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Author Topic: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(  (Read 3981 times)

shaneharpe16

  • Joined Aug 2014
Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« on: August 28, 2014, 03:12:43 pm »
Hello,

I am trying to understand the costs associated with keeping a few sheep.  Current thoughts are to have 3 ewes and breed from them each year for lamb in the freezer.  I am desperately struggling to understand the likely costs I will have.

I guess I'm trying to make sure it wouldn't cost anymore then buying lamb from the market, if its less then bonus but taking away potential vets bills which i guess you have to plan for but hope you never need, how much does it normally cost for feed, butcher, etc to get a lamb ready.

I found a wonderful article on pigs costs on this site which really broke it down for me, im wondering if theres anything like that for raising sheep

I am very new to the small holding concepts and at this stage I am simply in the early early planning stages so please be gentle with me  :hug:


TheSmilingSheep

  • Joined May 2013
Re: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2014, 08:49:58 pm »
Hi there,
I'm replying prematurely, since we're about to take our first sheep to 'the seaside' on Monday and wont know the associated slaughter/butchery costs until afterwards (too hopeless to ask, but less than two pigs - £155 for us - I suspect...)
But, since I know the delight of feeling someone's out there I thought I'd reply anyway!!!!
So, as I can figure it, the pay back from a very small flock of sheep is the perverse pleasure of having them.... we started last year with five ewes with lambs at foot (ie lambs at about four weeks old), and we went through lambing this year with the five ewes, to get six lambs.... we have a rare mountain breed, so they are small, and so you don't get a lot of sheep at 6+ months.  We've read how lovely 'hogget' is (sheep between one and two years old, some say, though I know definitions trigger huge debates...) so we've kept last year's lambs and they're the ones (well, a couple of them, we got attached to the others...) about to go...
Costs: our ewes around £50 and lambs around £25 each....; minimal bedding for shelter and could have managed without additional feed since no snow and the grass 'good enough'....
Vaccinations costly, however, since about £20+ for the smallest bottle available, and for us novices the first time we vaccinated we got vet over to show us (expensive(ish) but got private lesson and subsequently we can do all injections for either vaccinations or anti-biotics since we know where to give the intra-muscular and sub-cutaneous injections)...
You need to factor in another £30+ if you have lambs born and you need to ear tag them (cost of tags & applicator).
The ewes might need 'drenching' to give them treatment against liver fluke (another £30+ for the treatment and equivalent for the applicator)....
And the flock might need treatment for worms depending on your luck (we've been lucky so just spent £6 on poo tests and not had to take it further...)
Oh, and shearing a very small flock costs a disproportionate amount (I don't dare admit what we paid...)

I'm estimating the above figures, they're written down somewhere but it's been a long day....
Oh, and sheep hurdles are pricey,
and if you start the lambing stuff there's more kit.

Our mountain sheep are pesky and untrusting and very flighty, but if just one, occasionally, deigns to take a nut from our hands then we're pathetically grateful...
And when they're "your sheep" it can all be rather lovely... even if you have a dastardly end in mind for them....
Not a financial venture then, I guess, but if they live with you then their provenance will be better than anything you will EVER buy....

twizzel

  • Joined Apr 2012
Re: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2014, 09:02:04 pm »
If you're looking at it from a purely financial point of view and include your time/labour in the costings then it's probably not worth doing  :roflanim: sheep can be infuriating and things can go wrong very quickly :unwell:

A rough idea, they will need fluke treatment, vaccinating every year, flystrike treatment every 6 weeks in summer, your costs for these will be quite high as the smallest wormer and strike treatment bottles are 0.8l.

Slaughter wise it costs us £25 to have a lamb killed and cut, I've worked out we double our money on our lambs but it's slightly different as we hand rear tame lambs so whilst we don't have any ewes to care for, tame lambs drink a lot of milk powder in the first 6 weeks of life!

Maybe the best idea would be is to buy a few store lambs if these will be your first sheep before you enter breeding from them. Also work out what you will do with the lambs when they are finished- 6 lambs per year doesn't sound like much but it is quite a lot of meat!

Also depends on the breed you go for, quality of grazing (we have very good grazing that's well fertilised and rotated being a beef/arable farm), there's so many variables with sheep.

Big Benny Shep

  • Joined Mar 2011
  • Skipton
Re: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2014, 10:02:06 pm »
When we butcher its around £30 cut as we want and vac packed, we get about 8 to 9 kg pet half box, so it can soon add up to a lot of meat. Sheep are addictive thought, you will soon have more!
BIG Ben
We have 80(ish) texels and texel x suffolks, 10 lleyns, 21NE Mules, 2 Dexters with calves, Monty the labrador, Dottie, Bracken and Poppy the collies and 30 assorted hens.

humphreymctush

  • Joined Jul 2010
  • orkney
Re: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2014, 02:57:20 pm »
If you are eating it all yourself and not selling any then you would be allowed to kill and butcher the lambs yourself at home. This saving would definitely make the whole thing worth while. If you find killing them upsetting you could pay someone to come to your home and shoot them and leave you to do all the work.
If you have small sheep they can be butchered quite simply with just a saw. The main headache is burying the waste bits but if you like offal or want to make haggis then there won't be too much of that. If you can be bothered to tan the skins then you will have those as well. It really depends if you have enough time and clean hygienic shed space to do it all.

Backinwellies

  • Global Moderator
  • Joined Sep 2012
  • Llandeilo Carmarthenshire
    • Nantygroes
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Re: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2014, 03:24:37 pm »
When we butcher its around £30 cut as we want and vac packed, we get about 8 to 9 kg pet half box, so it can soon add up to a lot of meat. Sheep are addictive thought, you will soon have more!

Hi BBS  This is really useful figures but can you please explain  what I  am presuming is a typo  the 8 to 9 Kg pet half box.   ?
Linda

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fsmnutter

  • Joined Oct 2012
  • Fettercairn, Aberdeenshire
Re: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« Reply #6 on: September 02, 2014, 06:16:51 pm »
If you find killing them upsetting you could pay someone to come to your home and shoot them and leave you to do all the work.
No you can't - home slaughter legislation is very specific that you cannot pay someone else to do this
The main headache is burying the waste bits
Once again - no you can't. Waste must be disposed of correctly, and the SRM, specified risk material - spleen and ileum of young sheep, and entire spinal column and head of anything over 12 months - must be incinerated in a recognised plant. This means paying a fallen stock disposal company to pick up your waste.

Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
  • South Lanarkshire
    • ScotHebs
Re: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« Reply #7 on: September 02, 2014, 06:42:12 pm »

It's SO much easier just to send them off to the abattoir, then on to the butcher.  We get an all-in-one price, which includes sausages and burgers if we want them, or not if we don't.  We usually sell some of our hogget and keep the rest.  This effectively means that our own ones don't cost us anything.  There's no profit involved, especially from so few sheep.

Others have mentioned the cost of meds, which for a few could be unworkable.  Our vets sell us small numbers of doses if we need them, and there are enough other small breeders around to make it viable for them.  Crovect can be bought the same way, although the smallest size, 0.8 l, isn't too expensive and will last for a couple of years, ewes and lambs, every six weeks through the fly season, if you buy one with a long sell-by date.
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Bramblecot

  • Joined Jul 2008
Re: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« Reply #8 on: September 02, 2014, 07:21:58 pm »
Yes typo - should be 8-9kg per half.  We also pay £30 for kill and simple butchering, not vac-packed but joints in bags and labelled.

A lot of costs are start-up with equipment - hurdles, hay racks, feed troughs, drench guns, hand shears... not all necessary and you can 'make do' with a lot of kit - but it is so much easier to have the proper equipment :) .

Big Benny Shep

  • Joined Mar 2011
  • Skipton
Re: Financials of Sheep (buying / raising / slaughter(
« Reply #9 on: September 08, 2014, 05:05:53 pm »
Sorry been on me hols! At a small holding no less  ;D but yea typo. Would be the best place for my pet lambs. They are more work than the rest put together!
BIG Ben
We have 80(ish) texels and texel x suffolks, 10 lleyns, 21NE Mules, 2 Dexters with calves, Monty the labrador, Dottie, Bracken and Poppy the collies and 30 assorted hens.

 

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