Hi Candy,
I have to echo everyone else's encouragement for beginning with
blackbelly sheep. Before I purchased sheep, I read a few books and
scared myself silly with everything that would probably go wrong.
Between all the diseases and lambing problems I read about, I was
pretty sure I'd be a dismal failure at raising sheep.
My advice to every new breeder is to read a couple of those books
before purchasing sheep. Understand how to prepare for lambing, what
sheep require for good nutrition, how to keep them healthy, what kind
of shelter to provide. And then toss out 75% of everything you read
because blackbelly sheep are simply different than wooled sheep.
In general (and I am really generalizing here because everyone has a
different experience), blackbelly sheep require far less care than
wooled sheep. 50% of the work is immediately eliminated because you
don't need to shear them. Depending on where you live, you probably
do not need to chemically deworm them or vaccinate them. They know
how to have their lambs without your help, so forget about the
all-night vigils in the barn at lambing time. They are pretty
resistant to most diseases, and there has been no known case of
scrapie in blackbelly sheep. They breed year around, so you don't
need to worry about "flushing" or using a teaser ram.
Just because they are fairly "idiot-proof" sheep doesn't mean that a
shepherd should be negligent or uninformed. It just means that they
will cut you some slack on your learning curve and be more forgiving
of mistakes that would kill a wooled sheep in similar circumstances.
When you settle in with your blackbelly sheep, you will probably
never want a wooled breed. But if you do decide to raise wooled
sheep, be aware that you will have to re-read those books and take
them far more seriously this time.
Carol
At 07:20 PM 1/8/2009, you wrote:
Since I have never raised sheep before my first question is should I
start out with black belly sheep? Are they an easy breed to learn with?
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