starting in sheep

[jac]

Hi my name is caitlyn im 11 years old and im the C in jac my dads log in name.
I would like to get my own sheep and was wondering if anyone could help me with advice on breedes that woud suit a wet climate,bacic care, feeding and anything else you can think of. Thank you . Caitlyn 🙂

[dominiquer60]

C

If you are looking for purebreds, I used to work with a good sized flock of Romneys. The were nice to work with and the owners sold the meat at market and the wool to hand spinners. They can be white or natural colored and have a nice long staple fleece for spinning. The mothers were good and reasonably docile for being rarely handled. They also had some crosses, these were a little more high strung and flighty, but beautiful medium/fine length wool in every color imaginable. These are all I have to compare Romneys to. I had a friend in Scotland years ago, they used to have blackface, but gave them up because they were so wild. I liked working at the sheep farm and I learned a lot even though I don’t plan on having sheep. Good Luck with your sheep project and let us know what breed you decide on.

Erika

[mother katherine]

Caitlyn, Look and see what people in Scotland have for sheep. Maybe you could find some threatened breeds you might like, such as the Leicester Longwool.
We have Romneys and they can be very friendly. Cheviot is what I think of when I think Scotland; but they are nervous.
I like the Icelandic the best: they are smart, low input, low maintenance (little to no grain) and can be very friendly and cuddly. I’m not sure how the Shetland breed is.
oxnun

[sanhestar]

what about Scottish Blackface Sheep?

Do you want to use the wool for spinning, felting, etc. or only have the sheep for meat. Or do you think about milking the sheep?

[jac]

Hi.. Thank you all for your ansers. Erika i hadnt thot of romneys. All the farmers round here have cross breeds. My mum and dad think i should look for small easy lambers and good mothers. Oxnun im going to google the icelandic sheep, i like the sound of that. Sabine the blackface is to wild for me to handle.I hadent thought of milking,we have a friend that does spinning.
So she could use the wool.Is it hard to get the wool ready for spinning?
Thanks again
Caitlyn 🙂

[dominiquer60]

C
Cotswald sheep seem pleasant too, I have a friend that shows them at our fair and they are very gentle, their wool is long and forms very defined ringlets. Icelandics are very nice but they can by pricey.

I am sure some one else may have better details, preparing a fleece can take some time and a little skill. Even if you don’ t want to try it you should never throw hay over their heads and backs, the less hay you get into their fleece, the easier it is to clean for you or others. To prepare wool to spin you need to first have a good shearer that can cut the wool clean and close with single passes. Second cuts produce little short pieces, those are what cause our sweaters to get little pill balls on them. Once shorn the fleece can be stored away in clean plastic bag or skirted right away. Skirting involves unrolling the fleece flat and removing the belly wool, britching wool, matted neck wool, any hay or debris. Goal is to leave only the usable wool (80%) and remove the foreign material.

From here I am not sure of exact details, but you need to wash the wool. You can use the gentle cycle in your house or do it by hand, but you want to remove the lanolin oils and dirt, while not agitating or spinning it too much, otherwise is will felt on you, in which case start over with another fleece. Once dry you use carding combs to get the fibers to follow the same direction. When done correctly the fibers form a large loose fluffy strand of roving. Roving is what you use to spin yarn using a spinning wheel or a drop spindle. Hopefully that gives you a little idea about what is involved. Like anything the more you do it the better at it you will become.

Good Luck,

Erika

[Robernson]

I have a small flock of Suffolks that are very good mothers. They have lambed well in the past and I would expect them to this year.

A word of caution on feeding; sheep are very aggressive eaters. they should not be fed grain free choice unless they are used to being fed that way. They will over eat and bloat……….not very good.

Good Luck:)

~~R

[near horse]

Hi Caitlyn,

We have some Suffolk sheep just because that was the “only” thing my kids could bring to the fair for 4H (ag youth program). These sheep get pretty big and pushy – could be harder to handle. Since they grow to a good size, many people use them for what’s called a terminal sire – use a suffolk ram to breed ewes whose lambs you plan to raise for meat and sell. Personally, I also like the Icelandic sheep – they have nice wool, aren’t too big and give enough milk that they can be used for home dairy. Sheep cheese is too good!
Have fun, see what is available in your area and not too pricey. You can always switch to another breed after you get your feet wet !

[sanhestar]

Caitlyn,

I was asking about your plans for the wool because if you want to seriously start spinning or having the wool processed for spinning you need to take this into consideration for your breed choice, too.

F.e. the Blackface have a wool that’s not very good for spinning fibers for knitting – it’s coarse and too long and was mostly used to make rugs from it.

Sheep with a coarse wool, short hair or hair with a lot of crimp also don’t give high quality wool.

Preparing a fleece for spinning is an interesting but time consuming work.

Depending on the state of the fleece – content of dirt, lanolin, sweat – you have to wash it at least one time, more often 2-3 times. This washing is more soaking because every time you handle wool under water with temperature changes AND movement there’s a high risk of the fleece/fiber starting to felt.

After that you continue with either carding or prepare the wool some more by pulling the smaller batches apart and sort out remaining food particles (hay, seeds, etc.) and then you start carding. Carding can be done with hand carders – VERY time consuming -, a drum carder or at a carding facility on a big carding machine.

After that it’s either spinning the white wool and then dying or first dying the fleece and then spinning the yarn. Last is twisting it with another (or even a third) strand of yarn to make it stronger.

Depending on how much time you can commit to all the steps it can take several months to turn a fleece into yarn.

@near horse: I don’t know how the situation is in Scotland but in Germany you can’t get Iceland sheep that aren’t heavily inbred and already suffer from inbred deprivation.

@Caitlyn again: have you considered asking in your neighbourhood or at county fairs to get contact to local sheep breeders?

[mother katherine]

Caitlyn, don’t let all the steps in fleece prep scare you off. when I started spinning, the others would only let me have fleece that wasn’t worth anything – in case I ruined it. The shearer used to laugh as I scrabbled up all the bellies, tops and other wool not used in “regular” yarn. I got so that I could spin anything and good fleece seemed like cheating.
Anyway. At first, you don’t have to do all the washing and carding, as long as the fleece is reasonably clean and you used individual locks. A lot of people prefer to spin “raw”(unprocessed) fleece. You can, if the fleece is too oily, wash/rinse only the little bit you want to use at a time – much more manageable. Again, the primitive sheep, Icelandic, Shetland, don’t have quite the lanolin in the fleece and are fun to do raw.
Spinning can be as easy as 15 minutes a day. I used to spin while watching tv. If you use a spindle, you can take your little bit of fleece in a bag and spin anywhere: in the car, on the lawn, during boring talk, in a waiting room. People are fascinated to watch.
As far as pricey, see if someone has a crossbred or unregistered sheep. A wethered ram is agood fleece producer and is sometimes cheaper and more of a pet than a breeding ewe. I have several wethers of various breeds just for fleece production. One Icelandic wether was quite a local “star”: he appeared in many Christmas plays, went to schools and nursing homes. He loved being with people and often cuddled when I went to the field to visit him and his family.
oxnun

[Donn Hewes]

When choosing a breed of sheep it is important to consider what you want from the sheep. For example, is the fleece most important or not at all; would colors be an assest? Most, but not all, producers consider the lambs’ meat carcass important. As we milk our sheep for cheese production, milk yields are very important to us.

On top of this it is important to consider (and maybe even more important) the sheep management you hope to employ. We feed no grain whatsoever. It is a challenge, but I would not keep a sheep any other way. As my wife is always saying, “no animal was more perfectly designed to eat grass than a sheep”. Years ago our flock was wormed with the typical chemicals and the standard times of year. Today, we might have to worm one lamb (no ewes, no whole flock) for clinical signs of specific worms, barber pole and meningeal worm being the main ones.

There are many management practices that go into acomplishing each of these management goals, but breed selection and breeding is one of them. Management and how different breeds will respond to it is also very local. You will have to talk to your neighbors to find out what has worked for them.

As a result our flock (45 milking ewes) is mixed breed. We have varying amounts of East Friesian, Dorset, Texel, and a lttle Black Welsh Mountain. After twenty five years of our management and breeding it is safe to say that this small flock is somewhat of its own breed.

My point is this, You may have to search high and low to find local farmers that share SOME of your management goals, and buying sheep from them could be a big leg up. You may also search long and hard for the fibers and other qualities you want in your sheep. In the end you may need to create the sheep that does just what you want. Good luck, farming with sheep is about the funnest thing my wife and I have ever done.

[jac]

Thank all for your replies and i will consider all that you have said about breeds of sheep.I may just take up our neighbor Mats offer of 2 cross ewes hopefuly in lamb. Texel crosses. My main idea is meat and wool and will try prepairing a fleece. It sounds like fun.I plan to keep this flock oganic.
? i hve more quetsions about how you can do this with out using chemicals and as little grain as possible.
As soon as i get my sheep i will send you a photo of them and keep you all up to date on how we get on.
Thank you all again …….:)
Caitlyn

[mother katherine]

We had a pair of Texels. They had been raised as pets were very sweet. They looked like overgrown cheviots to me – without the nerves.
The keeping of sheep with little grain and chemicals is not that hard, if you know your sheep and watch them to learn their ways. I am fascinated to watch our girls and have learned a lot about sheep and their ideas about themselves and their lives.
oxnun

[clayfoot-sandyman]

Hi Caitlyn.

I was new to sheep about 3 years ago and took a little advice from a few people and there was lots of positive praise for Lleyn’s so I went for them and found them to be an excellent beginners sheep.
Lleyn sheep originate from the Lleyn peninsula in Wales and until recently were a relatively unfamiliar breed of sheep in the UK.
Over the past 10 years the Lleyn breed has caught the eye of many farmers, and now Lleyn sheep can be found almost all over Britain & Ireland. Farmers soon find that the Lleyn is an ideal ewe, quiet in nature, prolific, has great maternal instincts, milky, & will not eat you out of house and home. The Lleyn fits in to many situations and its versatility suits both lowland and upland grazing.
They’re not wildly exotic, but are hardy, good mothers and pretty docile and they won’t throw too many surprises at you. They’re wool is fine for spinning and felting on the whole. They’re a robust easy beginners sheep and I’d really recommend them. http://lleynsheep.com/
I also have Shetlands which have very fine wool in many colours and are smaller (although Lleyn’s are not a big sheep, just Shetlands are tiny!) However Shetlands are a much more nervy and reactive and the lambs grow REALLY slowly. But they do fine on poor exposed ground (think Shetland islands!)http://www.shetland-sheep.org.uk/

Good luck, Ed;)

[jac]

Hi Ed ..Caitlyns dad here.. She’s been so busy this weekend helping me and this is a school night so I said I would answer you on her behalf.. We checked out those Lleyn sheep {how do you pronounce that by the way}… Turns out there is a breeder about an hour from here. Been in touch and plan a visit soon. We thought of just getting commercial breeds but Caitlyn want something off the regular path !!! cant fault her for that:D. Thank you for the idea. will keep you all up to date with her project…
John

[Author]

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