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Author Topic: how many sheep can I have???  (Read 13044 times)

xnbacon

  • Joined Mar 2009
Re: how many sheep can I have???
« Reply #15 on: March 16, 2009, 08:23:14 pm »
Does anyone know of any 'official' guidelines on this?  I've been looking, but without much success, and came to the conclusion that it seems to depend on how much you are prepared to feed them.  I did come up with 9 per acre (from CAFRE) which related more to their output (so as not to exeed approved manure nitrogen levels) which seemed rather a lot if they were supposed to be grazing.


lindy

  • Joined Mar 2009
Re: how many sheep can I have???
« Reply #16 on: March 17, 2009, 07:03:26 am »
I don't know if there is any official number per acre because it depends on various factors.
Can I suggest that less rather than more is better. If you are new to sheep keeping it is better start small in my opinion.
Kaz suggested 3-5 per acre and I agree.
One of my fields is an acre and I cannot imagine keeping 9 sheep on it all year- that is far too many.
3 seems more suitable if you are going to breed from them. If you were not going to breed then you could possibly keep 5 .
You must rotate the grazing though and be prepared to feed hay and concentrates.
You could also ask around about nearby fields to let if you decide to expand a bit in the future.
I recently advertised in our local parish mag for small fields to graze and so far have had 5 offers.

xnbacon

  • Joined Mar 2009
Re: how many sheep can I have???
« Reply #17 on: March 17, 2009, 05:48:04 pm »
Have to admit 3-5 sounds far more sensible and suits me.  I just made the mistake of 'wondering' what DEFRA had to say on the subject and spent the evening fruitlessly looking for the information.  Can't believe it is not there somewhere since they told me how much floor and trough space they had to have.  However, as you say there are a number of variables to consider, so they probably don't like to give too definite an answer. 

 

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