Judging a Flock By Its Cover

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I have been raising sheep in Blue Grass, Virginia, for the better part of 25 years. For 15 years, like farmers around me, I ignored wool and concentrated on market lambs. Ten years ago, I looked at the wool, screamed, and bought a Rambouillet ram. Today, my 60 or so sheep are a complex cross of Suffolks and Rambouillets with piebald genetics. They look like Holstein cows with white wool.

Suffolks milk well, are prolific and grow quickly, but tend to be short-lived, not particularly hardy and an embarrassment to wool. Rambouillets added fine, dense wool and extended the useful life of my ewes from six or seven years to 10 or 11 years. Hybrid vigor can make the total package better than the sum of its parts.

Recently I've been breeding my piebald rams with totally unrelated piebald ewes to produce consistent halfSuffolk/halfRambouillet lambs. Detailed records, both on paper and on the sheep (as numbered and color-coded ear tags) make it possible.

Note that to produce solid, dark wool, sheep must carry two recessive genes for color-black/gray or brown-and will appear black unless both genes code for brown. Sheep that appear white may harbor a single recessive black or brown gene and not be "pure" white at all.

Starting a Flock

To locate sources for a particular breed, contact the breed's purebred association or look in sheep publications (see " Sources "). Many breeders list sheep for sale on the Web. If you want a few sheep for wool and don't want to raise lambs, wethers (castrated rams) may suit you. You may also find crossbred sheep fit your needs.

Before purchasing sheep, check udders for lumps (a sign of mastitis); scrotums for large solid symmetrical testicles (indicates good health and fertility); feet for trimmed hooves (either the result of great care or foot rot); and teeth for age (one set of adult teeth comes in annually until a sheep is four years old; after age four, teeth begin to wear down). If you fail to see front teeth on the upper jaw, don't think a sheep has lost them; it never had any.

Although livestock markets auction sheep, purchasing them in this way carries a two-prong risk. First, someone else wanted to get rid of them - you should ask why. Second, when you bring an animal home from a livestock market, it can bring diseases it may have caught from the other animals at the show.

Barbara Gentry, shepherd and spinner, weaves a wool rug on a drugget, or barn loom.

Some shepherds start a flock with orphan lambs. Farmers with large flocks commonly give away or sell "extra" newborn lambs, particularly triplets from mothers with only enough milk for two. These orphans - also called "pet" or "hammer" lambs - must be bottle-fed small amounts of milk every four hours, night and day, until they can digest more food less often. Large-scale farmers don't have enough time to act as a surrogate mother and help 100 ewes have 150 to 200 lambs in two weeks.

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