How does goat and sheep farming work?
I have noticed that cattle and hogs have a pretty easy set up in terms of structure, a simplification of their process usually has someone breeding and raising calves which are then sold to people who have land for them to graze and gain weight and then they are sent to a feedlot where they are “beefed up” (pardon the pun) to their maximum weight.
My question though is how do sheep and goat meat farmers do it? From what ive read it sounds like someone buys a male and female and breeds them. Then they raise the kids, i guess they usually have twins, to the maximum weight and then sell them if its a male and keep them if they are female to repeat the cycle. How far off am i? Let me know, thanks!
Years ago, sheep raising was simple. Raise wool breed lambs to 75-100 lbs, send them to the feedlot and feed them out to 120-140 lbs and sell them. Goats were the brunt of many jokes. The ethnic market in the US has really changed things though. Hispanics often like either lamb or goat and with lambs, around 100 lbs or more. Around Mexico City, they like old ewes and that’s where most of the cull ewes the US exports go to.
Muslims from Arab countries seem to prefer goat and some even prefer old worn out stinky bucks because they’re more “flavorful”. I guess to each his own. Eastern European Muslims seem to prefer lamb and some such as Bosnians, prefer 60-70 lb hair lambs rather than wool lambs.
A lot depends upon where you are in the country and where your markets are at. 20 years ago hair lambs took a discount at the market just because they looked “different”. Now days that’s not the case and I’ve had hair lambs outsell wool lambs. Hair breeds normally are smaller than the most common Suffolk or Suffolk cross. That means that for markets that want 60 lb lambs, there’s no way a Suffolk can be fleshed out at 60 lbs but a smaller breed can.
There’s really too much to elaborate on here, so if you need more info, email me.
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