SC - Lamb!!! (and kids)

[margali]

> Margali, I think phil is concerned with the effort per volume.  Your
> sheep may not be much trouble for the volume of meat they give you.

agreed.

> But
> if you tried to get the volume of meat which the same number of pigs
> would give you, it would be considerable trouble. One pig is going to
> have 10-20 piglets a year, and not all in the spring.  The piglets can
> be
> raised for a short while and then sold or eaten.  A sheep is going to
> have one or maybe two lambs almost exclusively in spring.

depends on when the ram covers them, they can lamb anywhere from jan to
june.

>  Unless you can
> use or sell the wool, sheep is a pretty expensive meat resource: one
> or
> two lamb feasts per year, and eventually a lot of mutton stew.   Pigs
> can
> provide sucklings for dinner or sale almost the year round, and
> eventually meat that preserves well.  OK, I guess all meats preserve
> equally well, but I've never heard smoked, pickled  or salted mutton
> being sold in any volume during the modern era or earlier.

arabs jerk mutton and goat. yeccch. i hate goat.

>
>
> Admittedly,  I'm thinking of traditional farms where every animal had
> to
> earn their keep.  There may well be factory farms these days that
> somehow
> produce lamb year round in enough quantity to make a profit without
> needing to go to the trouble of  the shearing process after the
> additional effort of making sure the wool ends up a good enough
> quality
> to sell.  And I am definately speaking from a non-sheep culture.  Once
>
> mill-produced fabric became available soon after the Revolutionary
> war,
> farms in the southeastern U.S. ceased keeping the few sheep necessary
> for
> having enough wool for household use.  I can only figure that as a
> meat
> producer, sheep just don't cut it, but if you live in a country or
> region
> dedicated to producing wool (or raise your own wool), you'll end up
> with
> lambs as a bonus, and mutton later.
> Anne
>

odd thing, i drop spin and weave, and depending on the breed of critter,
there is little maintenance to the coat or the critter even in large
quantities. as i said before, most sheep are rather low maintenance
critters even in large herds. the only real problem has always been with
predators. the lapsis of the uteri is a modern inbreeding and non
culling problem. if they do not die from the uteri, they contribute the
problem to the descendants.
margali

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