How did I get into sheep & goats? …4-H! 4-H is available in EVERY state! The program is part of the Cooperative Extension System, which operates in 3,150 counties nationwide (National Institute of Food and Agriculture). Each state’s 4‑H is managed through its land‑grant university system in partnership with the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture
4-H is a wonderful and enriching program for kids aged 7-19 that teaches about life and interpersonal skills, animals, science, and so much more. I saw a flyer for our local 4-H at my son’s elementary school. I had never heard of 4-H while I lived in Hawaii before. I later found out that 4-H was alive there, just not in my area. In California, 4-H is thriving and it is one of the best findings for our whole family. My 3 children grew up 4-H and I wouldn’t change it for anything. My son was ambitious and wanted to join so many projects. We started Horse (this was more for me!) and Sheep. he learned how to raise a market animal. As a family, we learned about feed, care, housing, breeding, and the circle of life for sheep. We have 2 fairs in our county that we were eligible to participate in and we did both each year. My other 2 children followed in his footsteps when they became of age. Raising sheep was a daily chore, a constant learning experience, and a ‘business’ for my kids. They learned to keep track of their expenses, provide good care, and then realized profits when they sold their animal at the fair.
Raising sheep is both easy and hard. They require clean water, shelter, and good food. Pastureland with good grass is what sheep eat in the wild, but to raise quality competitive lambs for fair requires grain and high-quality feed. They do not tolerate too much copper in their diet so they must not get into other types of livestock feed that may contain copper. Sheep should be vaccinated with CDT (prevents overeating disease and tetanus) vaccine each year.
4-H market lambs are anywhere from grade quality to top show quality. For learning purposes, it’s best to get the best that you can comfortably afford for your market. The goal is to break even or profit, not to lose money. Winning is always rewarding but comes best when you earned it with hard work and practicing your showmanship. Click Here for a book that I recommend to my project kids to help with showmanship:
Click HERE for a link to ‘How much does it costs to raise a market lamb’ to give you an idea of costs.
We raised sheep and goats for over 15 years. At first, we bought lambs from a local breeder before each fair. Check your fair rules for minimum ownership time. As my younger kids started getting closer to showing sheep themselves, we started breeding our own because eventually we would need 3 lambs for each fair. It just seemed to make sense. We started with California Red sheep. They were docile, easy to handle, and looked pretty cool with their red wool. However, in our area, this breed was not very competitive. My son worked with them the same, fed them the same, they just did not have the preferred body type to be competitive. In our area, the preferred meat sheep breeds were Suffolk, Hampshire, or Dorset. We purchased a Suffolk ram and bred him with our CA Red ewes. We did this for a few years and slowly started adding more sheep to our farm and eventually got rid of our CA Reds. It took us a decade to breed competitive lambs. By the end of our 4-H run, we had nice blue Suffolk genetics that sold well. For anyone starting new, I would recommend starting with good stock if you plan to breed for show. We enjoyed the California Red breed and we crossbred them with a Suffolk ram, but our genetics were not competitive until we introduced better stock that aligned with what others showed in our area.
Did you know?… Sheep are from the OVINE Species. Sheep are ruminants, meaning they have 4 stomachs. Sheep don’t have teeth on the top front gums. Sheep are raised for meat and/or wool. Wool breeds tend to have white faces. Meat breeds tend to have black faces.
Sheep By-Products… Wool/fleece, LAMB meat (meat less than 1 year old at time of slaughter), MUTTON (meat greater than 14 months old at time of slaughter), milk, cheese, hides/skins, and lanolin.
Is it a Sheep or a Goat? …Goat tails go up, Sheep tails go down.
Raising meat sheep… Meat sheep must be fed well to grow optimally. Once babies are born, it is very important that the newborn lamb drinks colostrum, mother’s first milk. The babies usually are able to stand within 15 minutes, many times sooner. They must be kept warm. If it is cold out, allow mom to lick and clean her baby lamb. If it is very cold outside, and the baby is cooling down too fast, it is OK to intervene by helping the drying process using clean towels, especially if she has twins and the 2nd one is about to be born. There are commercial colostrum powders on the market, but ideally, they get colostrum from their mother. The next best thing would be fresh goat milk. Babies who do not get that 1st colostrum and end up being bottle fed will grow, but often do not grow the same way. I keep a heat lamp in the barn so that babies can move toward the heat as needed. Newborns should have their umbilical cord dipped or painted with iodine to prevent navel ill disease which is incurable. Mommies should have received their CDT vaccine close to delivery. If they have not, newborns should receive their CDT vaccine soon after birth and then repeated 3 weeks later as a booster shot. CDT vaccine, syringe and needles can be purchased from your feed store. It is a subcutaneous shot. Once they have their booster shot, you may band their tails and castrate males. Lambs growing up should always have access to mom. They will start to explore foods like the soft parts of hay and grains within a couple of weeks and are usually able to be weaned by 3 months old.
Lamb gestation is +/- 150 days. You will want to time your breeding so that lambs born will grow to be the right weight by fair time. For our area, market lambs must be a minimum of 100 lbs. There is no minimum age and maximum age is 1 years old with all milk teeth intact at time of fair. Ideally, you want them to be 6-9 months in age. Less than 6 months may make weight, but may lack the ‘finish’ to be competitive and too close to 1 year old and you are risking their milk teeth falling out – which is a disqualifier in our area since that is the only way to tell age. All lambs should have scrapie tags. Scrapie tags identify (1) state of origin (2) flock ID and (3) Individual animal ID. Click HERE to learn about scrapie disease.