercially there is really very little to be said about it at all. Sheep eat grass. They will fatten on good grass in a summertime if they are not infected with internal parasites. Sheep men say the biggest enemy of a sheep is another sheep. The meaning of this is that sheep cannot stand overstocking. Very good pasture may carry three ewes with their lambs per acre, less good two ewes and their lambs. You might average one and a half lambs per ewe. But they will do far better if you rotate them around the farm: put them on, say, a quarter of your grass acreage and keep them there until they have nibbled the grass right down, then move them on to the next quarter. In this way let them follow the cows—sheep will graze very advantageously after cows have had all they can get: cows will starve after sheep.
The obvious plan is to lamb in the spring so that the lambs grow up on clean spring grass, have the summer growing season to fatten on, and are killed in the autumn and winter, so in the late winter 'hungry gap' you only have your small stock of ewes to feed. If your acreage is too small to winter your stock of ewes you can keep them indoors, or at least allow them to come indoors part of the time. You then must feed them on hay. And perhaps give them some oats, or corn. Watch them carefully to see what sort of condition they are in.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
Next >>
