Going to Look at Sheep - Sheep are Here

I have both goats and katahdin hair sheep. I got them all (or almost all) as adults and they are mostly housed together. They do fine. They figure each other out. Generally speaking hair sheep are fairly parasite resistant but on that subject I would ask about their deworming practices. I would also ask maybe how fully or not they shed out. Some hair sheep don't shed as well as others and might need crutched at lambing time. I would personally choose ewes so you would have the option to breed if you ever wanted. We've had cows, goats and sheep and my hair sheep are SO easy by comparison! It's funny how easy they are. So I would recommend breeding them once eventually to see. Really, so easy. And my karahdin lambs grow so fast. I don't know much about St Croix. I think they are rumored to be more parasite resistant but maybe smaller or less meat yield which wouldn't matter if you want to just have them for pasture management.
I would definitely ask about hoof rot and scald. When we first got sheep they came with hoof rot. The previous owners perhaps thought it was just scald and I think a lot of sheep people confuse the two. It was a major pain to deal with. They could also infect your goats. So ask if they are foot rot free and ask if they often have to deal with foot scald. After my bad experience with rot, I would be inclined to pass on a farm that says they deal only with foot scald because there is a chance it is actually foot rot they are dealing with. Most sheep farms do not test for Johne's. Some test for OPP (same virus as CAE) and CL. So I would ask about those things if you know your farm is currently clear of them & would like to keep it that way. But if all those things check out I must say I really enjoy our sheep and they are easy! The only real challenge keeping them with goats is to keep the sheep from eating goat mineral or goats from filling up on sheep mineral & not getting enough copper. I put my goat mineral up high where the goats can climb or stand to access it. That keeps the sheep out. Thankfully it seems my goats prefer their mineral over the sheep mineral so I can leave the sheep mineral out available to all. My sheep mineral has Zinpro so if my goats do eat it they get a Zn boost which might be needed anyway. Good luck!

As I thought might happen, we jumped right in and put a deposit on these three cute ewelets. The adults were smaller than I anticipated, which I was pleased about. In talking to the owner, there were no red flags obvious to me. We should get them in May, so I have some time to make renovations to the barn.




Some of the herd (flock). The giant sheep on the right was not available.