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Step-by-step guides for every animal, the garden, orchard, pasture and compost: getting started, housing, feeding, daily care, breeding, health and harvest.
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Sheep are grazers that give meat, wool and sometimes milk. They are calmer than goats and easier to fence, but they need a flock and careful parasite control.
- Pregnancy
- about 147 days
- Flock size
- 3 or more
- Shear
- once a year
- One ram for
- 30–50 ewes
1Getting started
- Meat: Katahdin and Dorper (hair sheep, no shearing). Wool: Merino, Romney, Corriedale. Dual: Suffolk, Hampshire.
- Start with at least three ewes; sheep panic alone.
- Buy from a flock with good parasite resistance records.
2Housing and fencing
- A three-sided shed with about 15 sq ft each is enough in most climates.
- Woven wire or electric netting about 4 ft; guard dogs or donkeys help against coyotes.
- Lambing jugs about 5 × 5 ft for each ewe for the first days after birth.
3Feeding
- Good pasture and hay are most of the diet; grain only late in pregnancy and for nursing ewes.
- Copper is poisonous to sheep: use sheep minerals only, never goat, cattle or horse minerals or feed.
- Rotate pasture — move sheep before they graze below 3–4 in.
4Breeding and lambing
- Most breeds breed in fall for spring lambs.
- Have a lambing kit ready: gloves, lube, iodine for navels, towels and a bottle of colostrum.
- Lambs should be up and nursing within an hour or two.
5Health and wool
- Check eyelids (FAMACHA) for barber pole worm and deworm only those that need it.
- CD&T yearly, with ewes boosted a month before lambing.
- Trim hooves and watch for foot rot (a limping sheep with a bad smell between the toes).
- Shear wool breeds in spring before the heat, and crutch (trim around the tail) before lambing.
Space guide
For each animalFencing: Woven wire or electric netting, about 4 ft
- Lambing jug about 5 × 5 ft per ewe
- Rotate pasture to break parasite cycles
Rules of thumb — more room is always better, and breed, climate and local rules can change what you need. Sketch it out in the Barn & Garden Planner.
Put it to work
These free tools keep the records for you once you’ve made an account:
These are rules of thumb from university extension guidance. Breed, climate and your state’s rules change the details — your county extension office is the best place to ask, and you can find it on the selling rules page by ZIP code.