Should Homesteaders have Dairy-Specific breeds?
Are dairy specific sheep better for a homestead?
While a Homesteader does require an income stream off the animals to help pay for feed, medicine, replacement stock, housing, and fencing, the predominant goal of homesteading is to provide food for ourselves and perhaps one or two others. It is not to become a mass producer of food to distribute to one’s community - that is the job of a Farmer.
While farmers can homestead and homesteaders certainly run a farm, it is important to define terms and goals. Joel Salatin is a farmer - his parents were homesteaders. His parents provided food for their family and built their land so that Joel could farm and provide food for his community.
If one wishes to be a dairy FARMER, then I would recommend investing in dairy specific breeds. You want maximum output for the input you have. A few head of East Friesans will produce infinitely more milk than a herd of Tunis sheep.
However if one wishes to have sheep dairy on the HOMESTEADER, I would contend a flock of Tunis would be far more economical than some East Friesans. Let me explain.
A farmer is going to be focusing on producing that product - sheep milk. So the main bent of the farm will be towards caring for the sheep. Inputs of medicine and hygeine will be incorporated into the business plan. Good marketing combined with a quality product will more than cover the inputs of purchasing the original breeding stock and the care needed to keep them healthy.
A homesteader will have multiple demands on their time and are not honing their business with these sheep in the form of milk. Therefore the inputs will need to be at a minimum and the sheep must be more independent and hardy in order to make up for the homesteaders’ divided attention.
A homesteader can find a ready market for the raw fleece of Tunis sheep from fine organizations such as “Shave ‘em to Save ‘em’ from the Livestock Conservancy (find more information about that HERE)
A growing homesteading family will gladly be nourished by the tasty meat Tunis surplus rams will provide, and the heritage nature of the sheep means they can thrive on scrubby pastures that many of us homesteaders find ourselves with.
A sheep dairy farm will have routines that are sheep centric to make sure worming is done when needed, feed is purchased and properly stored, hoofs are checked, and milking stanchions are sanitized to meet standards of commerce.
A Homesteader will do well to remember that parasites are more active on a full moon and may or may not get to check the more vulnerable in the flock’s FAMACHA score.. and will hope that the herbal vermifuges haven’t run out from the last time.
I don’t mean to say that Homesteaders are laxidaisical whereas a professional farmer is all that and a bag of chips. But I do want to keep it real - if you are homeschooling, homesteading, have a multi-species homestead like many of us do, the reality is that you are going to have a lot of demands on your time and you will want to have a flexible flock.
