We have a flock of hair sheep since 1999. Raised originally on a strictly forage diet. I have a philosophy of appreciation for what we raise and we partake of the bounties of the field. So we butchered our first lamb with uncertainty. Because the lamb I had tasted at some supposedly fine dining places was meat I could not enjoy at all.
Imagine our delight and surprise to smell and taste tender, juicy, succulent meat that had zero tint of game or mutton flavor! The whole family was excited. We have butchered many many lambs since. My preference is to butcher them when they are about a hundred to 110 lb. To feed a family with six children, we like the roasts and the leg of lamb, and the Prime hindquarter Cuts to be a nice large size. But a lot of our customers if it's just a single person, or a couple with one or two children prefer the lamps to be in the 70 pound range. Are highest price basis for Market Lambs here in the Midwest is for a Target 70 lb animal.
But then something changed as the years went on. As our numbers in the flock through higher, and we approached the 200 mark of mature ewes, and the lamb crop was so large, that in the interest of a uniform gain.... we then needed to start supplementing the Lambs with creep feed. A 17% protein grain mix ration.
And that year when we butchered Lambs we all the sudden found out what the rest of the world already knows. The United States is one of the only countries in the world that feed grain to their sheep. I had the privilege of working for a man that grew up on a sheep station in Australia, and he later moved here to this country and we visited. He told me that in Australia and New Zealand it was a foreign concept to give corn or grain to growing lamps. And that here in this country The Taste is ruined in our lamb crop because of what we Americans feed them in the name of getting them to fatten for Market quicker or sooner. Our experience bore that out, and that we no longer enjoyed or wanted to eat our own lamp because the diet had changed the taste and the flavor and the smell of the meat.
We now are reducing the flock back to about 50 and we again are raising forage fed lamb. It makes a different eating experience totally.
