Meat goats/hair sheep that will breed in May

[o&itw]

Wanting to concentrate on meat goats or hair sheep that will breed in April or May. Ideally, I want birthing on OCT 1. Is this practical with either breed and, if so, which breeds?

[luvrulz]

Sheep typically freshen in Mar - Apr - May...kind of hard to change that. The Jacobs I had only came into heat once a year. Gestation was 5.5 months, I'm thinking....

[CIW]

When I had St. Croix haired sheep, they would lamb twins twice a year. And they do well in the heat and are very lean.
Many of the Middle Easterners in the area would buy the lambs to cook on the spit.
You do have to winter over the fall lambs but they sell well for Easter.
Make sure that you are ready to feed heavily and keep them wormed. Thats how I got them to cycle again for late September lambs.
You can adjust the dates to serve your needs.
They can be milked also, if you are interested in making cheese.

[Sherry in Iowa]

We use a Boar buck and boar/nubian does. We breed for fall kiddings to hit our market. So far, so good!

[BarbadosSheep]

Katahdin sheep and Barbados Blackbelly sheep go into heat every 17 days all year long. I have both breeds. The Katadhins are larger and grow faster but require more human intervention to keep them healthy (deworming and such). The Blackbelly sheep don't need much of anything from me, other than hay if the pasture is gone.

[thequeensblessing]

We raise Katahdins and Dorpers and neither of them require much intervention on our parts, especially compared to the wool sheep we used to raise! We use the FAMACHA method to worm, so some of our girls with high natural parasite resistance haven't been wormed in years, while others, seem to need to be wormed once each year. Still, much better than the wool sheep we used to raise. Both our Kats and Dorpers will breed year 'round. We usually have a couple of lambs on the ground in any given month, however, the main lambing season for us is in Dec. through April. This is nice, as it gives us good sized lambs for the Easter Lamb market.

[PNP Katahdins]

Originally Posted by luvrulz

Sheep typically freshen in Mar - Apr - May...kind of hard to change that. The Jacobs I had only came into heat once a year. Gestation was 5.5 months, I'm thinking....

Read the original post. Jacobs aren't hair sheep or production meat sheep, which is what the OP is specifically asking about, along with meat goats. Numerous sheep breeds lamb all year round. Katahdins can and they are hair sheep, also other common hair breeds. For wool sheep, Dorsets and Polypays among others are popular well-known year-round lambers.

Sheep gestation is generally about 145 days, so a few days less than five months depending on what months are included.

Our Katahdins are pretty easy-care with no help lambing on pasture and deworming only once or twice a year if needed. No shearing, no foot trimming. Cocoa, the oldest, is 9 and she had nice twins this year. Her first daughter, Cinnamon, had triplets again. We had one set of Kat quads this year (so far) and the mother is doing a great job of raising all of them by herself.

Be sure to get your breeding stock from parents that lamb in the fall, if that is what you want. We tried it one year from both Katahdins and wool breeds and got nothing until the next spring. Same ram, same ewes, but they hadn't been selected from fall-lambing stock. We prefer spring lambing so didn't try again.

Good luck on your project. Lots of demand for lamb and chevon for spring meals.

Peg