[Kiran]

So last weekend we pucked up some additional ducks to keep our flock numbers up. Whilst we were collecting the ducks I was talking to the farmer about his sheep. He had a herd of Soay sheep. We have always planned ro get some sheep but it may have moved up the list as the farmer will be selling some in September. We have a 10 acre paddock which has a relatively new orchard in the middle of it so hopefully  we have plenty of grazing. We do have another 5 acre adjacent field and a another field which is a bit remote but due to the gradient stays very dry in the winter.

This is our first go at sheep so we're wondering what a good number of sheep to get? Do we just fo for ewes should we consider a ram at this stage? We'd primarily like them as lawnmowers but would also like to do lamb boxes on a small scale too. On the 10 acre paddock is it better to strip graze in say 1 acre paddocks or leave them to access the full 10 at the same time? If I was to strip graze, is an electric tape enough to keep them in?

The field has been left fallow for a number of years, would I need to do anything to it first? I assume topping it to cut the long grass down is needed and I know I need ro install 1 more gate which is missing to make the larger field secure but just wondering if I need to consider anything else? I can knock up a field shelter pretty quickly, I can probably make it mobile if I am rotational grazing.

All advice gratefully received

[twizzel]

It would be worth keeping a few store lambs over the winter and then send them on next spring, rather than buying ewes and having to worry about lambing first. Learn the basics of sheep husbandry first before throwing breeding into the mix too.


I have not kept soay but if you want faster finishing lambs they may not be the right breed for you. Research the breed thoroughly before you buy it is all I’ll say.


You’ll always utilise grass better if it’s grazed properly, so rotational grazing is better, but how you do it is entirely up to you. We have a 5-6ac field split into 2 paddocks and a smaller 3ac again split into 2. We graze 30 breeding ewes with lambs over the spring and summer. We could graze it a bit more efficiently by splitting the paddocks into smaller ones again but it’s working ok at the moment. We use poly wire, and a good powerful fencer.

[Kiran]

Thank you, that's really useful. I was definitely moving towards the opinion of only keeping females and not breeding until I've got a bit of experience.  The thought process with Soay was that they don't require shearing and don't get problems with their feet (according to a bit of research and discussion with the farmer). I'd like to do the meat boxes at some point but the primary reason was ti avoid having to cut the fields. The breed looked to be quite tame and gentle, a consideration as I've got round kids.

[Richmond]

We keep a few Soay, and yes they can be tame, but they can also be wild as hell. We have had wild lambs come out of really tame ewes and nothing we did could get them remotely handleable. Also they love climbing trees - if you have them in with fruit trees they could do a lot of damage.

You could also look at Wiltshire Horn, a much larger shedding breed (we also keep them and they are lovely and extremely docile) or the Easycare which is a commercial hornless shedding breed derived from Wiltshire Horns.

Both our Soay and WHs do really well on grass alone (and trees  ) with no supplementary feeding apart from a bit of hay in winter and a few ewe nuts around lambing time for the breeders.

[Womble]

If your land hasn't had sheep on it for some years, it will be free of parasitic worms. This is therefore the ideal opportunity to keep it that way, and thus save yourself a load of expense and hassle in future.

Do speak to a vet before you get your first sheep, to discuss how to avoid introducing worms.

[Kiran]

Do speak to a vet before you get your first sheep, to discuss how to avoid introducing worms.

Are you talking in terms of worming? I can do that.

 I'm also hoping that rotational grazing will help keep the worms at bay too. I was looking at using polywire to split the 10 acre field into 10 acre(iish) plots and keep them moving.

[Kiran]

We keep a few Soay, and yes they can be tame, but they can also be wild as hell. We have had wild lambs come out of really tame ewes and nothing we did could get them remotely handleable. Also they love climbing trees - if you have them in with fruit trees they could do a lot of damage.

You could also look at Wiltshire Horn, a much larger shedding breed (we also keep them and they are lovely and extremely docile) or the Easycare which is a commercial hornless shedding breed derived from Wiltshire Horns.

Both our Soay and WHs do really well on grass alone (and trees  ) with no supplementary feeding apart from a bit of hay in winter and a few ewe nuts around lambing time for the breeders.

Thank you, appreciate the insight. Luckily the orchard is going to be fenced off imminently but has been set out with a decent width access through the middle initially for the tractor, but also livestock to be run through.

Thank you for the tip on the breeds too. I can't find any Easycare for sale in my area, I'm just about to have a look for Wiltshire Horn. Do you notice any difference in the taste/quality of the meat between the breeds? Is there any advantage to having a registered rare breed?

I got this far a couple of years ago and was going to buy some Black Welsh Mountains and missed out with a bit too much procrastination, I don't really know anyone in the farming or small holding community locally so am in a position of kind of having to go with what is available to me

[Rosemary]

Do speak to a vet before you get your first sheep, to discuss how to avoid introducing worms.

Are you talking in terms of worming? I can do that.

Your land will probably be sheep worm free; speak to your vet about what steps you can take to proevent introducing worms when you buy in sheep - so have a plan BEFORE you buy any.Remember that liver fluke is not species specific and is carried by deer, rabbits etc, so although you may be worm free, you may still have to treat for fluke.

[Richmond]

Well taste is a personal choice, but yes there does seem to be a difference between breeds, but I think the flavour largely depends on the age when the animal is slaughtered. Lamb is relatively mild where as hogget (1-3 years) and mutton (over 3) is much more flavoursome. We are currently eating Soay hogget and it's absolutely fabulous.

I think it doesn't matter too much what breed you get as long as it suits your land. We did loads of research before buying our first sheep (all purchased as newly weaned lambs) and are still learning. I have also learned a lot from folks on here

Like twizzel says start with something just to fatten up for the freezer (a small group of wethers?) to get you used to sheep keeping and go from there.

[SallyintNorth]

Meat-wise, I believe that Soay (which I haven't kept or eaten) are similar to Castlemilk Moorit (which I have kept and eaten.)  CMMs are very very lean, almost gamey.  Wonderful to most palettes but not to all. I found that some people who didn't like lamb absolutely loved my CMM hogget (hogget is slaughtered at two summers, a lot of primitives are better allowed to grow slowly on for two or even three summers), but a small proportion of people who like "regular" lamb didn't like the stronger taste of the CMM.

In terms of preventative worming, please follow the advice to speak to the vet and put a plan in place before purchasing - or ideally, before deciding what and from whom to purchase.  There is a huge problem with drug resistance in sheep and cattle worms, and you do want to make every effort to not introduce resistant worms onto your lovely clean land.  At times, vets will have access to restricted wormers, licensed for use only as quarantine wormers for new purchases, and your local vet will know whether this is available and whether it should be used in your case. 

Most primitive sheep can be tame and can also be wild, it's a lot about handling but it isn't all...  Lots of people have Shetlands that are stupid tame but some Shetlands are independent Olympic jumpers...  The same is true of Soay.  Some Wiltshires are pretty tame but they aren't all... 

Is your worry about shearing itself, or flystrike?  I'm not sure that keeping shedding sheep means no risk of flystrike... 

Store wethers will be a lot easier to manage and to learn on than females, even if you don't breed straight away. 

But if you start with stores, you'll be bringing sheep on twice, doubling the risk of bringing disease or resistant worms onto the land, so discuss with your vet...

[Womble]

Are you talking in terms of worming? I can do that.

No, not really. I'm talking about quarantine worming and then quarantining to ensure you don't introduce any worms at all. You then don't need to ever worm or rotationally graze.

Before we had sheep of our own, we let a local farmer graze sheep on our fields. Ten years on, and we're still treating our lambs each year to control the nematodirus worms his lambs brought in. You're in a great position to never have that problem.

[Kiran]

Thank you all, that's really useful info and gives me a fair bit to think about. I hadn't considered that wethers would be easier to manage so that's good to add to the mix.

The land has been left for at least the 5 years we've owned the property, largely due to me getting a bit lost in it all when it comes to adding livestock and the state the previous owner had left the place in, I was told that it hadn't been used for a few years prior to this but as with all the previous information I was given I'll take it with a pinch of salt. No rabbits or deer on the surrounding land. The common is grazed but is over 500m away from my proposed area.

I'll see if I can get a chat with the local farm vet about the points raised.

Thanks for the pointers on drug resistant worms as I had taken the farmers word for it that they had been wormed. I'll rais that with the vet too.

Really appreciate everyone taking the time to respond and your insights, just need to keep the motivation otherwise this place will never get off the ground.

[twizzel]

Thank you all, that's really useful info and gives me a fair bit to think about. I hadn't considered that wethers would be easier to manage so that's good to add to the mix.

The land has been left for at least the 5 years we've owned the property, largely due to me getting a bit lost in it all when it comes to adding livestock and the state the previous owner had left the place in, I was told that it hadn't been used for a few years prior to this but as with all the previous information I was given I'll take it with a pinch of salt. No rabbits or deer on the surrounding land. The common is grazed but is over 500m away from my proposed area.

I'll see if I can get a chat with the local farm vet about the points raised.

Thanks for the pointers on drug resistant worms as I had taken the farmers word for it that they had been wormed. I'll rais that with the vet too.

Really appreciate everyone taking the time to respond and your insights, just need to keep the motivation otherwise this place will never get off the ground.

Treat incoming sheep as if they’ve got scab, footrot, resistant worms and fluke and treat for all before letting them out onto your fields. Can you keep them inside whilst they are in quarantine?

[Kiran]

I've got an old barn that has the tractor and some implements (and a good amount of junk) but yes I think I could with a bit of clearing. They'd probably have about 40x20ft well ventilated but not the most luxurious accommodation.

[SallyintNorth]

Going back to some of the other questions in your opening post...

"Rotational" grazing means, to me at least, grazing more than one species in a sequence, so that each species eats and nullifies the worm eggs which would affect the other(s).  Done right, it can be extremely effective for worm control. 

But rotating one species through a number of paddocks is still a good idea.  Sheep like fresh ground, so subdividing and moving them on is a good plan for their wellbeing as well as for helping with worm control. 

Electric fence, if the right type, set up correctly and maintained correctly, can work well with sheep - but it doesn't always work with very young lambs.  (Wool is a good insulator, and lambs have such a tiny point of contact with the ground that they don't seem to get much of a shock until they're bigger.)  So if and when you breed, personally I would lamb in a separate stock-fenced area, and introduce electric once the lambs are getting bigger. 

My experience is that the more primitive (and wily) the sheep, the harder it is to keep them where you would like them.  I'd expect Soay to be hard work with electric, to jump it, to know when the charge is low and they can breach it, and for it to not affect their lambs at all.  And they're horned, so you won't be able to use the squared mesh style. 

If you decide on a configuration where you'll be rolling up and redeploying the electricity carrier, I'd say go for wire over rope or tape.  The fine filaments in rope and tape break down the more you roll it up, and you'll need to walk the entire length regularly checking all the strands individually for loss of transmission. 

In terms of numbers, it depends massively on your ground, but the rule of thumb for decent/good ground is 5 commercial type sheep per acre, more - 7 or 8 probably - for the small primitive types.

When you start breeding, the numbers grow frighteningly fast, especially at the outset when you inevitably want to keep all the pretty little girls  , so don't go mad with the numbers of breeding ewes you buy in at the outset.

Some of the primitives are browsers as much or more than grazers, and they won't necessarily keep the grass short and tidy (unless you give them no option by stocking densely), so tbh, if your aim is easy to keep lawnmowers and lamb boxes to sell, Soay is probably about the last breed we'd recommend, and you might do better with a more Downs-type sheep.

And can you talk some more about the shearing/flystrike thing, because there really aren't very many choices of self-shedding sheep (and only Easycare is likely to meet that list of requirements IMO), but we can give you a huge list of suitable breeds and types if you can live with woolly sheep! lol.

Whereabouts are you?  (Cos it'll help us know what sheep are likely to be around for you.)