Yep - Soay are the sheep for us

We saw that a local hobby farm family was moving and needed to find homes for their animals, including their Shetland sheep, so we thought we would take a look. The Shetland's are supposed to be a bit larger than the Soay and have a thicker wool coat, so we thought that we could possibly take on two bred ewes so we could have lambs this spring. Even though our fences are not up and the shelter isn't built, if we liked them we could put them up in the garden (fenced) and the old out-building.

Well, the Shetlands we saw were really woolly. The owners noted that even though they could be "roo'ed", they sheared them. The wool was just too thick to fool around with. I'm not sure what we were expecting, but they seemed huge. Obviously, they are not too big, but that wool, wow. We may still have picked up a few, but the owners were not part of the voluntary scrapie program.

The trip was still great as we got a much better idea of the space required for our soon to arrive flock. Our delusions of fancy feed stalls, elaborate water tanks, and intricate mineral stands were fortunately cast away, we really came away with the feeling of "we can do this". It really reinforced the correctness of our Soay decision - their pocket size and "roo-able" wool are two traits that we rookies really need.

Why Soay Sheep?

I will now list everything we knew about raising sheep before we began contemplating this Homestead project; ---- ......... hmmm, I guess we didn't (don't) know anything.

With the knowledge that we know absolutely nothing about raising livestock it is apparent that we need to get animals that are easy to handle, feed, keep healthy, groom, and reproduce. After a lot of research Chai Chai has advised us that Soay sheep are the way to go.

The number one pressing need for our prospective sheep is that they can survive on the grass that will be grown on our "hopefully to be cleared" woodlands. The yard will serve as an emergency food source if the woodland clearing project is less than successful. It seems that Soay are great at creating pasture, and they can live on the mix of grass and underbrush that will be available on our land for the foreseeable future.

Soay are small, growing to about 60 lbs and should max out at a knee high height. They have beautiful horns that could also double as handles - if we are careful. Their small size should be a plus and will give us a safe animal to gain livestock care experience with.

Soay are very resistant to parasites and are excellent mothers. From what we have read they can be counted on to be almost completely self sufficient during the lambing process, reducing the chance that we can introduce errors due to our inexperience.

Sheep normally need to be sheared, this costs money and/or requires skill. We have neither, but fortunately Soay shed their wool every spring! This means that we can either "roo" the wool directly off from them (basically pull it off by hand grooming/combing) or just pick it up off fences (that still need to be built), trees, or just loose off the ground. There even appears to be a small market for the wool - we'll see.

Finally, their small size will make them easier to feed and house during the brutal Minnesota winters. The fact that we don't have a barn as of yet (in the planning stage) makes this a very important consideration and a positive characteristic.