Sheep

We raise katahdins which are a hair sheep and shed their winter coat on their own. They are well-trained to their daily moves with sheep nets, and there are times (when all the lambs are big enough) that they free-range with the beef herd. They go in and out of the single strand of hot wire that contains the cows, but the sheep stay close to the herd for safety in numbers. The effect is a more even mow where plant species that the cows desire less get eaten by the sheep, leaving no particular plants with an advantage to outcompete the rest of the forages.

When they are mobbing through the pasture solo they prefer shorter greens or the top halves of taller greens. Depending on the year we can graze them all year ‘round, only feeding hay when we hayshed them in the nastiest of weather or when there’s a bunch of snow on the ground. Our only imports for them are salt, mineral salt, and some milk replacer when we have to adopt a bottle baby.

Katahdins are known for their exceptional flavor which is mild and not gamey. Their tenderness and marbling are also great, and their fat is mild and delicious as well. We typically lamb in late winter to early spring to have harvests late fall to early winter, but we also have some that are on a different schedule yielding lambs that can be harvested late winter through spring. We currently only sell them by the half or whole.