It's good to collect some views from both sides of the fence, I would think, so that you are forewarned and can be forearmed as to any predictable problems.
Breed Societies and breeders are always very enthusiastic about their breed and find it hard to see fault! lol.
When I came here, with my little mixed flock of easy keepers with nice fleece, the incumbent small flock were Zwartbles.
I will try to be objective...
Good points
- very hardy, girt thick fleeces that the weather doesn't permeate
- very friendly sheep, extremely easy to tame and to get to follow a bucket
- very milky (originally a dairy breed), so generally their lambs do extremely well
- great big sheepskins (buy back from the abattoir and send off for tanning) which are gorgeous, and provide another income stream
- naturally polled (hornless)
- decent crossing sheep, we never had issues with lambs getting stuck no matter what tup we used. The only difficult lambings we had with Zwartbles were over-fittened ewes having triplets, not enough room inside the fatter sheep to get all the lambs organised and birthed. My advice would be to keep them at around CS2.5, not as high as 3 and certainly not over 3.
- the meat is amazing. I had expected to be able to convert the folks here to the primitives and crosses type sheep easily because Shetland and Manx meat is so flavoursome. But in fact the Zwartbles meat is excellent, even I say it's
very nearly as good as Shetland or Manx.
- huge joints. Is a bonus for us, we are a community of 20+ adults and 10+ children, so when we do a roast, we will eat a lot of meat! We do either one Zwartbles leg, or 2 Shetland cross legs, or 3 pure Shetland or Manx legs!
Less good points
- whilst some Zwartbles are now bred for softer, crimpier fleeces, many have fleece which is not particularly appealing to me as a handspinner. And even the softer, crimpier ones do not float my boat. But they have their fans and the fleece is by no means unusable. Being always black, and the offspring always black no matter what you cross them with, it's not good fleece for dyeing! And it doesn't wet felt easily (unless from the softer crimpier lines), which can be a bonus - but not to a felter, lol.
- the corollary of being so friendly (and so large) is that inexperienced keepers often over-tame them, and then can't safely get feed into the troughs etc as the huge sheep just bowl them over! My advice would be to aim for a mutually respectful relationship, where the sheep aren't in fear of you, but do not invade your space unless invited. And remember how big that cute little lambie will grow...
- feet are generally not the best. My advice would be to be ruthless in terms of who you keep and who you breed from. If she's needed attention to her feet more than once, she's dinner; doesn't go back to the tup.
- can be very susceptible to fly strike, and it can be harder to spot on the very thick black fleece. I would suggest you use anti flystrike meds / sprays (as well as vigilance, the meds aren't a guarantee but will reduce the incidence hugely.)
- the corollary of being very milky is that the ewes will need feeding before and after lambing. I wouldn't try to keep triplets on a Zwartbles (unless maybe she - and the lambs - will accept help in terms of you topping up the lambs in the field) because she will lose so much condition she would become a prime candidate for twin lamb disease the following year. If you do keep triplets on a Zwartbles ewe, wean at 16-18 weeks so you have time to dry her off and then get some condition back on her before she goes back to the tup. (Not too much condition, but you don't want her as low as CS2 going back to the tup after triplets.)
- they get quite fat if they have a year off (even if they started very thin after doing their lambs too well), so we found it best to keep ewes in lamb and cull any gelds.
- first timers are best lambed indoors or at least penned up with their lambs for the first 48 hours. They mostly don't bond well the first time without intervention. I have never seen this after the first time, once they have experienced mother love it seems to kick in fine on subsequent lambings. (We are an outdoor lambing flock here, and they are generally fine with that after the first time.)
- Ewes have quite short working lives. Our best Zwartbles, Gwenneth, was an excellent ewe in every respect, but was worn out after 4 crops (all twins.) And she had been put to the Shetland tup 3 of those times, a Romney once, so she hadn't been overworked. None of the Zwartbles ewes here had ever kept on going easily for 6, 7, even 8 crops, like some Shetlands would. (We have one of Gwenneth's last Shetland x daughters in lamb for the first time now, will be interesting to see how she does.) Fortunes have been spent here, unsuccessfully, on meds and investigations on favourite Zwartbles ewes who are not recovering condition after their 3rd or 4th crop... My advice would be don't expect long working lives, and cull any ewe who doesn't regain condition easily before tupping.
- They are so big that small shepherds may struggle to tip a Zwartbles over for attending to feet, trimming bellies, etc. However, we found most of the Zwartbles amenable to being taught to have their feet lifted like a horse. It's more difficult to do their feet this way, though.
- huge joints. (Listed in both lists.) If you are a family of two, a whole Zwartbles main joint will likely go off before you eat it all. (So tell your butcher to do shanks and leg steaks, split the shoulders, etc. And/or do rolled joints, which can be cut down to whatever sizes work for you, with the legs and shoulders.)
All of which said, if you buy wisely from a flock which breeds for good mothering and good feet, and you don't over-handle them, they are a great choice for novice sheepkeepers.