The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: loosey on May 13, 2011, 12:11:23 pm
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:wave: :sheep:
Those useful contacts have been in touch again and I've been offered some Shetland sheep. I have a billion questions if someone wouldn't mind helping please?!
I know they are small but as meat is for us and friends this doesn't really matter. If we did want to introduce a larger tup, what sort of size and breed might I be looking for?
How old are they before the should be ready for my freezer?
I have been offered some year old wethers for £30 each ... is this a good price? She also has ewe hoggits and shearlings but I am yet to get a price for these.
The sheep are not registered ... I know there will be differing opinions on this but I am not concerned about it as they will be purely for meat.
Info I have seen states that they she dtheirt fleece - do they shed it enough that they don't require shearing?
What kind of sheltert will they require in the winter? Will a field shelter with a deep straw bed and plenty of hay suffice?
Any other bit of advice you can offer would be wonderful! :bouquet: :sheep: ;D
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Have a look at the recent thread from Glentarki - all the info re Shetland sheep is there.
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Hi Anke
I've read through some of the archive and see some people sending off at 9 months and then ranging to 18 months so wondering what is best.
Also haven't been able to see much info re shelter requirements and the shedding of fleece ??? :)
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Shelter - a windbreak is fine (eg made with pallets in a noughts and crosses pattern. Make sure its well secured with baler twine and pref also peg it down to the ground with angle iron pegs if you are in exposed/windy location). The sheep will use any shelter or windbreak as a scratching post and can push it over otherwise
Fleece - from my experience to date with a 30 strong herd, while many lose a bit of fleece naturally, none of mine shed enough to not need shearing. Also if you leave it to shed naturally that might be too long from a flystrike point of view. So I would say you should plan to have to shear. But with only a couple/few you could do it by hand using £12 ish hand shears, if you dont want the expense of electric shears.
Breed of ram (tup). To be honest if you are wanting fab flavour and only breeding for you/family/friends I would go for a Shetland ram. It'll cost less, the lambs will be born lovely and small so very low birth problems likelihood (Ive had none in 3 years requiring any intervention!) and the meat is sensational and the joints are ideal for modern family size. My Shetland ram is a real sweety too, not aggressive in any way, gets bullied by the geese! If you do decide to cross, then breed would depend on whether you would need to sell any in the future. ie Cheviot is the traditional cross for Shetland as the ewes from that cross are bought by 'proper' farmers to cross with a commercial breed like Texel. The lambs from that last cross are meaty and the ChevxShet are good mothers but big enough for a commercial sized ram. Or, you could do as my vet does and use a Lleyn ram, this wont be as valuable per lamb but Lleyns are prolific in terms of numbers of lambs and good milky mothers. (just watch tho, multiple births are a risky approach for the unwary, one of the plus points of pure shetlands is very very rarely do you get more than twins, which helps reduce risks a lot for the mums).
Age to slaughter. If not castrated, then unless you can individually segregate then they would need to go quite young. If castrated or females, it's really personal taste but ideally and if you have the ££ for hayto feed them, they would go off at 12 months plus ie keep them over the winter, let them fatten on the spring grass and then send them or even keep them till 18 months or 2 years. That way you get a bit more bulk and size.
£30 seems fine as a price to me, Ive paid £25 but that was for younger ones so allowing for that, not much different. Pretty good deal when you consider the cost of commercial sheep - £100+! Mine arent registered either and we do the same thing, raising mainly for ourselves (tho have an overload of ewe lambs this year so may have to sell a few!)
Hope this helps!!
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Thanks Marcus, that's really helpful!
I have clipper for my horses that have interchangeable blades to can be used for sheep/cattle/dogs etc ... I'm okay with the horses but can't imagine the sheep will be a pretty sight the fdirst few times!
We grow our own hay so feeding them over winter is not a problem ... do you feed them any concentrates or just enough to keep them friendly?
If I take on year olds when will I be looking to shear them?
We may end up getting them "done" at the slaughter house and butchering them at home as we do with all of our venison etc (or we probably will until my OH get's fed up of it!)
Thank you again!!
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Don't worry about the size of Shetland Sheep. The meat quality is excellent.
A Shetland lamb matures in the same time as most UK breeds time but to a smaller size and I attribute much of the quality to this slower growth rate. Why dilute the quality by cross breeding? Ok it works out more expensive as the processing cost is usually per head. Once they get much bigger than 30kg they start to put on fat rather than meat. Hogget will have a stronger flavour and will be larger.
Of course the best Shetland Lamb meat comes from the Shetland Islands where the breed has evolved to thrive when it has access to browse the local flora. That is why Shetland Lamb has passed the rigorous UK and EU selection procedure to qualify for “Protected Designation of origin”. This requires meat from Shetland Flocks kept in the rest of the world to identify that the meat was not produced in Shetland or suggest that it is an equivalent product to that produced on the Isles. Not a problem for you, because you will be wanting to claim the meat has come from animals in your own flock.
Husbandry is the same as for any sheep. They like shelter from the worst of the elements and will need clipping. However, they require less feed for maintenance and can generally deliver their lambs un-aided. Also, be aware that some pedigree breeders select for the fineness of fleece in preference to meatiness.
Here are a couple of links to videos on youtube: - A Shetland Lamb is born http://bit.ly/iDRr2C (http://bit.ly/iDRr2C) Shetland Lambs at play http://bit.ly/kIvIrE (http://bit.ly/kIvIrE)
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Thank you! I think not crossing sound best as they are only for us and close friends/family etc.
I'm very excited about sheep, I just hope we can afford to set up our little flock as soon as possible! :wave:
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I have clipper for my horses that have interchangeable blades to can be used for sheep/cattle/dogs etc ... I'm okay with the horses but can't imagine the sheep will be a pretty sight the fdirst few times!
Since it's more welfare than aesthetics thats no prob! Mind you, dont do what I do and think Ive finished, let sheep go only to find theres a small bit I missed and sheep followed by fleece on a string disappearing across the field....
Watch out with the horse clippers tho, I have them too but found they really struggled with doing sheep when I tried it in practice, they didnt have enough welly. But yours might be OK!
We grow our own hay so feeding them over winter is not a problem ... do you feed them any concentrates or just enough to keep them friendly?
I only feed concentrates (and then only little) when they are both in lamb and the snow is too deep for them to forage. We get a lot of snow for a long time and very harsh weather (edge of Cairngorms)! But they still are only looking at a small clenched fist worth each. The main thing is ad lib hay (they love the hay from our own fields as its all different grasses and weeds and lots of clover) and a lick bucket (for the pregnant ones we use a high energy bucket). I stop feeding them anything a week after they have their lambs as by then they are moved to the fields with lots of new grass and dont need it, they just have lick bucket through the May - Sept period, then hay Oct - snow starting then the little bit of food Jan - April
If you dont have our extreme climate I would be tempted to only feed them a tiny bit to bucket train them and then nothing other than a periodic reminder feed to keep them tame-ish, and other than that stick to grass, hay and vit/min lick bucket, even the pregnant ones. you dont want too big lambies growing!
If I take on year olds when will I be looking to shear them?
If they are a year old ie were born spring 2010 then you would be shearing them this summer and from then on.
We may end up getting them "done" at the slaughter house and butchering them at home as we do with all of our venison etc (or we probably will until my OH get's fed up of it!)
Sounds good, I havent been able to face that yet and get the butcher to do it, it all comes back in lovely packets!
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I crossed my 2 shetland ewes with a southdown tup, the lambs are great like miniture southdowns........
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we only got 50 shetland and only had them 6-7 yrs but if you just want meat for yourselves go for shetland ram then your get pure shetland lamb just cannot call it that as its not from the shetland isles which is fair play in my eyes my dad had best in breed and best in show at bath and west multiple years with a ram of his but he went walkies jumped an alpaca electric fence and has never been found . so make sure your well fenced in as if they get low on fodder then there gone. where you from? maybe someone near you has some shetland lamb meat for sale for a taster. i personally will not eat any other lamb now and can taste and i do leave other meat on the plate if im offered it. for the meat to mature properly its reccamended to leave for 18 mths as there a primitive breed and matures slowly and we have found this works depending on if you want taste or if you just want meat . in my mind i think why have a shetland if you dont have the produce and eat before fully matured
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agree with all that! if you're near me you are welcome to try some of our lamb too. Its amazing, it stays moist even with long cooking and yet not fatty at all (primitive breeds store most of the fat round the organs so you dont end up eating it, unlike commercial sheep where you end up paying for it!). darker colour, much more lamby flavour but not strong, just tastes of what it is supposed to rather than nothing like supermarket lamb. I dont like strong meat and I am quite happy to eat 2 year old Shetland.
Makes a heavenly tagine, that much is in noooo doubt!
The only prob with the PDO designation isnt the fact of it (which I have no prob with at all, can really see the value), its the complication in how to describe the product for mainland Shetland lamb given that the breed is called Shetland not just the PDO area! makes it quite hard to work out a short phrase which doesnt sound shifty! I think if PDOs are granted in that circumstance the PDO should only apply to that native breed not to some commercial texel that happens to live on Shetland (that might not be allowed Im not sure), and also they should have to come up with what everyone else is then supposed to call their shetland lamb!
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Less is more to those of us that prefer Shetland Lamb.
If you don't already own a ram, the only reason to go for breeding crossbred lambs is not keeping your own ram which will save the cost and make the management easier. Especially if you are starting out. Try asking a neighbour to hire you a spare ram or if you only have a few girls send them off on holiday to get mated. There is good trade for well fleshed vibrant lambs at any market. Just don't expect a shetland Lamb to sell for as much as a Beltex cross Mule lamb.
If you own a new Mini (made by BMW), you would not expect to sell it for the price of a new 5 series BMW.
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Hi, PDO . Welcome there are about five Shetlanders on here now that I know of. Your expert knowledge will be grtefully recieved.
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Hi Loosey….. I'm a first time sheep keeper as from next month and have also chosen Shetlands..In a similar situation that we are only producing the resulting future lamb for our own use so smaller joints are not a issue.
The breeder we are getting our sheep from was very informative and experienced (unlike us)…. Much like the other posters have mentioned ,she raved about the quality of the meat…..Amongst loads of questions we asked , we wondered what age she sends hers to slaughter….Apparently she sends them for slaughter in the October and a few in February but finds little difference in size or taste so has preference for the October, this is what we would like to do.
We paid £50 each for our registered ewe hoggits in a variety of colours and were delighted at that price……And fortunate for us as nearby they will go back to a choice of several Shetland tups later this year.
We were shown a small flock of a dozen or so Shetland ewes with their lambs from a Cheviot tup….. I must say they were sturdy little things and a fair increase in size compared to the pure Shetland lambs of the same age,, they were destined for the market come October not for personal use. The ewes were all experienced mums, not first timer's.. While we intend to breed pure its nice to know in the future with gained experience we can juggle a tup or two around giving us choice.
Anyhow that's all I can contribute. Good luck with your adventure its exciting ::)
Dave
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just a thought. does anyone consider buying their shetland sheep from breeders in shetland. it would help them im sure, and ud have the real macoy. im sure most breeders would deliver them to the mainland for you.
::) ::)
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I don't know anything about the Shetland Isles (yet - trip planned one year soon...) but we visited farms in the Orkneys last back end. We were shown the transport for cattle to get them (and big strong beasts they produce up there too) to Aberdeen on the ferry. I think I remember it is a 7 hour trip and special accommodation is required so that the beasts can be regarded as 'resting' rather than 'in transit' - otherwise the shipment would fall foul of welfare rules on length of journey without a rest break. So the purpose-built containers put the cattle in individual stalls with water and hay. Transport to the mainland is subsidised by the government and would be prohibitively expensive otherwise. I think they said something like £700 per trip but I may be remembering that wrong, and / or it maybe included an amount to contribute to paying for the shipping containers.
All of which basically meant that Orkney sheep are not generally transported to the mainland alive. Whether breeding stock of, eg, North Ronaldsays, would be ferried over, and if so how much it would cost and how the transport welfare would be managed we didn't find out. Maybe it is feasible to carry a few sheep in a livestock trailer on one of the Wick car ferries - which would be a shorter crossing and therefore not necessitate a rest break.
Shetland is very much much further out, that much I do know. So I would be interested to know how transport of livestock to the mainland is managed.
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we got our cows from burland croft and they sell shetland sheep too. if id chosen shetlands (wev got borerays) id definitely have asked them first as the cows arrived in perfect condition for a 12 hr sailing. dont quote me, but i think it was about £20 per cow for ferry transport so not prohibitively expensive. animal transporters brought them an hr up the road for £15 each. for sheep i presume it would be much cheaper. the internet makes organising things alot easier.
for someone who is sea-sick( >:() i wouldnt like the hassle of going there myself, not in winter anyway...
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From the Autumn sales cargo ships of Shetland sheep go south! we cant eat them all ;D I dont know how it works exactly but the Shetland Agricultural chappies pay buyers to come up. They usually have settled on a price between them and how many each one wants on the boat up here so it is a bit of a farce really but they do buy the sheep. One of my neighbours used to advertise in the rare breeds columns of smallholding magazines. It is easy really just come up and buy some, there are lots of them!
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dis is true we are not short of sheep. though if your after coloured ones you may find it a lot harder as the wool price is very good at the moment over a £ a lb.
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You mentioned being offered Shetland wethers @ £30 each. Thats a good price just now. I sold some 14 month old hoggets at the marts yesterday(16th May) for 205p/kg (still with lambs teeth) and 185p/kg(with new teeth erupted) all of them made over £60 each.
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Thats good, the last time we took lambs to the mart they were £15.00!!!! We eat them all now :yum: