Meat Sheep

Within the United States, most sheep and lambs are meat-kind animals kept primarily for the assembly of lambs for meat or twin-purpose breeds kept for each meat and wool production. Meat production is also a important profit center in sheep dairying.

Meat sheep producers sell either slaughter lambs or feeder lambs. Slaughter lambs are sometimes purchased for immediate slaughter. Within the United States, the common slaughter weight for a lamb processed in an exceedingly federally-inspected plant is regarding 136 lbs. Lambs sold into ethnic markets have a tendency to be much lighter, sometimes less than 100 lbs. Increasingly, there’s a marketplace for slaughter lambs of any weight.

Feeder lambs are lambs that are typically fed to heavier weights before being harvested. Feeder lambs vary in weight, sometimes from 50 to a hundred lbs., with the demand typically being the highest for sixty-90 lb. lambs. Increasingly, lamb feeders are having to compete with the ethnic markets for light weight lambs.

In a very meat sheep enterprise, the first factors that verify profitability are % lamb crop, lamb growth rates, and market prices. Unless forage resources are abundant or feed costs are terribly low, it is tough to create a exploit a ewe that weans solely one lamb, particularly in areas where predation is high.

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