OK I get it

[juliepoudrier]

I was talking about free range as in free range. Area that is not fenced in, my sheep could walk to Reykjavik, on the other side of the island if they wanted (would be quite a walk though).

Well and herein lies the issue with making comments about a subject when the discussion centers on one locality and one's experience centers on a different locality. Clearly our raising/management systems are completely different. I was asked why it was desirable not to keep lambs any longer than necessary. The answer was because it saves on the cost of feeding and care. That's true in this part of the United States. In Iceland, apparently you can pasture your sheep with the only cost to you being the time and effort you have to put in for the annual round up. Here in the US on the average family farm, creating and/or maintaining pasture does require more input than just attending the yearly round up. Presumably the price you pay (or sell) would be lower because of your lower input. But the fact remains that here in this part of the world, the less time I spend raising a lamb, then the greater my profit will (hopefully) be.

 

J.

[mjk05]

The same with us (in Australia), Julie. We sell most of our lambs as soon as possible after weaning, mostly straight to abattoir. Less time here = less input costs like drenching, shearing, and more available pasture for the ewes, and available paddocks for cropping. Possibly if we had year-round pasture available we might keep them longer, but there would still be input for worm control/shearing etc, and really there's not much increase in value keeping them longer- they're pretty well-grown at weaning, definitely not 'baby' lambs. I guess that's about breed/trait selection for your farming system too- over here, if you need to keep lambs for much longer to get decent weights, you probably should be looking for another breed.

[Smalahundur]

Julie, just to be clear, I did not intend to argue some point (and I am sorry if I came across that way).

I just wanted to take part in an exchange of experiences. I realize management systems are quite different, and the icelandic one is hopelessly labor intensive. If one started to really calculate wages for that annual roundup (or generally the one of a sheepfarmer)nobody could eat lamb any more.

So our lambs are slaughtered about five months of age and finished on forage, therefor the meat has a pretty strong (good!) taste. I heard that "the average Joe" in the US likes his meat rather tasteless, can´t imagine why...