There are trucking, check-off fees (pay that with a smile), yardage, and shrink costs to figure out too, but those are pretty much the same per species. If I lose a sheep, it’s about a $100 loss. Of course on the dark side, if I lose a cow, I am out $1,200. That is a pretty big difference right off the wagon. That comes out to $1,000 per animal unit for sheep and $500 an AU for cattle. Those six sheep should bring in 10 lambs, which sell at $100 apiece. That cow should average $500 a year income. That’s an average, but about what we run. So six sheep should bring in 10 lambs, and one cow brings in one calf. Currently, one cow should bring in one calf, and one ewe should bring in 1.6 lambs. It flexes with grass/forb ratios, terrain, and grazing management, but it is pretty close.Ĭurrently cattle prices are very high, as are sheep prices, but with the border closure who knows what the market will do? My numbers are going to be somewhat lower than current sale prices, but I am a bit of a pessimist. This is an average for our place and seems to be fairly accurate. For our purposes we use six sheep to the cow. There is some discrepancy between government agencies, textbooks and sheepmen (sheeppersons?) about how many sheep equal an AU (animal unit 1,000-pound cow with 500-pound calf at her side). To get any true working numbers you have to compare apples to apples. This included cost of production, expenses, labor costs of sheep against cattle, and profit margins. Doing the Math on Costs of Raising Sheep for ProfitĪt my wife’s encouragement (and threats) I sat down with pencil and calculator and started to figure the difference betwixt raising sheep for profit and raising cattle for beef. That put us up to 43 sheep, the cows, and the farming. Well, she kept three of the bums as replacement lambs and then bought a trailer load of sheep. So we converted the old hog barn into a lamb barn: Eight jugs, a nice dry pen, clean and out of the wind. This was when my better half decided we should have a lamb barn. In a storm, lambs can fit through a doggie door. We came home on the 4th of July and found the lambs in the house grazing contently on the plants. Well, that didn’t last long as lambs grow rapidly and turn into sheep. They were cute as little buttons, bouncy, friendly and just plain lovable. We were farming about 2,500 acres, running around 350 cows and had these tiny little adorable creatures. “They all love me.A few years ago my wife started us raising sheep for profit with eight bum lambs. “They all have their little personalities,” he said. He’s not yet ready to say goodbye to his sheep, some of whom have names, including Sniper, Pail Tipper and Moocher. “Most of these guys could become food for other people,” he said reluctantly. Koch said his answering machine has already been flooded with messages from people (farmers, mostly) begging to take the sheep off his hands. He needs to make sure he is compliant with the bylaw.” “If he needs help, we can make sure the animals are rehoused. “The intention is not to go in and throw a bunch of fines on him,” Scott said. He could request a zoning bylaw change or work with the city to find alternate accommodations for the sheep. “Once that information is gathered, I will initiate some conversations to see how this issue can be resolved,” he said Wednesday. Amarjeet Sohi said he was gathering information on the matter. The sheep have made him popular with neighbours young and old a dozen of them ask for regular visits, he said.Īs a result, “I know all my neighbours,” he said, “and there are very few people in this world who can say that.” Koch earns a few thousand dollars every year from the lambs he sells, but insists he’s not raising sheep for financial reasons. Several llamas escaped once and the pigs gave him grief - “They were monsters that climbed over everything,” he says - but the sheep have always been a success. I know all my neighbours and there are very few people in this world who can say that.

Since the 1960s, when his family first bought the property, it has been home to cows, chickens, llamas, goats, rabbits and pigs.

Sheep are not the only animals that have lived in his yard near Ellerslie Road over the years.

In fact, sometimes strangers ring his doorbell and ask to pet them and pose with them. Koch said no one has yet complained to him about his sheep. “Nobody’s saying there’s too much mooing going on.” “We don’t usually get a lot of complaints about noise,” Scott said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.

Running sheep kicks man in barn