The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: CrunchyKat on September 28, 2011, 04:44:46 pm
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I've been thinking of getting a couple of lambs next spring to keep my grass down and eventually for meat, is this a feasable thing to do or would keeping just 2 not really work? Thanks x
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How many you can keep depends on how much grass you have. With just a couple it might be more difficult to send them off when the time comes as they tend to become pets, but there's no reason why two wouldn't work - as long as you don't have just one.
Also buying in lambs means either orphan lambs and you don't know why they were orphaned or what feeding/care they have had between being orphaned and you getting them, so vets bills could be an issue. Or if you buy lambs at weaning they won't be doing much grass eating before it's time to send them off for slaughter.
If you have the ground, why not keep a couple of ewes of your favourite breed and get a crop of lambs off them every year?
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when i was a teenager I had two lambs one season and they went into the freezer in oct, yummy, now ive had this oportunity of cheap rented land I have 45 !!
just remember flystrike and check the feet !!
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You could buy a primitive breed cheaply at weaning and keep them over the winter and slaughter around 14 months, and if you had enough grass you could keep 4 and keep two for lamb meat and two for mutton, which would be very nice. Then you'd have grass cutters all year round.
Depends how much land you have of course.
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5 years ago we purchased 3 GFD ewes with lambs at foot. lovely sheep.
we still have the ewes and most of their lambs. we have now got the GFD's cross bred lambs and 29 Herdwick ewes and this years lambs.. no one told me that sheep could be addictive!