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| Sheep were really popular in my area as water was scarce and wells are 600-1100ft deep to get 15gpm. So, until all the .gov programs got the water systems up to par for cattle, sheep outperformed cows as they could survive on mud puddles and still breed back. In the 80s if you could get $.80/lb for 80lb lambs life was good. Calf weights were pitiful as 4wts were pretty much the norm and $/lb were usually less than lambs. As time went on, I’d like to say around 2003, when feeder calves broke $1.10 for 6wts it was all but over for the sheep. The wool deal was decent for quite a while usually paying for the shearing as well as most of the winter feed. Then the government quit using as much wool in uniforms and it barely paid to shear them. As more producers sold out, the predators had a smaller pool to choose from and instead of losing a couple lambs here and there it turned into 30-50 per herd.
Our operation ran a 1000 hd flock in the early 90s. All shed lambed starting mid February and usually got the last one around mid April. They would get kicked out to pasture first of May still close enough to bring in if a storm popped up. Lambs were weaned off in drafts by weight over several weeks during the summer, usually after a solid night at the bar for some reason… As pasture leases went up along with cattle prices, there got to be more cows running here and less sheep as it made better financial sense. Then in ‘07 I finally figured out I made more off one tractor overhaul in my shop then I did off 400 sheep. So they went down the road and now I do multiple winter projects with all the spare time. | |
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For guys that have run sheep and aren't any more
