The Baaaaasics of Raising Sheep
(Page 2 of 4)
June 25, 2008
By Alison Rogers
The meat breeds include Katahdin (a hair sheep, so it does not require shearing), Texel, Tunis, polypay, dorper (another hair sheep) montadale, Suffolk and Hampshire.
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The breeds considered best for wool include Romney, merino, Columbia, Lincoln, Border Leicester, Rambouillet and Cotswold.
There are many other breeds, including dual purpose sheep such as Corriedale and Columbia, which are known for both meat and wool production. Heritage and rare breeds also are an option, such as Gulf Coast sheep (a rare breed famous for their parasite resistance).
What do you feed them?
Our ewes are about 95 percent grass-fed. However, in winter we do feed the ewes a grain supplement (approximately 0.5 to 1 pound/ewe, depending on the quality of our hay) along with their high-quality legume hay or stockpiled standing forage, beginning when they are about four weeks from lambing and continuing until the spring grass is up.
Our lambs are 100 percent grass-fed — other than their mother’s milk they eat only grass or legume forages nine months of the year. Winter feed is high quality hay or stockpiled standing forage (pasture that has been allowed to grow from August 1 through the fall, then grazed in strips during the winter).
Milk sheep and wool sheep have higher nutritional requirements than meat sheep. However, it is possible to give them the very high quality nutrition that they need using management intensive grazing practices. The Stockman Grass Farmer is a great resource for learning more about this method. If you don’t use this grazing method, you may need to provide milk and wool sheep with a small amount of grain supplement year round.
Sheep, like all classes of livestock, require free access to salt and mineral supplements and plenty of fresh, clean water to maintain good health.
I hear that meat and milk products from grass-fed sheep are growing in popularity. Why?
Grass-fed meat benefits the environment by avoiding concentrated manure that can pollute waterways, by protecting and nurturing grass plants that help to sequester carbon, and by limiting or avoiding grain feeding of animals that can increase pollution problems through the concentrated application of chemicals to grow those grains. Grass-fed meat benefits the animals by providing them with the nutrition that their bodies evolved to best utilize. All of these reasons make grass-fed meats “healthy for us.”
