Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

Almost everyone up here are cattle oriented.  There are some folks with 
Jacobs and some folks with Black Bellies.  I don't want any modern breeds. 
They just taste too muttony for me even when lambs.  I like the meat from 
the old breeds like the Icelandics, Shetland, Soay.

We are kinda looking toward the hair breeds, though, due to the extreme heat 
up here in the summers and the time and cost of shearing. However, the guy 
down in the valley (we're at 3,000', on a private road that dips down into a 
valley before heading back up and onto the highway) has Suffolks that he 
hasn't sheared in about 5 or more years and they seem to survive the 110 
degree summers.

As I understand them, Icelandics are more thinking sheep than some of the 
other breeds.  When the older kidlets were in 4-H we had Corriedale/Hamp or 
Suffolk crosses and they did really well and they won the carcass contest 
every year.  They're just too inclined to be sheep sheep (dumb and panicy) 
for me <g>

We have coyotes, mountain lions and bear.  We're putting up three strands of 
the highest tensile strength high tensile wire.  The coyotes might figure 
out how to get under or jump over but it does stop the bears and generally 
keeps the mountain lions out.

Lynda
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <paxamicus AT earthlink.net>


> I don't know where you are, Lynda, but I urge you to take a good luck
> at what other locals are farming.
>
> I was all about having wool sheep until I experiemented and found I
> really couldn't use them in the summer, they got heat stressed easily.
> If you are in the South, the Icelandics might have a tough time.
>
> I'd love to be running nothing but Corriedales, because I think they
> are the cutest things ever, but I was reluctant to deal with them here
> in Virginia. Just too much maintenance for me.
>
> Cheers
>
>
>
> On Mar 8, 2008, at 7:13 PM, Lynda wrote:
>
> > Do you use Photobucket or anything like that?  Do you have pictures
> > of them?
> >
> > Youngest has her 3 acre section set up and we're about to string high
> > tensile wire and set up a hotbox and then she's going sheep
> > shopping.  (Try
> > saying that fast a few times <g>).
> >
> > Lynda
> _______________________________________________
> Homestead list and subscription:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
> Change your homestead list member options:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/lurine%40softcom.net
> View the archives at:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead