1. This was a great episode. As a sheep enthusiast who has a decade or so of experience raising backyard sheep, I thought I would share a few thoughts to add to the discussion.

   First, I would agree with the overall discussion about “just raising sheep.” It’s not always easy, but with experience it can be rewarding, and there’s always something new to learn.

   Second, I’d agree with “treats” for sheep. I use corn because it is affordable, easy to access, and stores well, but alfalfa pellets and the like also work well. Having sheep trained to come to the shake of a bucket is huge lifesaver when you need to handle and move sheep or gather in escapees.

   Third, as far as electric fence goes, I’m personally a big fan of the sheep nets from Premier. I rarely have sheep escape from them as long as they’re trained, and they are easy to move around. Reels, step-in posts, and wire also can work and are useful if you need to go long distances or need a ton of flexibility, but aren’t as reliable about keeping them in and predators out. For backyard flocks, for most people, I’d recommend the netting. I like single spike instead of double spike posts. While double spike posts have a place for you to step them in, in hard soil it means having to get two spikes in the ground, and it’s often easier to get only one in the ground.

   Grounding can be an issue. One super helpful trick I learned from the folks at Premier is that the recommended length of ground rod doesn’t have to be one post. In other words, if you need 3’ of ground, it doesn’t need to be one post in the ground 3 feet. You could have 3 rods 1’ in the ground. In hard clay or rocky soils this is super helpful, especially if you are like me and need to move the ground rods regularly. My guess is that it’s more effective, when practical, to have depth than multiple rods not as deep, but I’ve found the multi rod system to work quite well in my context.

   I do have a word or two about hair sheep. Personally, I’m not a fan. I shear myself, so I don’t have the expense of paying for someone to shear. I understand that for many people hair sheep make a great option. But, I think there is a lot of hype around them that isn’t all that accurate. For instance, it’s often stated that hair sheep are more mild than wool sheep. This is not true from my experience. My wool sheep (Texels) are very mild—delicious but no gaminess at all. I think maybe diet has more to do with the flavor, and age is certainly a factor. Breed may affect it, but it’s not a division based on hair sheep vs. wool sheep.

   Also regarding hair sheep, with the exception of Dorpers, they tend to not be as meaty as most wool sheep. This starts to be a problem when you take your lambs to the butcher. Most butchers charge per head to butcher sheep instead of per pound like pigs and cows. So a 60 pound lamb and a 100 pound lamb cost the same to butcher despite getting different amounts of meat.

   Along those lines, if I heard right, Nicole said she would get around 350 pounds of meat from 4 lambs. I seriously doubt the accuracy of those numbers unless I’m missing something. Are they butchered over a year old? To estimate meat yield from a sheep you would start with live weight and generally expect about 50% of live weight once you remove skin, guts, and so forth. This is the “hanging weight.” You then loose a bit more when cutting it up into parts. We’ll be generous and say the lambs dress out at 55% of live weight, and 75% of that makes it to take home meat. If you get 350 pounds of meat from 4 lambs, that would be about 87 pounds each. If you do the math that would mean the lambs would be 210 pounds on the hoof, but very few sheep get that big, especially not as lambs. Even if you just look at hanging weight, and an optimistic dressing percentage your looking at a lamb that is well over 100 pounds which is difficult to do for many breeds but especially small ones like St. Croix when raised on grass only. Maybe I’m missing something, but these numbers don’t seem to add up. I’m not trying to discount the value sheep can bring as a meat source, but I want people to have realistic expectations, especially if they go the hair sheep route. I generally expect a little over 1/3 of the live weight for what you take home at the end of the day.

   While I agree that hair sheep are the best option for many people, I do want to say a word or two in favor of wool. While it does take work and has a learning curve, there can be a lot of money made from wool if sold to niche markets, which is realistic on a homestead scale. I know someone who makes $100s per sheep each year from wool, and even keeps castrated rams around just for the wool. For them lambs are just a byproduct. These sheep are bred primarily for wool so they don’t have the quality meat traits from a meat breed like Texels. Wool may not be a big income producer from meat type sheep, but it can still be valuable. Of course you could spin it or felt it or something like that. But wool is also an excellent mulch around plants and trees especially, so from a permaculture stacking standpoint, wool is a very good resource on the homestead. I’m still learning about how to care for an market my wool, but I feel pretty confident that I could make more than enough to pay for shearing them (if I were paying to do so). Just a thought. But, hair sheep can be good too as long as you’re aware of what you’re missing in carcass traits.

   I hope this can provide something of value to the conversation!

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