The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Jon Feather on June 07, 2015, 07:15:34 pm
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Hi there. New to the forum but had a small holding for 20 years now. Always concentrated on poultry and veg before but now looking at native sheep (open to suggestions of other livestock too) and I would appreciate the thoughts of more experienced keepers of sheep.
The situation.
We have a 6 acre ancient grassland field that a local farmer used to graze his sheep on: about a dozen. He doesn't need the grazing any more so we are thinking about getting some of our own stock to keep the grass down and earn a penny or two at the same time. (I hope profit isn't a dirty word on here).
The site.
We are in Cumbria, right by the sea and get a lot of wind and rain. :raining:
Our thinking so far.
We have 2 horses on the field that bring in a few pounds but don't eat nearly enough grass. Our thought so far are Shetland, Manx, Soay or similar sheep or alpacas or llamas. We are prepared to put in the time and effort needed to look after them but don't want a highly bred commercial breed that will need a lot of experienced husbandry. We are both vegetarians but would be happy to rear for meat because we have a small local slaughter house near by. We are also hoping the fleeces will be saleable too.
I would welcome your thoughts and suggestions.
Jonathan
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First off, if you want some income from fleece, take great care to buy stock with excellent fleece. That might sound obvious, but there is a huge variation in fleeces, and spinners, felters and other crafters will only be interested in the very best. Depending on the breed you eventually choose, I or others on here may be able to point you at someone who has sheep with excellent fleece.
Even with sheep that genetically should produce good fleece, many, many factors can cause a fleece, or an entire clip, to be of no interest to crafters - whatever the breed of sheep. Some breeds are particularly prone to the fleece being unusable when harvested.
Much of this next bit is received knowledge; I have personal experience with a very small number of some primitives (6 Castlemilk Moorits, 2 Manx Loaghtans and their Shetland x offspring, 4 Shetlands and several Shetland crosses) over the last 3-4 years, but read (and seek out and watch and listen) avidly about other people's experiences.
Soays are the tiniest of all the native primitives. Very easy to look after (provided the fences are good and they have plenty to eat / no reason to want to escape ;) - which is true of most of the primitive breeds), great feet, super meat (but not very much of it on each carcase.)
Soay fleece is interesting to spinners because it is rare, but it is not actually very nice for spinning. It is rare because it is very difficult to harvest - Soays, even more than other primitive breeds, are 'self-rooing', and shed their fleece in patches. So you would either need to 'glean' the bits of wool they leave on fences and plants, or would need the sheep to be so tame you can catch them every week or so in May and June and pull off whatever is ready to come at that point.
Next in size and also interesting because very rare is the Boreray. This is a breed that needs a lot of help; it's the most endangered native breed. It's not a novice spin, and some of the fleeces are frankly horrible. However, because it is so very rare, and is double-coated, and is multi-coloured, then you would find buyers for fleece if you manage to get good quality fleece off your sheep. However, being a double-coated fleece, the fleece can get ruined while still on the sheep's back.
Similar, slightly larger, and used to seaside living :D, is the North Ronaldsay. This is the one that is famous for living on seaweed. There is a flock in Northumberland which are super sheep with lovely fleece, and are used to more copper in their environment than the island sheep could handle, should you decide on these. These are also double-coated, but nice fleeces will have spinners queuing up.
Hebrideans seem to be very easy to look after, a decent carcase, and nice Heb fleeces are a joy. However, all spinners have been offered really horrible Heb fleeces - it's another breed whose fleece is very prone to felting - so you may not find it easy to find buyers for your fleeces. Others on here know way more than I will ever do about Hebs and their fleeces, so I won't write more about them.
Manx Loaghtan are intelligent and wily, and a nice Manx fleece is total luxury, IMO. My own two are very inclined to self-roo in patches, so it is not always easy to get a nice fleece off them, however. My one Manx is the most escapey of all my sheep - she doesn't regard it as escaping, she just comes to find me when she needs something ::) :hugsheep:
Castlemilk Moorit are elegant sheep, slightly larger than the foregoing, and a really nice CM fleece is wonderful, though not appealing to all. I only know two breeders who have really excellent fleeces, however ;). All the primitives have really tasty meat, and CM is quite distinctive. It's lean and almost gamey - most people really love it, even if they generally do not like lamb. My own CMs have been friendly sheep, not hard to look after. Less inclined to go walkabout than some other primitives ;) I got 55kgs butchered meat off 4 3-year old wethers.
Shetlands are smaller than the CM, but have the benefit of being readily available and coming in many different colours (very appealing to crafters.) Again, not all Shetland fleeces are nice, and some nice ones aren't usable (some have a 'break', or weak spot, in the fibres, which makes them useless), but good ones are superb.
Portlands are from way further south, and hard to find up here, but there is a flock in the Borders. Nice Portland fleece is very nice - but not all Portlands have nice fleece (are you seeing a pattern here?!) The meat is delicious. If you can get sheep with nice fleeces, you would find buyers for them, as there are not many available this far north. Portlands have been used for conservation grazing on Braunton Burrows in North Devon, and did a good job, requiring very little intervention / maintenance.
You could also consider crossbreeds. If you cross a Shetland with anything larger, you get a much larger sheep than the Shetland, but often retain most of the good characteristics of the Shetland. I have some Blue-faced Leicester cross Shetlands, and one which is 1/4 Blue-faced Leicester, and they are excellent sheep, producing decent fat lambs and a superb fleece.
I have also crossed my Manxes, and been very pleased with the progeny. There seems to be lots of hybrid vigour in a Manx cross - they've been larger than their parentage would have led you to expect. They retain the Manx' wiliness, though ;) And walls are just vertical paths... ::)
Get yourself to Woolfest at Cockermouth Fri 26th June / Sat 27th June, and have a look at some of these breeds, talk to some owners, and see what appeals. I don't think all the breeds I've listed will be there, but some will.
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Found that really interesting Sally,
I'm guessing double coated fleece involves a 'soft undercoat', but why does it get ruined while on the sheeps back?
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Do you eat cheese/milk/yogurt ? Milk sheep ?
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Found that really interesting Sally,
I'm guessing double coated fleece involves a 'soft undercoat', but why does it get ruined while on the sheeps back?
The very soft, short fibres felt really easily, and the back of a sheep in warm weather (or just warm because she has so much wool on!) has all the ingredients to make felt ;)
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I have sheep that are for fleece as well as meat - they are Gotland x Shetland and I always have people wanting to buy the fleeces. I believe Anke has the same cross. They are very friendly and easy to handle with good feet.
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You won't earn more than a "penny or so" from a dozen sheep (probably less most years).... given the set-up costs and that all sheep products (like wormers, fly-repellents etc) are aimed at the farmer with a few hundred of them...
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whoops, just cross-posted with Clydesdaleclopper...
re feet - yes the cross-breds have better feet than the pure Gotlands, Gotlands are big sheep that also require quite different management if you want to maximise income from fleece
Shetlands are still the best option IMO -- colours available, not expensive to buy, also good to eat even if a few years old or buy in wether lambs in the autumn, feed on hay (plus grass) only in the winter, shear in the spring for 1st fleece, feed over summer on good grass (nothing else), then into the freezer in the autumn with the skins being tanned. also easily bucket-trained
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Do you eat cheese/milk/yogurt ? Milk sheep ?
Thanks for the response.
To answer your question, yes we do. Lesley doesn't really like milk, I take skimmed in my tea and we both like vegetarian cheese. Never tried sheep's milk. What is it like?
I quite like goats cheese dishes (quiche etc). Lesley can't stand it.
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You won't earn more than a "penny or so" from a dozen sheep (probably less most years).... given the set-up costs and that all sheep products (like wormers, fly-repellents etc) are aimed at the farmer with a few hundred of them...
I take your point about a dozen sheep. With c6 acres we were thinking we could keep about 25 shetland size sheep. We're not expecting to make a fortune but we need our land to start paying its way.
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whoops, just cross-posted with Clydesdaleclopper...
re feet - yes the cross-breds have better feet than the pure Gotlands, Gotlands are big sheep that also require quite different management if you want to maximise income from fleece
Shetlands are still the best option IMO -- colours available, not expensive to buy, also good to eat even if a few years old or buy in wether lambs in the autumn, feed on hay (plus grass) only in the winter, shear in the spring for 1st fleece, feed over summer on good grass (nothing else), then into the freezer in the autumn with the skins being tanned. also easily bucket-trained
Shetland are number 1 on our list at the moment. My amateur research, so far, suggests it might fit the bill for us. How many would you think we will happily get on 6 acres? And do they really need hay in the winter?
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I feed mine hay in winter (not ad-lib, I but fill up the hayracks in the morning, once it's gone there will be no more until the next morning), but I am in-land with often heavy frost. I also find they are just happier with a bale of hay a day... Definitely hay if ground is snow-covered.
Stocking rate really depends on your grass quality, and if you are able to subdivide the field, to allow for resting of the pasture etc... If you also think about lambs etc your stocking density needs to be lower. 3 per acre would be my max to start with, possibly less.
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I feed mine hay in winter (not ad-lib, I but fill up the hayracks in the morning, once it's gone there will be no more until the next morning), but I am in-land with often heavy frost. I also find they are just happier with a bale of hay a day... Definitely hay if ground is snow-covered.
Stocking rate really depends on your grass quality, and if you are able to subdivide the field, to allow for resting of the pasture etc... If you also think about lambs etc your stocking density needs to be lower. 3 per acre would be my max to start with, possibly less.
Thank you for that.
We rarely get snow but when we do our farmer friends feed theirs on silage.
We cannot subdivide our field because of our agreement with Natural England. The pasture is species rich, ancient grassland and unimproved.
Our farmer friend used to keep 12 texel type sheep with lambs on our field and they didn't quite keep the grass short enough. It was always a bit long and tussocky in places. I was thinking of about 25 shetland (or similar) because they are roughly 1/2 the size and assume they are more efficient converters of grass???
I really appreciate yours and everyone elses input on this. It is invaluable to a beginner.
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I've got Shetlands and they are my first sheep too...excellent breed, very hardy, easy to bucket train (or wave a plastic feed bag at them and they all come running), wide range of colour and markings etc)
If your grass is good quality then I'd say easily 25-30 + on the field. I started out with 12 in a 4 acre field last year (after it'd been hayed) and they still couldn't get it down over winter. I put hay out for them when there was snow / frost and they preferred to ignore it and nose through the snow to the grass instead. I took them out in Feb to grow on for hay and it was longer than when they went in. Now I've got all my ewes and lambs plus a few commercial ewes/lambs in a field that is probably stocked more than people would recommend :innocent: with horses and it's still growing faster than they can eat it!
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The problem is in a large field the sheep can be choosey about what they eat, which is why subdividing and regularly moving around is a good solution. But I am struggling with it too, as I also use rented fields...
Even after they have eaten most of a field we find it best to mow it once over, just to get rid of all the bits they didn't eat and to avoid (as much as possible) it going tussocky.
Starting with a lower number will allow you to assess how much you like handling sheep, I found going from 12 (which is what I started with) to just over 30 was initially very stressful and all of a sudden I had sheep with problems and it took a lot longer to deal with them all... simply higher numbers means more problems... Shetlands in general are quite hardy though.
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I'm not sure if you are thinking of fattening wethers only, or keeping ewes and breeding. If you are thinking about milk, then I guess you are thinking of breeding females.
If it's unimproved grassland in Cumbria, and you want lambs, and want to sell fleeces, then I would say that 25 and no hay over winter won't work. You'd be likely to get ewes with insufficient milk, metabolic disorders, breaks in the fleece from times when they were physiologically stressed (fleece with a break is not saleable.)
Also, when counting your numbers, you have to think about your steady state. If you are going primitives, and fattening your own lambs, then most of your lambs will stay on until their second summer. So if you start with 25 ewes, the following winter you will have 25 ewes (less losses and culls) plus most of their 30-40 lambs from the first year growing on.
If you are wanting to sell fleeces, you'll need to keep the lambs on to their first shearing, which means that in your second spring you will have the ewes, their last year's lambs, now hoggs (adult sized, not yet clipped), and their this year's lambs.
If you plan on selling the lambs as stores, then you probably want to be using a commercial tup, or you will struggle to get more than £laughable a head for your store lambs. Shetland ewes are quite capable of having Texel x lambs - but it will take more out of her and she will need cake as well as hay over winter, and probably cake to help her when she lambs, especially if she has twins.
Primitives also need space when they lamb; they are not happy having to lamb in close proximity to other sheep. If you lamb indoors you will need a lambing shed; if you lamb outdoors then you need enough space so that the ewes can keep their new lambs safe from the rest of the flock, especially the giddy teenagers (the previous year's lambs) until they are used to these funny new arrivals.
I keep my fleece flock in a spot where I have the use of 25 acres of unimproved riverside meadow and pasture. At the moment down there I have 14 breeding ewes, 11 retained hoggs and 27 lambs from this year. The 10 acres of meadow was barely enough space and grass for them at lambing, so I let them use the pastures as well. (It was a very cold spring. It would have been a different story if we'd had warm weather.) The grass is finally growing away, and I have shut up the hay meadow. The cattle will be going down to the pasture soon, so the sheep will be barred into 6 acres of meadows. It'll be enough, I'm sure - but it wouldn't be sufficient for twice the number.
Frankly, on 6 acres of the type of ground you describe, I'd start with maybe 8-10 breeding ewes and their followers. Perhaps buy in some ewes with their ewe and wether lambs and some one-year old hoggs this year, so you have enough to eat the grass for your first year, hoggets to sell in the autumn, and a crop of fleeces and some meat to sell this time next year. By then your ewes will have had another lot of lambs and you are in your steady state.
And before all you southern and east coast sheepkeepers jump up, this fella is in Cumbria, like me. Our grass isn't like what you folks have. It's why our livestock sells so well as stores - you take creatures that have managed to get to weanling size in Cumbria, they'll grow on into monsters anywhere else! lol. Mind, we are at 450-500' here, very exposed (although the riverside land is lower and sheltered.) I have no personal experience of farming the land nearer the west coast.
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Thanks for that Anke. Mine isn't a rented field, it's our own but we are in a Higher Level Stewardship scheme and the agreement states that the whole of the land has to be continuously grazed and not parcelled off. I'm prety sure it does anyway: I'll have to check. Subdividing isn't really practical on our field anyway because of the ever changing terrain.
I have asked local farmers to mow our field before but none will put their machines through it because they don't know what they will hit: occasional rocks etc. and the old kist (earth and stone field boundaries from when it was smaller fields put them off.
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Yes, mowing would be impractical. But someone with a flail topper may be able to give it a haircut ;)
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Oh, another thing, Jon... Were you planning on keeping the horses? If so, the number of sheep the field can carry would need revising downwards.
Also, if you can't subdivide your field, I'm not sure I'd want to lamb in a field that has ponies in it. Too much risk of a horse kicking or treading on a lamb. We don't lamb in fields with cattle, as we had the occasional injured lamb when we did.
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Waw! SallyintNorth. Thanks for you time and input. Like all you guys, lots of valuable great advice and ideas. This is exactly the sort of informed info Lesley and I need. Far far better than reading books or webpages. A big thank you.
Crawlybumlickin over. We don't yet know exactly what we want to do but it will be more on the breeding and building a flock for meat and fleeces than buying in and fattening. That isn't really us.
At the moment, as of last Sunday, we have 23 sheared Herwicks on the field and there is a "Fur and Feather" sale coming up in July at Ulverston Auction Mart. Hopefully we can come up with the start of a flock by then or at the auction, although I would prefer to buy from a recommended breeder.
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Sally. Good point about the horses trampling the lambs.. That might be a bit of a problem because the horses are keepers. We might be able to semi subdivide :innocent: enough room for the horses at lambing time though with a few strands of electric fence.
If we did this, how long would they have to be kept apart?
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If we did this, how long would they have to be kept apart?
Ach, I'm a softie and can't bear for things to get hurt if I could have prevented it. But given your circs...
Well... assuming your lambing lasts 34 days (two cycles), I guess perhaps 70 days? Start keeping them separate a week before you expect your first lamb, keep them separate until the youngest lambs are at least a month old?
In practise, by then the lambs will be running around and getting under the horses' leccy tape anyway. ::)
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So... have you chosen a breed?
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Not chosen a breed yet. I like to do my homework and listen to as many experts as possible first. Better that way than rush in, get the wrong sort of animal and find that I have made a mistake. But I'm still drawn to Shetlands. Although my neighbour runs a flock of Hebredian. They are only 2 fields over from me.
How would you rate Shetland over Hebredian?
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Shetlands definitely - soooo much variety of colours to sell fleece/skins, no horns on the ewes, and much nicer fleece (but some heb breeder will hit me over the head now...) to spin/felt.
It would be much easier to buy from breeders local to you, I wouldn't advise a newcomer to sheep to go and buy at auction. But you maybe should go and have a look and see what prices are being paid.
Also you may have to think registered & pedigree vs non-pedigree, if you are not going to make serious efforts towards showing your sheep you may struggle to sell any of your ewes as breeding stock and therefore the higher prices registered ewes would command may not be justified.
I would seriously think about a wether flock - buy in a few castrated male lambs in the autumn, keep over winter, shear and maybe if you don't like some of them sell the meat to friends in the next autumn, buy in some replacements. They will need minimal feeding, will keep their fleece quality for quite a few years (after all no testosterone to ruin it and no lambing pressure - as would be on females - either, life of Riley really... and will be really quite friendly (with the occasional food bucket rattled of course).
Lots of things too think about....
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Well that has thrown me.....I always thought castrated rams would only be good for meat but you seem to be suggesting they are good to keep for their fleece.
I was thinking, and I know nowt about sheep, that you start with a flock of ewes and a ram or 2. Ram does the (cough, cough) business, some months later the lambs pop out (that might not be the proper term), you keep the females as future breeding stock to expand the flock, fatten up the males and send males to butcher. The odd haircut brings in another few quid from the spinners and knitters.
I have such a lot to learn but I'm learning very quickly thanks to you guys. :thumbsup:
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Spinners mostly won't want a ram's fleece, but a wether often has a lovely fleece. He hasn't any other work to use up his energies, after all, so some people reckon that wethers often have better fleece than ewes, who have worked so hard growing lambs and rearing them.
Given the horse situation, you are going to want a tight lambing, which means putting the tup in for 35 days and then taking him out. As you don't have anywhere else to keep him, he will get sent to the mart at that point - ie., December. Forget the fleece; it'll stink, no matter how much it gets washed.
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And if folk tell you that Shetlands are always wild...here are some of our lot helping bring in the hay today ::) :hugsheep:
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Shetlands are not really wild in my experience, mine have not jumped fences either (although a bought-in ewe is well able to do so...) and they come running when I go into their field, even without a bucket!
But one of my late lambs from last year has learned how to open gates... :rant:
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If you were to run a flock of Shetland wethers you could make a small income by spinning and knitting the fleeces yourselves, or having them professionly spun and doing the knitting (and yes, men can learn to knit!) Folk would pay good money for the finished product.
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Really appreciate all the input form you lovely people. I was talking to someone in the next village last night whos wife keeps registered Shetlands. She is a spinner and knitter too. Will be making arrangement to go see them. They may have some to sell. They also know someone a few miles over who also keeps them. :excited: I just hope they don't want to much for them :shrug:.
Is it impolite to ask, roughly, how much I should be paying for registered and unregistered Shetlands?
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You can buy nice registered Shetland gimmers at Carlisle Rare Breeds Sale in September for £40 - £120 (last year's prices.) You can spend more but that would get you nice sheep.
Not all Shetlands have really nice fleece, and quite a lot of Shetlands have fleece that has a 'break' (a weakness) ;)
Feel free to PM me about the breeder you've found - she's likely a member of Eden Valley Guild, like me ;)
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Thank you for that guide price Sally. Appreciate that it is last yrs.
I've just been speaking to the farmer who has kindly put 23 Herdwicks on our field to help get the grass down. He pays about £40 for them, brings them on and pays £15 to have them killed and jointed. Then recons on a sale price of about £85 when he sells them on for the freezer. There isn't much in it is there. :o
I'm hoping that I will be able to get a premium price for the meat through a local high end butcher and maybe though some of the hotels in Lakes.
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That's very cheap for kill and cut - I pay £22.
I've just been speaking to the farmer who has kindly put 23 Herdwicks on our field to help get the grass down. He pays about £40 for them, brings them on and pays £15 to have them killed and jointed. Then recons on a sale price of about £85 when he sells them on for the freezer. There isn't much in it is there. :o
Not to mention haulage, meds, occasional losses, shearing...
I'm hoping that I will be able to get a premium price for the meat through a local high end butcher and maybe though some of the hotels in Lakes.
I wish you luck .
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If you are selling meat from Shetland sheep, you cannot call it Shetand lamb/mutton, as this is a term protected and only to be used for Shetland sheep (and their meat) raised on the actual Shetland Isles. One of these geographically protected by the EU things....
There is not much money in small-scale sheep production, not wool nor meat I am afraid...
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Thanks Sally and Anke. I'm not really expecting it to be easy or massively profitable, and good point about the restriction on selling as Shetland too.
If I can manage my land by keeping the grass down in a sustainable way, with interesting animals, have a interesting hobby and make a bit of profit I'll be happy. I just like to go in with my eyes open which is why I value the opinions and guidance of you guys so much. I reckon you have saved me about 5 years of expensive mistake so far and I haven't even bought any stock yet. :)
On a side note, the sun is shining and I have just put the 4/5 week old chicks outside on grass for the day. Now there is something I do know something about.
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I'm afraid that small breeding flocks of primitive sheep are not easy to make a profit out of. Putting the ewes to a commercial tup for reasonable fat lambs is probably the only way, really.
Looking at the premium meat angle...
Not many people know this, but Swaledale hogget (reared on moorland grass and no cake) is absolutely delicious. Lean, sweet, succulent - and from a second summer sheep, it cooks just like lamb, doesn't need long slow cooking, which some hogget really does. Having a seasonal crop that sells to restaurants in a tourist area is no bad thing ;)
Swaley boys are very cheap to buy in.
Not a rare breed, of course.
(Not many people know this either, but the Swale is a double-coated breed; the layers are easy to separate, and the inner layer is quite soft. But it's a bit of a niche thing ;) - I don't think you'd necessarily find it easy to sell your fleeces. If you could be bothered to separate the fibres yourself, however, you'd sell the softer inner fibre, I think.)
Another great (and individual-tasting) meat is Castlemilk Moorit. It has a flavour all its own. In terms of a rare breed that's local, this might be your best bet - they originate from the Castlemilk estate near Dumfries. And it was the near loss of this breed in the 70s that inspired Adam's dad and got the whole RBST thing going.
Castlemilk Moorit boys are also cheap to buy in... ;)
And if you could get your boys from a flock that has great fleece, you'd have a fleece crop too.
I do wonder, though, whether any outlets in the Lakes are going to be interested in any breed-specific sheep meat other than Herdwick?
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Just wondering... you're right by the sea, you say... Would the lamb/hogget tast salty, do you think? If so, and you can brand it Salt Marsh or Salt Something, that might help ;)
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Just wondering... you're right by the sea, you say... Would the lamb/hogget tast salty, do you think? If so, and you can brand it Salt Marsh or Salt Something, that might help ;)
Thanks for all that Sally.
Re salt and taste: I don't know because I don't eat meat (vegi for 34 yrs) but we are always being told that our eggs taste different (much better) and tastier than other free range eggs. I have to agree with them too, they are much richer. I put this down to very wide herbage they are pecking at on our land. They get a scratch feed of corn every night too.
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Whatever sheep you choose, your meat will taste lovely, I'm sure :thumbsup:
Swales would do well ;)
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Holker Hall market saltmarsh lamb - that maybe not too far from you? Their flocks are right on the estuary below the tide line.
I'm going to buck the trend and say if you want meat lambs get a few nice texels or texel crosses, very tame friendly sheep, no horns and if reared on grass (without loads of concentrates) lovely lamb. We've sold lamb to people who have kept primitives and they are coming back for more!
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Thanks for that Old Shep,
Holker is right on the estuary but a very different landscape to us. The estuary and tidal sands are thick with marsh grasses were as we at on grass land above the tide line. We couldn't class ours as "salt march lamb".
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Just a thought about temporarily sub-dividing your field - we use electric sheep netting to subdivide one of ours to keep the sheep separate from the horses. This works fine, but you can't do this with a horned breed of sheep in case they get horns trapped in the netting. We have a tiny flock of 7 - 3x Shetland ewes, a Heb cross wether, 2x Grey Faced Dartmoor wethers and their elderly mum. Shetland and Heb fleece spins and felts lovely - GFDs - forget about the fleece except for rugs!
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I think it is always good to think about the end product, what you will do with it and maybe more importantly what will you do with it if plan a doesn't work.
Talk to the hoteliers now to see if they are interested in your lamb. Don't forget you will only have a limited supply. If you go down the primitive route and local hotels don't want it or your friends what are you likely to get back at a local market. Beware that people often say they will have something but then when you have it don't want it.
Where will you go for slaughtering and cutting up? All takes time. A journey to drop off and another to pickup.
Except that it may take more than the first year to establish a market.
Don't not do it, just go into it with your eyes open!