The Goals for your New Sheep Operation
In the past 20 some years, I have been involved with many new shepherds. Quite often, their plans,
with their new sheep operation, have been completely unrealistic. Many of these new sheep producers
have read about some new sheep management fad, quite often being promoted by some government livestock
specialists. The Finn sheep and the Romanov sheep breeds are two examples where new producers have
seen major production possibilities, only to find these opportunities being totally out of their
management abilities. Both the Finn and the Romanov were very high producers, triplets and quads being
the norm. But the management required to bring these many lambs to market required an intensive knowledge
of sheep production. Many of these sheep producers were part time producers, and while they were busying
their day with their normal jobs, disasters were piling up back at the ranch. Realistic goals with
traditional sheep production will offer greater success than these high folluting, high output, highly
demanding management operations. These should be left for the more experienced, although in my experience,
the more experienced shepherds don't want anything to do with them.
(Information on raising sheep)
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