Product Quality

For both homesteading and commercial sheep farmers, the quality of the meat, milk, or wool being produced from their sheep herd is very important. Flock health, care, and nutrition all play a crucial role in product quality.

On this site, you’ll find information on managing your sheep, including how to keep and review records, determine the best size ewe for your flock, and accelerated lamb production.

Sheep are ideal for small-scale and part-time farming operations because of their adaptability and nutritional versatility. Most ewes produce lambs in the spring, but they can also be born from September through May. Producers can increase the number of lamb birthing cycles per ewe using a technique called accelerated lambing.

Deciding which lambs to keep in the flock is a challenge. The weight of the lambs is an important factor; however, the age of the lamb, age of the ewe, gender, type of birth, and how the lamb was raised also have to be taken into account.

Sheep Milk Products and Quality

We have been milking sheep for thousands of years, long before we milked the first cow. Globally, Europe is where the dairy sheep industry is concentrated; however, the sheep milk industry in the United States has been increasing for several years.

One of the problems faced by sheep dairy producers is an off-flavor in the milk. These are typically classified into three basic categories: the ABC’s of off-flavor development.

Dairy milk consumption in the United States has been decreasing for a number of years, possibly due to the variety of other options available. There have also been concerns about levels of fat in different dairy products, particularly milk. The decrease in milk consumption has led many producers to look to increase profit through value-added products such as yogurt, cheese, butter, and ice cream.

Dairy products in the US have to meet defined compositional or processing requirements. You can find these in Titles 7 (Agriculture) and 21 (Food and Drugs) of the Code of Federal Regulations.

Lamb Meat Products

Health, nutrition, management practices for handling animals, and transportation all play a part in producing high-quality lamb meat products. Tastiness and quality are things the consumer has come to expect. In order to achieve this, producers have to care for their animals in the best possible way.

The process starts from the moment they are born through to the time they are harvested for food. Unnecessary stress can result in meat that is a dark red color rather than the normal bright red. It can also cause the meat to be dry and tough.

Sheep Wool Production

Wool is the product most people associate with sheep. Selling wool in the commercial wool market has limited profit potential for most producers, but the niche marketing of wool can pay big dividends.

Feeding, housing, health care, handling, and harvesting are all critical to the production of high-quality wool. The unofficial start of the sheep shearing season is March. The process of shearing a sheep is relatively easy; the difficult part is handling the sheep. It’s important to learn the different sheep shearing positions and how to use the different sheep shearing tools.