This is lovely! I am a sheep veterinarian and shepherd myself. I really relate to the transformative power of these amazing animals and our relationships with them. I have just started a substack entirely devoted to sheep! I hope you will take a look: leaningonourcrooks.substack.com
If you think about it, wool isn't used as much in modern textiles as it once was, so no. Not much of a market unless you can tap into the cottage-core industry. In my region, i's hard to find a processing facility and the cost of having the wool turned into yarn is prohibitive. Which is sad because finnsheep have a VERY luxurious fleece--next to skin quality and not itchy like some wools. So I shear them annually because they need it, but I just have bags and bags of wool stashed. I've started using it in the nesting boxes and as mulch in the garden.
Woolen mills of Maine were places I went to get skeins of yarn to make balls 🧶 and then my aunt knit shawls and sweaters. Maybe a cottage industry could rise from the old water wheel days. Perhaps an ad in Bangor or Portland newspapers,even the Yankee or Down East magazines.
I picked sheep for a similar reason, soil regeneration. But in my area I couldn’t find anyone to help guide me. After last years terrible lambing season (one ewe died in birth lamb dead in canal - I didn’t recognise the signs of labour which were completely different in her compared to last year - the second ewe lambed in a snowstorm without warning, it was too late by the time I realised she had lambed), I decided to part with my sheep and I couldn’t sell them - absolutely zero demand despite me listing them for a good price (less than what I paid for them as lambs)… it took 5 months to sell the ram, the two ewes I have left (mother and daughter) are still here. I tried to find a butcher but was quoted just crazy prices… $300-500ea for shetland sheep that might give me 30lbs of meat if I’m lucky. So I still have the two ewes which are basically pets now but I’m not sure what to do going forward.
Oh that's too bad, Robert! I'm sorry you couldn't find a mentor and had a hard time with lambing. It really is a bit of a learning curve and I understand completely how those experiences can leave a lasting impression on our souls. And those butchering prices ARE crazy! I think I'm paying something like $150 per animal, and Finns, being smaller but not so small as Icelandics, I'm getting 40-50lbs of meat per animal.
Guess I should have started writing about sheep-keeping sooner!
There were a couple of issues I ran into with free animals...
1. People like to rid themselves of nuisance animals this way. So I ended up with other people's problems.
2. People will give away animals past their prime. I saw this a lot with poultry. Old chickens. Extra roosters that should've just been put in a stew pot etc.
3. My ex-husband would get carried away and bring home free animals before we could properly house and fence them. This culminated on my birthday one year, when I woke to find the free sheep he'd brought home IN my market garden. (So technically I did have sheep before the Romneys, but they were so wild I couldn't get near them, and after they ate my garden because we didn't have adequate fencing, I re-homed them.)
Hahaha your husband is me 😅 I would absolutely bring home animals before having a spot for them. It’s the bane of my husbands existence. I’m so sorry they are your garden 😭😭😭)
Well, it's hard to write the whole of that story in the comments, lol. But that initial band of rogue sheep actually did spend a couple of weeks rampaging through the woods. Our fence system at that point was a joke and by the time I found an experienced sheep farmer to take the poor things, they were riddled with burdock.
Normally I don't remove animals, but in this instance it was in the best interest of the sheep to send them on.
This is lovely! I am a sheep veterinarian and shepherd myself. I really relate to the transformative power of these amazing animals and our relationships with them. I have just started a substack entirely devoted to sheep! I hope you will take a look: leaningonourcrooks.substack.com
I don’t know if you mentioned shearing the sheep and selling the wool. Must still be a market.
If you think about it, wool isn't used as much in modern textiles as it once was, so no. Not much of a market unless you can tap into the cottage-core industry. In my region, i's hard to find a processing facility and the cost of having the wool turned into yarn is prohibitive. Which is sad because finnsheep have a VERY luxurious fleece--next to skin quality and not itchy like some wools. So I shear them annually because they need it, but I just have bags and bags of wool stashed. I've started using it in the nesting boxes and as mulch in the garden.
Woolen mills of Maine were places I went to get skeins of yarn to make balls 🧶 and then my aunt knit shawls and sweaters. Maybe a cottage industry could rise from the old water wheel days. Perhaps an ad in Bangor or Portland newspapers,even the Yankee or Down East magazines.
I picked sheep for a similar reason, soil regeneration. But in my area I couldn’t find anyone to help guide me. After last years terrible lambing season (one ewe died in birth lamb dead in canal - I didn’t recognise the signs of labour which were completely different in her compared to last year - the second ewe lambed in a snowstorm without warning, it was too late by the time I realised she had lambed), I decided to part with my sheep and I couldn’t sell them - absolutely zero demand despite me listing them for a good price (less than what I paid for them as lambs)… it took 5 months to sell the ram, the two ewes I have left (mother and daughter) are still here. I tried to find a butcher but was quoted just crazy prices… $300-500ea for shetland sheep that might give me 30lbs of meat if I’m lucky. So I still have the two ewes which are basically pets now but I’m not sure what to do going forward.
Oh that's too bad, Robert! I'm sorry you couldn't find a mentor and had a hard time with lambing. It really is a bit of a learning curve and I understand completely how those experiences can leave a lasting impression on our souls. And those butchering prices ARE crazy! I think I'm paying something like $150 per animal, and Finns, being smaller but not so small as Icelandics, I'm getting 40-50lbs of meat per animal.
Guess I should have started writing about sheep-keeping sooner!
Aw! Thank you so much for this 🫶🏻 also thank you for sharing that the first go of it didn’t go exactly to plan.
When it came to the other free animals you were gifted - was there something wrong with them? Were they sick?
There were a couple of issues I ran into with free animals...
1. People like to rid themselves of nuisance animals this way. So I ended up with other people's problems.
2. People will give away animals past their prime. I saw this a lot with poultry. Old chickens. Extra roosters that should've just been put in a stew pot etc.
3. My ex-husband would get carried away and bring home free animals before we could properly house and fence them. This culminated on my birthday one year, when I woke to find the free sheep he'd brought home IN my market garden. (So technically I did have sheep before the Romneys, but they were so wild I couldn't get near them, and after they ate my garden because we didn't have adequate fencing, I re-homed them.)
Hahaha your husband is me 😅 I would absolutely bring home animals before having a spot for them. It’s the bane of my husbands existence. I’m so sorry they are your garden 😭😭😭)
All it takes is one bad experience and you'll never do it again lol. That sheep incident left a lasting impression for me.🤦♀️🤷♀️
Well, it's hard to write the whole of that story in the comments, lol. But that initial band of rogue sheep actually did spend a couple of weeks rampaging through the woods. Our fence system at that point was a joke and by the time I found an experienced sheep farmer to take the poor things, they were riddled with burdock.
Normally I don't remove animals, but in this instance it was in the best interest of the sheep to send them on.
Thank you so much! Wish you could see the field in person. The improvement we've made there is phenomenal.