[PhillipWillie]

Just wanting to know if anyone on here has any experience with keeping Jacobs? Hoping to buy a few ewes this incoming year but commercial sheep are a bit boring!

[Treud na Mara]

We inherited a mixed bunch of sheep last year with our croft but decided to keep the Jacobs and move on the rest, apart from a couple of Scottish Black Face ewes.  They are such great characters and good mothers. And our tup is a corker. He's so well behaved (mostly) thanks to MKay's early training too. And the sight of them running over when a bucket appears could only be bettered if there were more of them !

[Gunnermark]

Had a few a few years back. Never had any lambing problems, great milky mothers. Didn't have an issue with fly strike and the feet were brilliant never had any problems. Friendly sheep and lovely to look at them in a field!

[Slimjim]

I have had a few for the past 4 years and completely agree with Gunnermark. The main benefit for me is such easy lambing- have not had to intervene in that length of time. I do think they must have some cheetah genes in their make up but otherwise brilliant sheep.

[devonlady]

We (or rather my 9 year old grandson) has Jacobs and sweet dears they are. Almost too friendly and need a tap on the nose now and then to stop them from jumping up. Bought them from the farm up the lane last summer. Papers say they were all doubles so good fertility and all healthy. Meat wise we won't know until next Nov/Dec but we don't expect too much.

[Brucklay]

I've kept Jacobs and really love them as above good lambers and we had 2 set of triplets all good sizes. We had a very handsome 4 horned tup (Ding Dong) - in time I found him too much for me to handle on my own as he was young, strong and I'm not!! But nothing against them at all - if I was 20 years younger I would probably still have them.

[Fleecewife]

We used to keep a smallish flock of Jacobs at the end of the last century (I love saying that  - late 1990s in fact).

We loved them, wonderful characters, beautiful animals, won us some prizes, taste delicious BUT we learned an awful lot about lambing from them, which is clearly in contrast to others' experience.  I think we were given the wrong advice (we were newcomers to shepherding at the time).  We were told that they absolutely had to be lambed indoors, and it was only when we observed that our Hebs, which were outdoors all year, including for lambing, had no problems at all, that we decided to try the Jacobs lambing outdoors too.  The problem lambings reduced drastically.  It could be too that where our flock was sourced from was a showing flock, so there would have been no selection against difficult lambing.  They were also very large animals, too big really for Jacobs.  It got so they were too big for us to handle, especially the 4 horned tup, so we sold the flock and concentrated on our Heb and fleece ventures and haven't looked back.  I do miss the hordes of bouncy spotty lambs in spring.

I thought I should write this so Phillip Willie doesn't think they are always total perfection - no animal or breed can be that.

[Mammyshaz]

I am soooooo completely ignoring your post fleecewife!! Just because I don't want to hear it 

Since I first set eyes on a Jacob sheep several years ago they have melted my heart. I don't have sheep yet but will one day,  and it will be maybe Rylands or southdowns or some other nice looking, easy handled breed for fleece but in my heart I keep going back to the Jacobs. So beautiful, traditional  and an all rounder. I can really see it being Jacobs I get as a first flock 

Good luck with your decision.

[Fleecewife]

I am soooooo completely ignoring your post fleecewife!! Just because I don't want to hear it 

Since I first set eyes on a Jacob sheep several years ago they have melted my heart. I don't have sheep yet but will one day,  and it will be maybe Rylands or southdowns or some other nice looking, easy handled breed for fleece but in my heart I keep going back to the Jacobs. So beautiful, traditional  and an all rounder. I can really see it being Jacobs I get as a first flock 

Good luck with your decision.

   Good luck when you get your dream flock 

[kate7590]

We have a very small flock of Jacobs (1 ram & 2 ewes) 1 who has just lambed 2 lovely lambs.
We've found them lovely sheep, but not overly friendly (yet) although they have become much better after the introduction of 2 10month old cade lambs.
They're not overly big sheep but are quite strong.

[Marches Farmer]

I advise keeping away from show flocks - as had been said easy lambing is not selected for and the sheep are often fed to produce a big frame.  Probably similar temperament to our Badger Face, which have been raised with our very docile Southdowns and are much tamer than any others I've encountered.

[PhillipWillie]

Thanks for all the replies folks, im just fishing around for some advice atm! My uncle has a farm shop and im looking for a bit of a multi-purpose breed, meat he could sell and a good fleece that could be made into products he could sell! Not wanting to keep an awful lot of stock as ground is scarce, but wanting to bring in enough to cover my costs. Any advice on what breed may suit would be great!

[Fleecewife]

Jacobs produce a reasonably sized carcase at about 7 months, and the meat has that special low fat, tasty sought after quality.  If you lamb in April and send them off at 7 months, you are in time to get the skins back and get them tanned.  Jacob skins are highly desirable; we used to sell ours for £60 (cost about £30 for tanning and post), up to about 2003, so a worthwhile extra to your income. They have plenty of triplets and can raise them all without supplementing lamb feed or twinning one onto another ewe.  Just be selective in where you buy your flock.