hair sheep

[dfarms11]

which breeds shed their hair? We've had Barbadoes, but nobody wanted them!

[cakadu]

There are several hair sheep breeds here in Canada - Barbados as you've named, Katahdin, and St. Croix are the primary breeds. Some will say that Dorper are hair sheep, but they are not a true hair sheep, rather some lines will loose some of their coat, but they don't shed like a true hair sheep will.

I'm curious to know what you mean by "nobody wanted them."

They don't work in a commercial setting because they are a smaller, less aggressive breed than the wooled breeds and don't work well in a feedlot. They also don't make market weight in 120 days like a Suffolk will for example.

Meat buyers still seem to want them because there is a lack of lamb in general out there, which is why prices are holding on the better side.

Where do you live? That could have something to do with it as well.

As you may have guessed, we have raised them for 14 years and direct market them.

[dfarms11]

I guess it was part of the BSE problem, but we could not hardly give ours away a couple years ago. we live in the Camrose area. The auctions said to not even bring them in. Maybe things are better now but back then they were costing us more than they were worth. Anyway we are looking to pick up a few again to "play with". I would like something which is still sheerless, and can make some money in the auction, any recomendations?

[Smithy]

I have a few purebred dorpers that shed off completely but my crosses don't. The crossbreds are hard to shear as well...because of a lack of lanolin or maybe coarser wool. They do grow well and taste very good and I have never had trouble selling them. I haven't tried any of the other hair sheep.

I found the 2005 season was the worst ever for trying to market lambs. Last year was great so maybe you just didn't stick with it long enough

[cakadu]

The Barbados seem to sell at Beaverhill Auction reasonably well, but I guess it is like any auction - it depends on who is there.

Another reason that they may not do as well as some of the more commercial breeds is the fact that they reach a plateau of sorts when it comes to putting on weight at about 90 lbs and it takes a great deal of feed to get them past that.

On the other hand, we can feed 2 Barbados for every one of the commercial type breeds. It all depends on what you are looking for your return to be etc.

Smithy - what we found kind of amusing about the Dorper being called hair sheep was as soon as the feedlots/buyers started discounting them by 10 to 15%, they were no longer hair sheep.

[dfarms11]

cakadu, do you farm close by tofield or you just bring your animals there to sell?, Like I said they didn't even want me to bring ours in as I wouldnt get anything for them but then it was a bad couple of years. I do know that in our first year we paid $300 for 3 ewes and then got $300 back off our first crop with 6 lambs. I was very impressed by that kind of return. Does that ring true these days of better returns at the auction?

[cakadu]

We actually live west of Innisfail, so don't take the animals to Beaverhill very often. In fact, a couple of times Myles has asked if we will bring some up. We did alright on them and I would say your return is in the ball park.

We don't often take them to the auction as we direct market from the farm and sales are beginning to really increase. We have had a buyer come right to the farm as well - we've been dealing with him for over 3 years now.

Barbados are very well known for their fecundity, otherwise known as fertility. 200% lambing is not unheard of. In fact, when they made the Katahdin (it is a composite breed of Barbados, St. Croix and Dorset I believe - my memory is failing me on the last breed) back in the 1950's, they used the Barbados because of it's ability to have consistent lambing rates.