[Mallows Flock]

Am just bouncing this around on 'paper' to get a feel of how I feel about it and for some helpful advice, pro's and cons off you guys 
I am basically, a bit sheep obsessed. I struggle to bring myself to get rid of my sheep even though the wethers need to go; they cost me a fortune over winter and the ewes I rear up from lambs to breed from mean i just end up with more lambs I can't send off. The basics are this... I think my sheep are 'worth' far more than the price of lamb... not monetary wise, but their lives are worth more than a few printed notes... but as they are mostly cross breeds all they really are any good for is eating. Which i don't do. i have eaten one and sold one but basically, I have to admit I am not a big fan of lamb. I prefer free range chicken and responsibly farmed fish.
After the recent shows and with this in mind, I am thinking of selling my commercials to smallholders for breeding, god knows what to do with my x-breed wethers as they are just too cute to feed someone's fat face  , keeping my small flock of Shetlands for showing, low level breeding and sell liveweight to other smallholders and then get a small flock of Cotswolds from the sale of my commercials for similar.
The other issue is that I have 3 'pet' commercials who I would also want to keep - but what to do with these? They would defo be staying tho!
I know I am too sentimental regarding them...but that's the way I am and i need a solution I guess to accomodate my soppiness! No cull posts please! LOL!
Thanks guys! Any pearls of wisdom would be great!
 

[Beewyched]

Hiya MF 
I think your plan of keeping more in the way of rare & minority breeds is a great idea - my OH would love to keep sheep if we had more acreage.  Your approach seems to be similar to us - wanting to keep every animal, coz "only we can give it a good life".  I have a wee snuffle every time one goes  .  Sadly, we've had to cut back a little with ours  - with only 1 wage coming in' loss of our rented field & the price of feed going through the roof  - but we have been fortunate that all of them have gone to really good homes & everyone keeps in touch.
If you've got the room (& can afford it) keep your 3 "pets" I can't see the problem with being sentimental - not any words of wisdom I know, but thought it may help you to know you're far from being the only sentimental one 
 

[jaykay]

I think you can definitely sell the girls from a specialist flock for breeding. But the boys. Most will not be the right quality, since you need far fewer tups than ewes, and your tup is half the flock, people breed from the best.

In the Rough Fells an experienced farmer said he reckoned to produce a breeding quality tup once every 500 tup lambs. So I worked out that since I produced on average 10 tup lambs a year, I could expect to produce one worth selling as breeding stock once every 50 years!

So most of your boys will not go for breeding. The odd few might go as wethers for lawnmowing or tup companions. But the rest?

It's never easy sending animals to the abattoir and neither should it be. But the way I look at it, they had a good life and now nothing bad can happen to them - which is far from certain selling wethers who have no value. They aren't always treated well and can be passed from pillar to post. That's not something I want for my animals.

[Mallows Flock]

Hi Beewyched
That's why I am not keeping pigs this year! I also lost a small paddock and no lonfer work for an animal feed merchant where i got cheap pig nuts so pork is OFF the menu this year!
I guess I need to
1. sell off privately
a) my unregistered Shetland ewe lambs
b) My Charollais x Shetland ewe lambs
c) my Texel x Mule lambs
2. I need to perhaps market/ prelove
a) my Shetland wethers
b) my commercial x wethers
3. Keep my
Shetland ewes
3 fat girlie pet sheep
Shetland ram
4. Buy
Cotswold ewes and a ram

[Fleecewife]

Mallows you are far from being the only sentimental sheep owner around.  This means that if you look hard enough you will find homes for your pet sheep, genuine forever homes.  We have done this with a few of our 'not for meat' sheep and everyone's happy.  This then gives you the space to keep more appropriate breeds and numbers.
Taste of sheep meat - it really is worth trying something like Soay, Hebridean or one of the other slow-grown primitives as their meat at 16 or 28 months tastes very unlike a commercial lamb straight off its mother.  The commercial lamb will be sweet and tender, but I know I prefer the robust, firmer and richer taste of 16 month hogget, pretty much fat free.  It might just change your mind about eating sheep.

[jaykay]

Sorry, I didn't make it clear, I wasn't suggesting sending the pet sheep to the abbatoir, I'm sure you can find them pet homes.

I meant the boys from the proposed venture breeding Shetlands and Cotswolds.

[Mallows Flock]

ChrsJaykay...
The only ram I have I am keeping!
That is a really, really good point about the wethers. maybe best if I advertise them as lawnmowers/ companions and any that don't go will have to go to the abatoir. Gutted!
Christ! I don't even know IF people will want to buy them this time of year onwards ready to see winter in. Or is that just an excuse for me to keep them longer!
Gosh, how can I say goodbye to the lambs I bred/ reared as orphans?
 

[Mallows Flock]

Fleecewife.... it is primitive meat I have in the freezer.... Shetland.... and it is by far superior...you are right. I ate mine at 14 months old so maybe i will keep it a little longer next time like you suggest.
Maybe if I just ate my boy Shetlands I could be tempted to eat a couple of my own! Find pet homes for the others.
I have just had to come to the realisation that there is no point me breeding commercials and commercial crosses as well as my prinitives if i don;t want to eat them/sell them as meat myself! LOL!
 

[Fleecewife]

   Shetland is definitely tasty     Keeping them til August means they get the benefit of all the summer grass and are just a little bigger than in May/June.   If you have it in your head from birth that the males are all going in the freezer then somehow it makes it easier to do.
 
I find with cooking lamb/hogget that if you can frazzle any fat at the end of cooking so it's crispy and tasty then it smells and tastes good, whereas if the fat is white and globby then it doesn't appeal for eating at all.  Adding a generous sprinkle of Herbes de Provence helps.  I can't eat my meat with any pink at all - maybe you are the same;  I cook it until it's falling to bits.
 
Good luck with finding homes for the pets 

[plumseverywhere]

Probably won't be hard finding pet homes     we have pet sheep as lawnmowers and I'd much rather enjoy tame sheep that come to me for foot trimming, jabs etc than having a real job catching them each time. Use this as your selling point 
What about approaching local petting farms?

[Brucklay]

That's the way I try and look at things - from the second they are born I put it in my head that the boys have to go - but that is not to say I don't care about them in fact they usually end up getting far more attention!!
As I only had a few ewe's to tup last autumn and wanted to keep the tup for a couple of more years (if he did the job - which he did) I had to sell all of this years lambs - the girls have gone to be breeding ewe's of the future and I'll keep the boys till they are ready to go (spoilt till the last min).

[Mallows Flock]

The best thing I think I can do, after all your advice.... is write a definitive list of all that needs to go with a price in mind, advertise them and see what happens! I will sob at each and every one leaving, even if going to a forever home as I love them all..., keep the ones I want to keep and set all the sale money aside ready for my Cotswolds purchases. Hopefully, if I advertise them in enough good places I can pick out each and every owner i want them to go to!    Oh the woe of it all!!!

[ZaktheLad]

I have exactly the same problem with sending my whether lambs off each year.  I try not to get attached to them and handle them only for routine trimming, worming and spraying, but invariably, there is always a whether lamb that becomes extremely friendly despite my best attempts and will come running up to me in the field for a cuddle.  As a result of this, I kept a whether from last year and will be keeping another this year as I just can't bring myself to think of him going.   I have had very little success in selling any as lawnmowers or pets as the majority of people who call do not have any idea of what is involved with keeping sheep and when I explain that they will need foot trimming, shearing, worming and fly protection etc at various points in the year, it puts many people off, but I would rather they were aware before taking them on.   

I send my whether lambs to the local livestock market but hate the way they are pushed and pulled about.  I would like to look at sending them to a local abattoir but do not know what the process is - do I have to sell the meat myself afterwards or will the abattoir/butcher buy from me and sell?   is this way less stressful for the animals?   I don't eat lamb myself so wouldn't want the meat for my own freezer.

I do sell the majority of my ewe lambs to private breeding homes and this has worked very well in the past.   I am really glad that I am not the only sheep owner who is too sentimental - I have been ridiculed at market in the past by the farmers there for my sentimental attitude and for insisting to the auctioneer that my pen of ewe lambs went to a breeder rather than meat as if not, I would take them back home again!   They were a smashing trip of ewe lambs and someone did buy them for breeding so my very red face was worth it!

[YorkshireLass]

Would it help to think of it as helping out the rare/primitive breeds? If everyone just has a pet, there is no demand for lambs, so none are bred, so the breed will die out. By keeping things "dynamic" you are in fact encouraging breeding and use of the breeds you (presumably) love 

[Blackbird]

Mallows, it's a shame you are so far away. We're vegetarian and our tiny flock of 5 sheep are lawnmowers/pets. I love how soft our GFDs are, but if I were to get any more sheep, I would definitely have some more Shetlands -I have one Shetland ewe who is now bucket trained and friendly and I'm looking forward to spinning and knitting her fleece, and at some point I'd like to take on more ewes/wethers. We are in Northants though