[Creagan]

I'd like to get a small number of sheep with the idea being to keep my ground in good nick and to have maybe two lambs a year for home consumption. I could support say half a dozen sheep with the ground I've got.

What I would like to do is to take in six young lambs each summer and fatten them, and then give four back at the end of the year, the other two going in my freezer.

Am I being naive thinking anybody would want to make this deal with me? I'd prefer to avoid getting into lambing as well as the hassle of selling on the open market. Obviously I'm quite new to all this and not sure of the values of lambs especially at different ages. I might also need to have a longer fattening period which means more winter work.

Hope this doesn't make me sound really lazy but I don't want to get overstretched.

[Penninehillbilly]

That sounds a high price for a sheep owner to pay, if more land/sheep it might possibly be worth 1 lamb.

[Tim W]

6 lambs x 12 weeks rent at 30p/wk = £21.60
There's what your land rent is worth for the summer (adjust for variations in time etc) at a commercial rate 

[Womble]

Why not take in six lambs, but then send all six to the abbatoir when they're ready?  You could then sell the meat you don't want to family and friends, to hopefully offset the costs of your own?

[Marches Farmer]

Beware of regulations if using this route - once money changes hands you're on a slippery slope and need to check with your local Council with regard to meat hygiene rules and so forth.

[DartmoorLiz]

Alternatively, sell the 4 (perhaps the 4 least good ones) to the abattoir and have 2 back for your freezer.  Get the abattoir to hang and joint the ones you are having back and collect them a week later.  I do this on a larger scale all the time.  It gives you an idea of how much you 'saved' by bringing up your own.  There are regulations on selling to friends but they are not too onerous and you have time to sort that out while you watch the lambs grow in the summer. 


From my point of view, I'm not sure I would want to loan you 6 weaned lambs to bring up and then pay you for the work by giving you 2 of them.  What if one died - would that be yours or mine?.  What if one or all needed medication with too long a withdrawal period to fit in with taking them to the abattoir? What if only 2 grow?

[mowhaugh]

Alternatively, sell the 4 (perhaps the 4 least good ones) to the abattoir and have 2 back for your freezer. 

I would do this.

[Womble]

There are regulations on selling to friends but they are not too onerous

Especially if the final customers can pick up direct from the butcher...

[sabrina]

I stopped having my own lambs a while ago and now buy 3 Hebs when weaned and run them on over the winter until the following August. the idea is they help clean up all the stuff the ponies don't eat and we get the best tasting meat we have every had. I myself have not been into selling this on but may be worth looking into.

[Creagan]

Thanks for the replies. I had kind of wondered if this would be not a very tempting deal for someone (i.e. too generous for me).
I have someone in the next village to the do the slaughter and butchery on a home-kill basis so that will be much cheaper than driving a three hundred miles round trip to the commercial abbatoir.

Any other suggestions for how I could run this? Aim is to have two lambs per year for the freezer, and try to avoid costs and hassle as much as possible. I'm not set up for lambing (no time, no shed, no money or flat ground to build one) and it would be wonderful to reduce winter work as much as possible (childhood memories of trudging through driving rain and mud!).

I'd be very open to having someone else's animals use the grazing but would like to get something in exchange.

[Penninehillbilly]

How much land is Creagan, and what sort of condition?

[Womble]

Any other suggestions for how I could run this? Aim is to have two lambs per year for the freezer, and try to avoid costs and hassle as much as possible.

Buy four lambs now (just weaned and already vaccinated if you don't want hassle, or 'cade' orphans if you do!), and a big chest freezer.

Let them grow big, then put them all in the freezer. Then eat the meat out of the freezer until it's empty, rinse and repeat!

Alternatively, let the grazing to somebody and use the money to buy half lamb boxes from, er, me for instance! 

[twizzel]

Home kill rules you out of selling any meat. I wouldn't suggest orphan lambs if you have no time or money, they are the most expensive way of rearing a few lambs for the table. So I would buy 2 or 3 store lambs from the local market, and then rear them on and kill when big enough. But then any kind of lamb is hassle, they will still need crovect/clik applied and probably worming at some point whilst you have them. So maybe as womble says it might be best to let someone else graze the land and use the money to your lamb boxes. That is the most hassle free option IMO.