No longer lurking in Arkansas

[FollowingHim]

I might PM you, if you don't mind. There is lots of information available in this age, the problem is sorting through it all. I prefer cheating off someone else's paper! I really like seeing what other people have done and gleaning ideas to adapt to my own circumstances. As well as showing what I've done and letting them take away ideas or poke holes in it.

It would be good to talk. I'm on a sheep farm in New Zealand.

 

[NVIII]

I may have to disagree. We eat lots of sausage made from our sheep and find ribs and chops grilled over wood coals outstanding!
I love the versatility of lamb. If I could only have one meat.....that would be my choice.

Hair sheep are also very mild and delicious even at two years of age.

Another way we eat sheep is to oven roast a leg or shoulder (ok, honestly usually 2 or 3) with just basic seasoning blend (salt, pepper, garlic and onion granules) and then mix the drippings with rice and celery and onion cooked in butter with Thyme and Sage added. Very yummy!

Hair sheep is what I'm going for. A breed called St. Croix. All the literature presents them as low maintenance, high birth rates, good mothers, and decent finishing weight. Really looking forward to freezers full of low cost meat that I know the history of.

 

[NickF]

Hair sheep is what I'm going for. A breed called St. Croix. All the literature presents them as low maintenance, high birth rates, good mothers, and decent finishing weight. Really looking forward to freezers full of low cost meat that I know the history of.

You need to try and get some of Greg Judy's sheep. He's in MO. Look him up!

 

[rockfox]

I must say I like your sense of humour!

I do several of those hobbies, have dozens of fruit trees, beehives, and will soon have sheep & cattle. So there's lots we could discuss, but I have no idea where you'd like to begin!

So here's some random information to glean: The best way to eat sheep is in a mutton pie. I had one for lunch. Fantastic. You can only buy them in the southern parts of New Zealand as they're a very regional delicacy, and an acquired taste (exceedingly fatty), but I was travelling in the right area today. You'll have to come visit to find out if you don't like them.

What's in a mutton pie (besides mutton)?

 

[steve]

What's in a mutton pie (besides mutton)?

I’m guessing that they are different from cow pies.

 

[FollowingHim]

What's in a mutton pie (besides mutton)?

At this link, scroll down to the "Southland Mutton" pie to see an image and look at the nutritional information. It's just mutton and breadcrumbs making a sausage mix.
If you think it looks unappetising, that's ok, it tastes better than it looks. If you like fat!

The Pies — Fat Bastard Pies

www.fatbastardpies.nz

The rest of the pies on that page are more normal ones you'd find anywhere in NZ, and are all just as delicious.

 

[FollowingHim2]

If you're looking at that link, then you might want to know that kumara = sweet potato.
I find mutton pies too fatty, and just plain weird. I much prefer chicken, cranberry and brie (in that link it has bacon, but I've never actually seen one with bacon in it), or steak and cheese.

 

[FollowingHim]

I've already made this point in private to @NVIII, but thought I'd put it out there for others too who may be considering similar schemes.

Hair sheep is what I'm going for. A breed called St. Croix. All the literature presents them as low maintenance, high birth rates, good mothers, and decent finishing weight. Really looking forward to freezers full of low cost meat that I know the history of.

Ultimately, it is a very good idea to have a self-sufficient flock like this. However, it takes either a lot of time or a lot of money to get there, and it may not perform as well as expected (lambing percentage and growth rates may be lower than you expected, especially if you've never done this before and were considering it with rose-tinted glasses).

A faster option to get meat is to buy cull commercial ewes (or cows or goats), put some weight on them, get one lamb off them, eat both the ewe and the lamb, and buy another ewe. This has the large advantages that:

• You immediately get meat production. No need to wait to establish a flock, you have it running very quickly.
• Less money invested up-front.
• Much more meat off the same land area than running a breeding operation.
• Less risk. If you stuff it up and the sheep escape or die or simply fail to grow, you haven't lost as much money.
• You can quickly scale up or down in numbers as needed.

You'll make your inevitable mistakes with cheap livestock. Then when you do buy your fancy expensive sheep of the breed you actually want in the long-term, you'll already be experienced at caring for them, know if you still want to do this, know how many sheep your land can carry, and do a far better job of it.

 

[Joleneakamama]

Our hair sheep were just bought off local adds cheap. We got a katahdin ewe and ram....and the ewe had twins for 250 years ago. All our hair sheep have performed well. We had good lambing rates all along with triplets equaling singles. Six sets of triplets one year. Four sets last year.

I also have ewes that milk well and are fairly easy to hand milk. They are a win all the way around.

 

[FollowingHim2]

We got a katahdin ewe and ram....and the ewe had twins for 250 years ago.

Get yourself a sheep that lives for 250 years and produces twins each year. That's a keeper .

 

[Joleneakamama]

Get yourself a sheep that lives for 250 years and produces twins each year. That's a keeper .

I'm laughing at my lack of punctuation too. A daughter of those two katahdins is one of our most loved ewes. She had twins her first 3 or 4 years and then triplets two years running. Then a single ram from an accidental breeding when they were on poor forage. I have a yearling daughter I would keep, but she has an in your face personality (more goat like) and is more vocal then I like.