Angela writes: <<despite Shetland lambs that are born & raised on shetland having the best meat reputation in the world, to sell pure shetland lambs for the meat market just does not bring in enough to cover even half the winter feeding costs of the mothers.>>
How do you market your meat? What are your feed costs? We have to hayfeed all but about 3 months of the year, due to poor pasture and a long winter (snow here typical October-April). But we generally make enough off lamb meat sales to just about break even on feeding the ewes--they usually twin, which helps. We sell lambs direct to our customers, and charge them the butchering costs, bringing in about $100 per ewe each year (feed costs are $80-$90 per ewe, so not a lot of profit there). If we sell the odd registered lamb, we make a bit more money. If I could get my husband to be more careful about feeding the ewes, we could sell the wool, but I've given up on that.
Most of our meat customers rave about the mild flavor of Shetland. We've only had one not come back--he was used to Suffolk and that's what he wanted :) Even our breeding rams are mild--I specially marked the packages from one ram we butchered at 5 years of age, the day we took him off the ewes. He was as mild and tender as any lamb, just bigger.
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