Daft question, but I'm full of 'em - is there anyone willing to offer a bit of advice and support (via email) to this greenhorn who's fallen back into the agricultural way of life after an absence of 12 years, and is faced with setting up and running an organic sheep enterprise?

You will find everyone really helpfull on this forum , There are lots of very experienced people who will offer advice to you.  No question is treated as a daft question.  It has been my saviour a couple of times. val

Happy to help with advice that probably isnt worth much in your geographical area and I have to tell you, after 30 yrs of having sheep I think I actually know less about them every year. Have to ask, why organic? Do you have a plan as to what you are going to do with the sheep that are going to die if they're not wormed or fluked? Do you know how to tell if they are going to die? That's the biggie. I think it can be done but it could get a bit messy.

 Jon

dogjon:

after 30 yrs of having sheep I think I actually know less about them every year.

Amen to that.

What breed if any, are you thinking of keeping?

It has to be organic because the estate we were going to be renting the farm from is an organic estate.  Things have been put on hold though,  so we're looking elsewhere for a farm tenancy, but still want sheep.

Due to the nature of the original farm, we were going to run a very mixed herd of native/rare breeds - Ryeland, Wensleydale, Hill Radnor and Shropshire.  However, if we manage to find somewhere where we're not constrained by organics/conservation grazing, we'll probably stick to Ryelands with the odd lustre wool for selling the fleece from.  I was wondering about putting a Wensleydale ram onto a Ryeland -  what kind of fleece that would throw?

Not familiar with any of those breeds except the Shropshires which are rare here. One of my life' goals for many years has been to never have a hand spinner scrutinizing my fleeces ever again. Be aware that it's a specialty market and you'll need to know exactly what your customers are looking for because they will. A skill I wish I would have aquired years ago that I think would be critical for organic and extremely useful otherwise is being able to run your own fec's. If any sheep orgs over there hold classes on that I'd jump on it. Costs about $15.00 here to have a vet run an fec and some dont test for flukes. I spent less than $300 on all the gear to run my own. If you shopped around for a used microscope you could probably cut that in half.

Jon

 

IMO i would suggest you wrote the questions you have on this thread and then if people know them, they can reply to you.....unless you need someone to guide you along the way sort to speak as theres plenty of knowledgeable people on ere.