Raise a flock of sheep in your backyard. Even with a limited amount of space, you can enjoy homegrown fleece and fresh milk, as well as the endearing company of these family-friendly animals. Sue Weaver provides all the instructions you need for selecting a breed; housing and feeding; harvesting fleece; and milking. With simple recipes for making cheese and yogurt, and tips on processing fleece for wool, you’ll enjoy the varied and numerous rewards of keeping sheep.
Storey’s Guide to Raising Sheep is the best-selling, most trusted reference for farmers and backyard homesteaders with any size flock. The fifth edition is now updated with full-color illustrations and photographs throughout, including a gallery of the best breed choices for both meat and fiber. With their small size and gentle dispositions, sheep are one of the easier livestock species to raise and offer varied marketing opportunities, including meat, wool, and milk. Detailed instructions and graphics lead readers through every essential procedure, including shearing, building a lambing shed, breeding and lambing, butchering, and marketing.
Sheep Keeping is a practical guide to common problems seen in small sheep flocks. It is suitable for experienced smallholder sheep farmers, but also relevant to new and prospective ones. As a sheep keeper, have you ever wanted to go into more depth with your vet and gain expert advice that will keep your flock healthy and happy? This guide provides in-depth veterinary information to complement local veterinary consultations. Advice is offered on everyday issues, such as: feeding and nutrition; housing; organ systems and their function; disease and treatments; and sheep behavior. Each chapter guides the reader through different sheep keeping systems, organ biology, correct diet and nutrition, lambing time, and the many problems that can occur at this time of year. Helpful photographs and diagrams will help readers identify and describe diseases, including recognizing abnormal behaviour and the signs of disease in their sheep. The chapter on routine husbandry procedures will help readers prevent diseases through good practice. (Series: The Professional Smallholder Series) [Subject: Farm Studies, Sheep Keeping] (5m Books)
A guide to raising sheep that covers production systems, breeds, housing, facilities, fences, enclosures, feeding, pasture management, predators, marketing meat and wool, environmental stewardship, and other related topics.
While they can be hardy and self-sufficient, sheep require a knowledgeable and dedicated shepherd to care for them throughout the year. With an easy-to-read style and over 200 colour photographs, this book provides guidance on managing a healthy flock, as well as a holistic view of the diverse roles sheep can play on any farm or smallholding, including: The history of native breeds and their conservation, Preparing land, welfare, handling sheep, including sheepdog training, economical feeding and grazing practices, common health problems, rams, tupping, management of pregnant ewes, lambing and aftercare, shearing and wool and the role sheep play in the conservation of grassland, carbon sequestration and the restoration of wildlife habitats
"Whether you want to raise a few chickens for eggs, try your hand at some goats with the aim to make your own cheese, or are looking to sustain your family and make some extra money from raising and selling beef, this is the book for you" --Cover, p. 4.
Sheep and goats have served poor people's most reliable livelihood resource since their domestication during Neolithic Revolution. Worldwide over 100 million people in arid areas, have only possible source of livelihood by grazing small ruminants. Grazing sheep and goats can improve soil and vegetation cover and plant and animal biodiversity. Sheep and goats thrive well in varied climatic conditions, get adapted easily to environment, require less care and management and are suitable for meat, milk, wool, skins and manure production. Mutton and Chowan is consumed throughout the country without involving any religious taboo. Together, the goat and sheep rearing households constitute 15 per cent of the total number of households in the country. The book contains a package of farm practices encompassing housing, handling, feeding, health care, record keeping, fodder and manure management as well as project reporting for sheep and goats. This precise package of practices hopefully shall benefit all the farmers engaged in small ruminant farming as well as all those educated entrepreneurs that are willing to take livestock rearing as their career option. It will guide through all aspects of sheep and goat farm management. It is hoped that the book will help farmers in managing their livestock and teachers equally in imparting academic instructions to veterinary graduates.
Hobby farmer Sue Weaver provides a perfect primer in Sheep, ideal for novice or experienced sheep keepers looking to expand their hobby farm with a flock of wooly wonders. Illustrated with instructive and beautiful color photographs and loaded with charts and sidebars, this Hobby Farms title will make even newcomers feel comfortable choosing, caring for, and even sheering and milking their own sheep. Weaver begins, “Be they pets or profit makers, sheep should be part of every small-farm scene. They are inexpensive to buy and keep, easy to care for, and relatively long lived, making them great investments.” While sheep dotting a green meadow add beauty—and a possible tax write-off—to any pastoral setting, hobby farmers can choose whether their sheep will be sold as pets, used as providers of milk, cheese, or wool, or raised as livestock for their much sought-after mutton. As a subject, sheep have a fascinating history to tell, as Weaver does in the opening chapter “Sheep from the Beginning,” but once we get through the mythology, biology, and anatomical lessons, the farming begins. Sheep will assist the reader in buying the right sheep for his or her farm or land, based on availability, conformation, health, and so forth. The book offers practical advice, including how to move sheep from one locale to another (with a “ewe haul”). Sheep farming involves the housing, feeding, and guarding of the sheep, all detailed in the book. Weave discusses the use of fences, shelters, pens, and stalls as well as the purchase of the right hay. She also addresses the use of working dogs to control and guard the flock. Understanding sheep behavior is the subject of the chapter “Sheepish Behavior and Safe Handling,” in which the author discusses flocking dynamics, fleeing instinct, and sheep body and vocal language, leading to practical advice about how to handle and move sheep safely and with minimal fuss. The old adage “A sick sheep is a dead sheep” may not hold completely true in modern times, but it does underscore how important the health of a flock is to a responsible sheep keeper. The chapter “Health, Maladies, and Hooves” (and the appendix “A Glance at Sheep Afflictions”) offers farmers vital information about vaccinations, parasites, and hoof care to be proactive in the flock’s health. For hobby farmers interested in expanding their flocks, the chapter “The Importance of Proper Breeding” is a mini course in breeding and lambing, including bottle feeding, tail banding, and more. All of the joys of wool are captured in the chapter “Fleece: Shearing, Selling, Spinning,” in which the author discusses the tools, skills, and fees required to fleece the flock. The chapter also discusses spinning your own wool and selling the fleece. The final chapter, “Mutton or Milk?” discusses the advantages and desirability of sheep’s milk and the possible markets for milk, cheese, and meat. A glossary of over 100 terms, an extensive resources section (sheep-pertinent organizations, websites, and publications), and an index complete the volume.
