Sheep book recomendations and reviews. *UPDATED March 3/07*

cornell sheep management hand book . don`t have but would love a copy! seen it almost thirty years ago and left a good impression(at the time we had cows) any body seen /have a copy?

 

Mo' Sheep, Mo' Grass, Mo' Money by Peter Schroedter. A very good book for the person wanting to maximize returns from a grass based sheep operation.
Sheep Dairying by Olivia Mills is very good if you are thinking of going that route.
Also the Merck Manual.
Calvin

 

Here's a list of sheep books recommended by a friend:
http://www.hawksmountainranch.com/hmrbooksmagazines.html

I can't recall one sheep book worth the tree that was killed for the paper it was written on. However, the very best publication I ever read was Sheep Production, a series of magazine-style hard-core sheep info which was published in the eighties. Every serious sheep producer should have this, but I don't know if it's still available. If it isn't, I think I'll sell my set on Ebay one of these days.

 

Have to second Laura Lawson's book Managing your Ewe and want to add her book Lamb Problems. Not only are the books packed full with info but they got here within 4 days of ordering them. Here's the link to them...
http://www.earthling.com/stores/sbdc/

 

We are going to a meeting of sheep producers tomorrow. Hope to get names of good books to post. Glad you reminded us to post here.

 

I just bought the Lawson books from Hawk's Mountain Ranch for $25.00 each. That's $10 less than Amazon. See http://www.hawksmountainranch.com/

The gentlemen I spoke with sells Icelandic sheep throughout the country. He was very amiable and informative. I suggest you talk to them.

 

This book has been revised by the author, and is now published by Storey's Publications, with a slightly different title. I like this book as well.

I just got "The Sheep Book: A Handbook for the Modern Shepherd", by Ron Parker, and I like this one also. The narrative style is pretty unique compared to the other sheep books.

There is another book we checked out from the library, but it really seemed focused on growing sheep for maximum meat efficiency (read: market lamb) output. Not so good for people raising wool or dual-purpose or small flocks, grass-fed/organic, etc.

There is a book of sheep veterinary medicine from Great Britain that we checked out recently also, that I think is very nice, esp. the color pictures. The Merck Vet. Manual is nice, but it covers all animals.

The only problem with most of the sheep books is that if you have a non-standard breed (Shetland, Wensleydale) that are off either end of the size spectrum, some of the recommendations, normalcy, etc. are probably off a bit... but that's part of the adventure, right?

I guess most of all which book/s you like or need depend on why you're raising sheep and what you ultimately want from them.

 

The first "The Sheep Book" was a 1959 edition by John Mc Kinney.

Ron Parker's "The Sheep Book" was originally printed in 1983 and has been updated in 2002. The best news is that Ron has graciously put the entire book online in PDF format at http://hem.bredband.net/ronpar/tsb.html

He also has links to how to buy a paper copy of his book, other books, Breed Associations, health notes, Computer Software that can be used for sheep management, and, in case your effort to keep your sheep alive goes terribly wrong, there's information on tanning pelts. You can write to thank him at thesheepbook@rbparker.com.

 

SID sheep production handbook. It was/is? produced by the american sheep industry association, and is very widespread. It is a wonderful technical book, not real great for additional subjects, like spinning, etc... But it has most of the major breeds & compares them, lists all sheep diseases with signs & treatment (conventional), has a section on predators, shearing, breeding, etc etc... A huge book. Not real focused on the "natural" way of raising sheep, but a wonderful book nonetheless.

 

What about "Living with Sheep" by Chuck Wooster. I am new to sheep, but enjoyed this book and certainly learned a lot. It's humorous and an easy read.

 

I like Laura lawson. I have the sheep book too and then I have one more that is quite valuable, quite expensive but worth it-the veterinary book for sheep farmers. It is English so sometimes I trouble to find things but it is the most extensive book for aliments I have found. I also have used storeys guide to raising sheep by paula simmons until it is worn out for this cause: Most sheep problems are common problems like your first case of bloat. I can readily find the answers to my questions very quickly using this smaller and very easy to read book. For the brief and quick things I turn to Storeys. If the answer is not there, I go to managing your ewe or the vet book. While managing your ewe is good- it is often overkill from a producers standpoint. It is excessive. If everyone shot up their ewes with every vitamin and vaccine she lists, you would do nothing else but give shots. That book overtreats in my opinion. She can't be simple about anything and doubtless her sheep are filled to overflowing with vit A. PLus, she uses lots of gadgets and Storeys at least tells you how to make every gadget at home. Laura does sheep management the expensive way- nice to get instruction via storeys guide on how to do it more cheaply. Same goes for Storyes chicken guide- they are so good to give you the less expensive do it yourself options like tree branches for roosts and stuff like that. Lawson's charts in back baffle me too.

Still I would like to see a far better diagnostic manual than I have thus far seen. The chicken health handbook is the best diagnostic book I have ever seen, laid out in about 4 different ways so that it makes diagnosing whichever way you go about it- a breeze. If anyone knows a similarly great book for diagnosing sheep, I would love to hear about it. I want to be able to look up the symptoms say under the heading "urine" and get the lowdown on which diseases affect the color or consistancy of urine. A symptom based index would be really nice. Storeys is nicely laid out but not complete.

my opinions- kirsten