Sheep

There is an enormous variety of breeds and crossbreeds of steep in this- country and at a total of about 20 million are by far the most numerous grazing animals in Britain: Sheep have a reputation for being easy to keep, but this should be regarded with caution. They are easy insofar as unlike goats and cows, they don't need milking every day, though some continental breeds of milk sheep are now beginning to get popular with smallholders. They are also easy insofar as they can live mostly on grass. But, they are prone to a great variety of diseases which a good shepherd seeks to prevent though he or she won't always succeed in this. Sheep are rather shy animals and without the use of a well-trained sheep dog it will take two or three people to bring them into the fold.

They need good, and therefore expensive, fencing and it is essential to have several enclosures in order to prevent parasitic infections. They will only eat very good quality hay in the winter and will protest very loudly if you try to give them inferior stuff. This means that you have to have, or hire, a complete set of haymaking equipment and you need a waterproof barn in which to store the hay. Improvisation, such as keeping hay under sheets of black polythene, is not recommended.

One great advantage with sheep is that you don't have to attend to them every day, though somebody has to be there all the time during lambing which usually goes on for about 6 weeks, any time between January and May. Most farmers aim at early lambing, in February and March, in order to be able to sell fully-grown lambs at the end of autumn when the grass stops growing. But, you may then have to house the ewes during lambing if the weather is severe and that means extra buildings, and more expenditure.

With sheep, as in fact with most animals, the economic margins are very small and this is the main reason why most sheep are kept -in very large flocks of several hundred animals or more. A small- holder could not hope to make a living from sheep, but even a small flock of 20 or 30 ewes will bring in some income if the shepherd knows what he/she is doing. In choosing a breed of sheep it is a safe bet to find out what breed other local farmers are keeping. The most common breeds in Britain today are short wool meat sheep that produce a high percentage of twins, such as the Suffolk. Most farm-ers have the sort of breeds that butchers like best, which are black-face sheep. The smallholder is not so dependent on the butchers' preferences because with a small flock, it is easier to sell lambs directly to the consumer. Also, with a small flock, it is easier to make sure that one has healthy, strong ewes which means there is a good chance of selling most of one's ewe lambs for breeding to other smallholders.

How many sheep per acre? This greatly depends on your soil and on the condition of your grass, but with medium quality soil at not too high an altitude, 3 or 4 ewes per acre plus lambs is fairly typical, provided that the lambs are sold before you have to start feeding hay. You will have to feed some concentrates to your ewes from several weeks before lambing until the grass starts growing again in April/early May. This is quite expensive unless you can supplement the concentrates with roots, barley and/or oats that you have grown yourself.

It is worth adding that the number of ewes you can keep per acre also depends on whether you have a small breed of sheep, such as Welsh Mountain or large sheep, such as Romney Marsh. This latter breed, which is very common in Kent, is renowned for its long staple, high quality wool. This is an aspect the smallholder should not ignore, particularly as wool is once again becoming the basis of cottage industries. Romney Marsh is the best known dual-purpose breed, with a large, high quality fleece as well as good quality meat. It must be emphasised that not every breed of sheep is suit-able for every type of climate and sheep that are used to luscious lowland pastures won't be very happy on poor upland pastures. Never-theless, there is quite a lot of room for experiment.

By the way, if there are a lot of brambles on your land, as there are on most of the run-down small-holdings that become the homes of rural resettlers, cut them down before you let sheep on to the land. Sheep have a habit of getting their fleeces caught on brambles, which makes a mess of the wool, and it is a nuisance to keep having to drag your sheep out.