SC - Lamb!!! (and kids)
Karen Lyons-McGann
dvkld.dev at mhs.unc.edu
Sun Dec 21 11:06:10 PST 1997
> I'm referring to the high percentage of prolapsed uteri. With pigs,
> you have an occasional sow who lies on her piglets, or tries to eat
them,
> but modern pens generally prevent that. I don't even try to talk to my
vet
> during lambing around here unless it's an absolute emergency.
>
> phlip at morganco.net
>Well, several sets of twins per ewe and we never had problems with that.
>maybe it is one of theose inbred things, we has wesleydale dorset ewes
>and a romney ram. got to love that hybrid vigor!
>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. 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. 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.
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
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