Breeds range from dorpers, to katahdins, to barbados, and many crosses. The low maintenance qualities of Katahdins allow us the time to do so. Depending on the breeder, Katahdins can be a composition of almost any breed and thus, have a great deal of variety. Animals don’t grow as fast but don’t need to with milder winters and longer growing season. People converting to hair sheep breeds all notice certain things. July 25, 2019 at 8:28 pm. The experiment described below was designed to compare Barbados Blackbelly x Dorset crossbred ewes to ewes of several other maternal types including the Dorset, Finnsheep, and Dorset x Finnsheep cross. This has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with the latitude in which the animal lives: Things being equal, our weights will be lower than the weights of similar Katahdins raised in Canada, but higher than ones raised in Florida. My friend also mentioned his Katahdin-Dorper lambs are much fatter when born than Polypays. Terms of Use - Privacy Policy. The desire to climb mandates the use of a bale ring to prevent excessive waste. This is a very good article to read and understand the secrets of Raising Katahdin Sheep, Your email address will not be published. November/December 2003 and regularly vetted for accuracy. I have been educating myself on this breed for a few years now and have been wanting to add this bloodline in but had to wait until I had cut back on the number of rams here. Prices range from 70 to 120 for singles, and 180 for pairs.I accept both cash and Paypal.8one7-32zero-18zero1 © 2021, Countryside - All Rights Reserved, Extract Natural Dye for Wool from Goldenrod Plants, Why Teach Classes on How to Knit, Spin, Weave or Felt, Countryside Machinery on the Homestead e-edition Flip Book. A quality registered lamb will bring triple the fat lamb price. Special Notes. (We’ve heard them all.). For us, the Katahdin sheep breed fits our operation and our philosophy quite well. Katahdin sheep are one of several hair breeds, the most common of which includes Barbados Black Belly, St. Croix and Dorper sheep.While Dorper sheep are considered a hair breed, I’ve found a large number have quite a bit of wool or curly fibers in their coat. We are just so excited to welcome this new girl into our herd...Thank you Dean Johnston for allowing us to purchase her! We have members from Mexico to Northern Canada and have exported to Ecuador, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, United Kingdom, Chile, and Central America. After lambing season, most of our “sheep time” is spent managing our pastures so that we can provide our animals with the best quality forage possible. Several Polypay owners in the area worm all animals 6-8 times during the summer and still lose animals to stomach worms. If you have heard a lot about Katahdin sheep and want to know the facts about this breed, visit www.katahdins.org and click on breed standards. In years past, 18-30 pound lambs sold well in Chicago for Jewish Passover. Dorper lambs have amazing growth rates when young. For registered breeding stock, permanent wooly fibers are a no-no. They’re too small to be of commercial value. We raise katahdin and katahdin cross hair sheep. They can be horned or polled. This behavior causes problems with maintaining desirable trees unless protection is provided. More on that subject later. A year and many dollars later, they can’t understand why the ram’s offspring doesn’t grow any faster than the rest of their animals. Many of the Dorper you see have been crossed with Katahdin sheep for several reasons. Docking tails is unnecessary, although you still see some “old timers” that dock just because they always have. To achieve this end, Piel imported a small number of Virgin Island sheep to cross with some of his existing flock of traditional sheep. Fact: Katahdin sheep, at least, will thrive from hot, humid Florida to the western provinces of Canada. They are the most numerous registered breed of sheep in the US. Barbado sheep may not necessarily have black bellies or facial barbs. In the 1950's, Michael Piel of Maine saw a need for a hardy meat sheep, which would not require shearing. People in the Midwest or southern states see this and make a trip to Alberta to purchase a super ram. The Katahdin is a hairy sheep breed that was developed during the early 1950s in Maine, United States and named after Mount Katahdin. These slaughter lambs sell comparable to pure Katahdin sheep per pound unless they’re full of cockleburs and briars. Katahdin sheep is a meat sheep breed. They like large groups of lambs on each farm, prefer solid colors, registered and must be enrolled in the scrapie program. It descends from sheep brought to the islands from West Africa during the slave era. Fact: In central Missouri, raising sheep for wool has been a losing proposition for a number of years. | The Dorper Sheep was developed in the 1930s in South Africa. Our flock is content to sleep outside in the coldest weather and will have unmelted snow on their backs like a wool animal. The average birth weight of twins is 8 pounds. We are now down to just 4 rams (2 poly/ABB calico cross and 2 American BlackBelly at this writing). (function(){var k='0521688706',d=document,l=d.location,c=d.cookie;function f(n){if(c){var i=c.indexOf(n+'=');if(i>-1){var j=c.indexOf(';',i);return escape(c.substring(i+n.length+1,j<0?c.length:j))}}}var x=f('__utmx'),xx=f('__utmxx'),h=l.hash; Anymore (at least in Missouri) it’s the carcass quality that sets the price. While many of the characteristics hair animals possess appeal to the hobby flock owner, we expect an animal to make us money; if it doesn’t, it’s gone. Grazing animals put on weight quickly in preparation for the long winters. After proper upgrading and recordation, the resulting sheep can be registered Katahdins. Other than a few lambs for Hispanic weddings, we sell our slaughter animals through the local auction barn. While Dorper sheep are considered a hair breed, I’ve found a large number have quite a bit of wool or curly fibers in their coat. a Barbados Blackbelly sheep. It usually takes at least 3 generations, depending on the type of wool sheep parentage, to obtain offspring with a shedding hair coat and other purebred characteristics. When the weather’s hot and the pastures are dry, their wool animals will be under a tree while the hair animals are out grazing. Flock owners with less than 50 animals have a difficult time getting someone to shear unless they pool their animals with neighbors. While I can’t speak for other hair sheep breeds, Katahdin sheep are often more “flighty” than many other breeds: Several producers of both hair and wool animals have found coyote losses are considerably lower with Katahdins. Photo by Nancy Richardson, Santa Fe, MO Our spring lambs on pasture alone (17-20 percent protein and 65-72 percent digestible organic matter-“DOM”) will average 55-60 pounds. According to the Katahdin breed registry - a Katahdin sheep can be any color (from solid black, brown, red, white to spotted and/or speckled  versions of  any color) or combination of colors. Jun 21, 2019 - Explore Michelle D.'s board "Dorper Barbados sheep crosses" on Pinterest. They can harbor significant worm populations, yet not suffer the same effects a wool animal would. The flocking instinct of hair animals generally isn’t as good as wool breeds. Katahdin sheep will strip the bark from cedars, pines and any deciduous tree that has smooth, immature bark. They were an excellent choice for this as they seldom bothered the pine trees. Apparently, Momma Kathadin doesn’t wait around to see what happens when Mr. Coyote shows up for dinner. Our spring lambs require 4-5 pounds of dry matter forage to produce each pound of gain. University of South Dakota research found it requires 250-300 pounds of dry matter forage to produce each pound of wool. The Katahdin breed is a wool-less, easy care, meat type sheep, naturally tolerant of climatic extremes and capable of high performance in a wide variety of environments. thiswesternlife. In our operation, that sheep breed is the Katahdin sheep. Three ewes needed assistance lambing (one got it, the other two didn’t and lost their lambs), one of which was 8 years old. Rams usually range in weight from 180 to 250 lbs.