Suffolk Sheep - Sheep Breed Series.

I'm Robin McNeal Ross and I've been raising sheep off and on for probably close to 40 years. Suffix to crossbreds to katahdin, the hair sheep, and now back again to the suffix basically for meat and for 4-H. And I like the wool part of them and the meat part of the the suffix. The reason we've chosen to go with the suffix is that we like the fact that they can finish out quicker. They're a little bit more fast at maturing. They are good moms. The fact that they've, you know, got the wool. They are dual purpose, wool and meat. If a kid gets a lamb in say June, a lamb that's six months old, they typically will finish out within about three months. So it's June, July, August. And depending on how much grain that the 4-H'er gives to the to the lambs, how fast they will feed out. And they feed for a target date. For here, I probably wouldn't feed like a 4-H'er would because I don't have a target date and I would like them to be grass fed. But I would supplement them with grain to help that along. So typically my lambs would then go about June. So we had lambs that were born at the end of March, first of April. And I actually sent lambs to market at the end of June. So they were pretty good and they went to 4-H. So it just all depends on how the kid feeds and is marketed in that way. You've had a lamb born in March that went to actual slaughter for market meat by the end of June? Yes. And what's the average weight for one going for meat? About 130 to 135. And that's generally the the optimum weight that the packers like. I've even heard up to 140 to 145. You know again they don't like them really big from the heavy weight of 170 is really pushing it. Packers don't really like them I guess. Have you ever done any exclusively grass fed to see what the growth rate is compared to when you supplement with grain? I really haven't because I just know that for our area, depends on the grass, depends on the season, how well they're going to do. And you can tell some of these lambs out here have been grass fed and some are grain and there's a significant difference in them. And even for breeding stock you know it's I took probably eight sheep to the fair and they were strictly really pushed heavy on grain and the rest were not. They were just grass fed and and there's a big pound difference there. A big pound difference. And it'd be something interesting for me to wait just to see what it is because I know I have siblings. I showed maybe this triplet ewe and this triplet ewe didn't go. So I can see a huge difference in the growth. One thing advantage about hair sheep over the Suffolks is they don't take as much feed. They're a lot more hardier. They don't have the lambing problems. They are after year old more immune to worms. They aren't as seems to be as susceptible to diseases is what the Suffolks are. I think they're a little bit more slower maturing animal compared to your Suffolks. And somebody might disagree with me on that but the reason we like them is the hair sheep is that they are such easy easy keepers and lambing. And I like working them for the dogs because they will flock together better than a Suffolk. They're a lighter sheep and it really makes a dog have to think about working working the hair sheep. The Suffolks are a lot heavier sheep and they don't want to stay together as much. They don't come together and flock like the hair sheep will do. Plus I don't want my pets chased. I just always really love the Suffolk breed. I just think they're beautiful. They're not without their problems. They can have a lot of lambing problems. They can have a lot of multiples. Like I said out of 17 ewes, six sets of triplets and one set of quads and we only lost one lamb. This year we're breeding our hair sheep to a registered Suffolk ram because we want to put a little bit more length, maybe a little bit more muscling, maybe help mature them a little faster to get them to market faster. The Suffolks this year we decided to breed to a hamp ram for probably that same reasons. A lot more muscling, a little bit more length, maybe a little bit more correctness in the top line. There's just all what you're wanting. There's so many breeds out there that I don't know you'd ever go wrong on. I know people that raise south downs. My preference has always been the Suffolks. Okay so if somebody were looking for a sheep and they want fast growing for meat production and they don't mind more intensive management requirements, the Suffolk might be the way to go. Whereas if somebody wanted to be a little bit more hands-off and have a little bit less management requirements and don't mind having a slower meat yield, maybe the hair sheep would be for them then. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah I say so. Everybody's got their own ideas of management and how they do it and I don't think any particular rancher, you know he might disagree with me, but I don't think there's a wrong or right. It's just kind of what fits in your needs and what you want. Exactly. And the Suffolks and the hamp crosses right now is what we're looking for and just kind of experiment with the Suffolk and hair sheep cross, see how we do.