Hello! Two years ago I read about Jacob Sheep(www.jsba.org), and was intrigued by the different colored wool and their hardiness, disease resistance, and easy lambing; so I thought about becoming a small breeder to make some extra money. I love ALL animals so I thought I could it. But know we just bought a Registered Lamancha Doe(One*Oak Hill's Buck was her father, she comes from great bloodlines her dam was a Grand Champion, and Star milker, her sire was also a Champion) I really like her and her personality. Now to my Question. I live in Rural Northwestern Minn. the nearest jacob breeder is over 600 miles away, the ewe lamb will cost 150-200 dollars, and the first couple of years I'd want to bring her to a registered buck, and once again 600 miles away. Now on the other hand dairy goats (which there is a market for up here) have 2 to 4 kids whereas the sheep have one to three, I already have the Lamacncha doe, I can find a buck not too far away, and I could charge 150-200 dollars for the goats or the sheep. What would you do or why? If you have had experiences with the two animals please share them! Thank You very much

-- Chandler Joseph Wible (providencefarms2001@yahoo.com), November 08, 2001

Answers

Mr. Wible,

I have raised Jacob Sheep. I am a spinner and I wanted the different colored wool to spin. They are very easy to raise they are easy birthers and good mothers. I had pure bred but not registered stock. It wasn't important to me. I know that registered stock will bring more at sale time. However I wouldn't be able to justify the 600 miles to purchase and then 600 miles to breed. You would probably want to leave your ewes there for a month to be sure they were bred which would mean that you would have to go back to pick them up. I would find that not in your best interest. If you could find pure bred stock locally that would be better than registered stock to me. Now for the goats. I love them we raise nubian now and have raised alpine in the past. They do not birth as easy as sheep in my experience in as much as they make a lot of noise whereas sheep quietly give birth. I enjoyed both species but my advise to you would be to go with the goats because of the travel envolved. However if you can find pure bred instead of registered in your area you might be able to go with both. What area do you live? 600 miles seems like a long way from Jacob sheep to me maybe someone would know of some closer. Linda

-- Linda (awesomegodchristianministries@yahoo.com), November 08, 2001.

A ewe needs a ram - not a buck. I respectfully suggest that you defer any decisions until you have a little more information.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), November 09, 2001.

Is One Oak Hills Mac Tumbleweed her father?? If he is, you have a pretty nice animal there, assuming that the dam's side of the pedigree is good also! I think you could possibly get more than $150- $200 for those kids if you plan the breedings well and show her a little. Welcome to the goat world!

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), November 09, 2001.

Don it was a common error. Just for your information I have been doing endless research on both goats, sheep, and other ruminants for over five years, read over 20 different books and several magazine articles. Even though I am 16, I am homeschooled; when I was in sixth grade the state tested me with the SAT and in most the subjects (Mainly English and reading)I rated 12 grade or higher. I currently have a 3.83 Grade Point Average. Is it too hard for anybody to be kind and nice anymore?

-- Chandler (ProvidenceFarms2001@yahoo.com), November 09, 2001.

Hi,

It would seem, in my opinion, that you should do a little research on whether there would be a demand for jacob sheep in your area. There would be advantages to being the only supplier of these sheep if there was a demand for the lambs and you were the only reputable breeder in the area. The travel problem can be solved if the breeder were willing to ship (I know you would probably want to see the animals before you buy the first time, get to know the breeder, etc., but if your first purchase went ok then you could possibly buy over the phone from pictures and pedigree on subsequent purchases. There are alternatives to purchase of a single ewe lamb and that would be to purchase an older ewe that is bred, or two unrelated babies (a ram and a ewe) in order to cut travel time. You might contact the jacob breeders association in your state to find out if there are market possibilities and or inquiries for lambs. Wool can be sold through the internet (would you shear the sheep or would you have to pay someone to do that?) or through inexpensive ads in craft related papers.

On the other hand, we own one of the few belgian mares in our area. A plus is that when she is bred, we can easily find buyers for the foals. The big minus is there are no farriers near who will shoe a draft horse so we have to pay up to three times as much to have her shod. The reason I bring this up is to point out that were you to be the sole breeder of sheep in your area, there may be unexpected expenses such as finding a vet who "does sheep" or finding a person to shear them. Also, are there climatic conditions which make raising sheep in your area difficult or more expensive such as lots of rain which may contribute to illness? There may be a reason why there are no breeders in your area which would be nice to know up front.

I think you are on the right track to question, question, question, before you launch your new enterprise. It is surprising how many adults just jump in and buy livestock without considering the expense and amount of care they would take. Having not owned milk goats for a long time, we raised African Pygmies for over ten years which required little care other than daily feeding and shots, worming and hoof care - dairy goats will require milking unless you intend to allow the kids to nurse which may ruin the udder for showing. Can you invest the time to milk twice daily seven days a week? These are some of the questions that you should be able to answer before you launch either business. A good way to do that would be a pro and con list of the goats vs. sheep. My experience with goats is that fencing is more problematic than with sheep (I owned Romney sheep many years ago and they would stay in regular field fencing - which my goats went under or over or through it!). So fencing would also be on the list of things to consider.

Sheep breeders - can you offer this young man any direction on this subject?

Best regards and keep up the good school work. Nothing wrong with a homeschooled education. Let offensiveness roll off you like water off a duck's back and keep asking those questions.

Cindy

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), November 09, 2001.

Chandler, Don's usually a really nice and helpful, but playful guy. I'm guessing his reply was tongue-in-cheek. Stick around a bit, you'll get to know him, and be glad you did.

-- Laura Jensen (lauraj@seedlaw.com), November 09, 2001.

Chandler, I think in your situation I would stick with the goats. The travel involved for the jacobs seems prohibitive unless you wanted to house a ram. Jacob rams are not the nicest guys in the sheep world. I've worked with 3 jacob rams from 3 different sources and all 3 were quite foul tempered most of the time. Maybe I was just exposed to behaviorally poor specimens of the breed, but I go on the 3 strikes and you're out rule so there will be no jacob sheep in my future (unless their on my plate)! I also found the ewes to be flighty. I once had a jacob ewe jump right over my head in an attempt to avoid having her feet trimmed. I'm only 5 feet tall, but really now!!!

-- Sheryl in Me (radams@sacoriver.net), November 09, 2001.

Chandler, if you took my post amiss, I apologise. I thought it was fairly mild. You should have seen (no, on second thoughts better you didn't see) the one I deleted. Again with all due respect, the Web is World-Wide, and by posting you open yourself up to comment (at least) from all over the world. This is one of the reasons why I suggest that anyone posting use a "throw-away" email address (yahoo or hotmail or some such).

If you think yourself hard-done-by, you ought to have seen the response I got when I first posted (not this forum). However, it was a matter I felt strongly about, and the person who responded is extremely intelligent, but also extremely opinionated. It took me a couple of days to settle down enough to respond in a civilised manner (which was not the sort of response I got).

When posting to (or reading from) the web, it's best if you develop a sort of instant bypass to anything hurtful. Not callouses that insulate you from what's said, but rather a sort of shunt that sends to ground anything you might react to emotionally, and then lets you deal with the factual content with no regard to any emotional reaction. There are people with a lot of worthwhile things to say, who do NOT say it in a soothing manner. There are others who are mostly reasonable, but sometimes flare-up (does this sound familiar? Most people are like this). Come to that, there are idiots who say nothing worthwhile, and deliberately say it in an irritating manner all the time (the rather transparent person on this forum, for instance, who presents himself as being related to various political personages).

To return to the original subject of your post, however:

I know a fair amount about sheep, not too much about goats. However, I'd see you faced with several possibilities. One is that you jump in the deep end, thereby gaining the advantage of being an early adopter in Jacob's Sheep for your area, at great expense and risk. Another is that you move more slowly, getting some other breed of sheep with more local support to learn about sheep on, then later getting Jacob's Sheep when you have some experience with sheep. Another is that you stick with what you you know about, and spend the time expanding on your personal knowledge. There are other possibilities, but those seem to be the major ones.

P.S. I'm male, over 50, and from Australia (note that ".au" at the end of my email address). If you'd care to send me some information (links would do fine) that tells me what you are talking about when you talk "SAT" I'd be grateful (I do know it means "Scholastic Aptitude Test", and whether or not I'm I'm wrong I need more education). My sons are ten years older than you, but that doesn't mean I don't want to learn.

P.P.S. I'd be happy to "mentor" you in any matter you might feel you might like advice, but please discuss this with your parents first if you might feel the vagrant whim to take up my offer.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), November 10, 2001.

Chandler, It is really hard to make money with the sheep. My daughter raises sheep as one of her homeschooled projects. She is now at a University and I am stuck with her 17 breeding ewes. Although I love them and sell the lambs I wonder if she breaks even.Well I know she doesn't. Now my other daughter who was also homeschooled for the whole 12 years is a Junior at a different University raises bees. She makes pretty good money on her honey. You have to be in an area that is "sheep culture". By the way there is alot of Federal rules coming into play regarding Scrapie, like not transporting across state lines without a test so..I might wait until they (Fed.)figures out what the rules will be. We sell to both Arkansaw and Texas but live in Ok. so will be affected by the new laws.

-- Debbie (bwolcott@cwis.net), November 10, 2001.

Chandler over at groups.yahoo.com is LaMancha Talk it is also frequented by Adam in Ohio 16? year old that is in a very big way into LaManchas. That would be a very good place for you to start, if you want his email, privatley email me and I will get it for you.

LaMancha's are a lesser breed, they also have an open herd book so both of these things make it nicer to raise and show them. But without showing you simply aren't going to make a profit. Showing and winning not only gets you around goats, learning what bloodlines are best, but also puts you in the public eye, and makes your stock worth more. You can't raise a kid from birth to milking, then sell her for 150$ and call that a profit. Which is usually the market for LaMancha's, milkers and stocking daries with replacements. There are no markets that export LaMancha's, and a comparable doe here at the farm, one Nubian, one LaMancha all things equal the Nubian sells for about twice what a LaMancha does. But.........there is also a lot less LaMancha's and alot less competition in them, with them needing you to make the numbers at shows, help would be much eaiser to come by. Most folks who show Nubians are snobs, comes with owning the breed I think! With feed and hay running about 50 cents to 1$ a day to keep a milker milking and in good flesh, you can easily see why prices are what they are. And unless you are purchasing goats in bulk with someone mentoring you, the 50$ goat is going to beget 50$ goats. With a little research into LaMancha's they are pretty died in the wool, twinners. In the 10 years my daughter Joni raised and showed hers she had perhaps 2 or 3 sets of triplets, and most of them were Americans, in her purebreds they twinned yearly. This was in the same barn, same hay and grain in which Nubians were tripleting and quading. For the first couple of years you can just forget making any money selling bucklings for anything more than meat. The small amount of LaMancha's around, the idea that you would breed your doe to something someone else would want the first year or AI her to some great buck, so that the resulting bucks will be sold as breeders, isn't going to happen without a mentor. So all this means is that with good advice, with a little luck and a mentor to help you with your goals you could succeed. You have to do all the extras that most folks aren't willing to do, get your name out there, advertsie, show off your goats, which you could eaisly use The Goat Shed http://content.communities.msn.com/TheGoatShed/ photo of Joni's foundation doe JoJo is up there under Lonesome Doe, also, until you can afford a website of your own (perhaps one made by Adam) get yourself and your does to shows. Join ADGA and get involved. Learn everything you can about CAE, CL and take information that includes nanny or billie in the sentence with a huge grain of salt. Find out what works in your area and what doesn't with wormers, vaccinations, nutrition. And if you love your One Oak Hill bloodline, find out your does strenghths and weaknesses and then find out what bloodlines made One Oak Hill what they are. I always have been a fan of Yazz and espeically the bloodlines from Redwood Hills Chickory Showman. LaMancha Talk just had a huge discussion on bloodlines, type and the closing of the herd books. Maybe I will see you on that forum. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), November 11, 2001.