So here we are at Part 3. You’ve already decided that you’re ready to bring some livestock out to the farm. You’ve done your research and planning and know what type of livestock you want to start with. But within each species there is a huge list of individual breeds to choose from–and each one has plenty of breeders and admirers swearing that theirs is the best breed ever!

The Livestock Conservancy identifies and tracks heritage livestock breeds only, and they have lists of 22 breeds of cattle, 10 individual breeds of hogs, 12 different rabbits, 22 breeds of sheep, and so many poultry it’s a completely different list! How do you choose one?

WHAT BREED OF LIVESTOCK SHOULD YOU HAVE ON YOUR FARM?

You need to take an honest look at 3 things on the farm, then do some breed-specific research, and match your breed research to your farm.

1. Your Farm Goals.
2. Your Farm Environment.
3. Your Farm System.

Here’s the thing that you really need to know–there are pros and cons to every breed. No animal is going to fit perfectly. You’ll have to weigh the good and the bad to find what you can live with. What fits the best.

YOUR Farm Goals

We’ve said over and over again in this series how important it is to know your purpose. This is critical when it comes to breed selection. If your goal is to make a profit, you need to keep that in mind. You need to be able to buy low enough and sell high enough to make a consistent profit, as well as a sustainable market–it takes a lot of lamb chops to pay for an $800 ram and two $600 ewes before you see a profit.

Is your goal food production or a cottage industry or just self-sufficiency? If your goal is handmade wool socks and dryer balls, then hair sheep breeds are a bad choice–no matter how good it sounds not to have to shear them! {smile} If you want to make wool clothing like sweaters, scarves, or hats, then you need to focus on a high-quality wool producer. Our Cluns are considered dual purpose, but their wool is more suited for rugs and outerwear.

Do you have any important farm values or philosophies to consider? It’s important to use to use heritage breeds over traditional commercial breeds, particularly focused on breed preservation. Perhaps you want to focus strictly on American breeds? Or only on critically endangered breeds. Or only on breeds native to your area? Or none of these? Here’s one…do you like to use working dogs? I know a lot of folks that get into livestock because they are into dogs!

Let those values guide a lot of your research–they will give you a stronger sense of purpose and fulfillment on the tough days, or even tough years. They’ll help you make the call when it comes to quantity vs quality. They will also help you find a community or network of other farmers to work with.

YOUR Farm Environment

We live in Coastal Virginia. We have hot, humid, and sometimes very dry summers. We have unpredictable, but usually mild and mediocre, winters. In the spring and fall, we have good rainfall, lots of mosquitos, and hurricane season. Our Zebu cattle are originally an African breed and do well in our summers. They dislike snow, so our mild winters work for them too. They have a decent natural parasite resistance which is a big help here where the moisture and humidity mean we have pretty high parasite loading.

What is your environment like? There’s no need to spend all your resources fighting your livestock’s natural characteristics when you could choose wisely and have them work for you rather than against you. Do you get a lot of snow? Our Zebu would be miserable and I would need a much bigger barn! Of course, shaggy Highlands would do well, and be miserable here in the summer.

YOUR Farm System

This is probably the most important factor. When researching breeds, you need to go beyond the websites and books and talk to people raising them. And you need to talk to people raising them the way you are going to raise them! That apples-to-apples farm system comparison I was talking about earlier in the series.

Urban or backyard chickens are a big thing right now. It’s important to realize that a lot of articles about chicken health and care are written from that perspective and your “pastured poultry” for-profit model will have little in common with that. Similarly, our mobile hoop house model has little in common with a fully-enclosed backyard coop. My chickens are exposed to different dangers, different parasites, different weather conditions, etc.

Are you planning on being organic? You need to look for health-hearty breeds because your wellness plan can be limited. Will your animals be grazing far from your home place or not under constant supervision? You probably want a breed with a strong natural flocking characteristic as a protective measure.

Here are a few other questions to ask yourself:

• Can I find these animals around me, or do I have to travel a lot to bring original and/or replacement stock to the farm? (That can be a big cost!)
• Do I plan on selling breeding stock? Will anyone else want to buy this breed from me? Do registrations matter? These are all additional expenses, but we have found that selling one breeding lamb pays for the total upfront cost of the ewe-whereas it takes almost 3 meat lambs to cover the purchase cost of the ewe.
• Is there enough genetic diversity available to me in this breed for me to find healthy replacement stock or new bloodlines? This can be a big deal with rare and endangered heritage breeds!
• Do my projected customers have a preference I should consider? We have customers that find tail docking offensive. If they were our only customers, perhaps we would want to consider a fat-tailed sheep that doesn’t need to be docked.
• Will I be breeding replacements of my own–and do I have the facilities for that? Or will I be buying replacement animals? This will affect your seasonal cash flow. We breed our own replacement ewes, but usually buy an outside ram for genetic diversity. We buy all our chickens and don’t even keep a rooster around (most of the time).
• Do looks matter? You’ll have to see these animals every. single. day. Pick something you like the looks of, not just something you think will make money. I enjoy looking at our Clun’s faces. They have a clean, bright-eyed, intelligent look to them. It makes the pasture work more enjoyable. With our chickens, we like a diversity of colors and a full-bodied, even over-fluffed look. Some of our Reds tend to be scrawny and “efficient” looking and that’s just their body type but I’m always a little worried about them. You don’t need any more worry in your days!
• Does intelligence matter? There’s dumb, and then there’s dumb. We have some chickens that run for cover when they see a shadow and some that just stand there, staring up at it. If you’re free-ranging, this kind of stuff matters. If you’re fully-enclosed, not so much.

To pull all this together, let me share part of our breed experience with you…

We started out with a rare, critically endangered breed of sheep (Hog Islands). They were actually native to our geographic area and had a lot of great small farm or homestead traits, on paper. When we got them here we found that a lot of those traits were accurate, but were more useful for survival than for market production–which was also an important goal for us.

They tolerate heat well, even without shearing. They will self-shed if not sheared (almost like a hair sheep!) But a trade-off is that their wool is not a high quality for value-added products. They have great foot health and a high parasite tolerance–excellent traits in any sheep! But we found that they were generally weak in mothering skills. They were also very thrifty, feed-wise, but grew very slowly and even at 1-2 years didn’t produce half the carcass of our Clun Forest sheep. They were just a leaner build overall.

In a small, homesteading, backyard environment those are all great things. Every farm we visited that had them was small, and very hands-on. Usually with at least one farmer home all the time. But in our system–we want a marketable meat product every year and we want them self-sufficient when we are working full-time off the farm–it was NOT working. We didn’t compare apples to apples.

To contrast, we went back to the drawing board and came out with the Clun Forest breed. They do well on grass, are excellent mothers, and produce a good market lamb before 12 months old. We visited a couple farms and saw systems and ideas similar to our own vision and size. HOWEVER, they struggle more with parasites and need waaaay more attention to their hooves (compared to Hog Islands, not to every other breed!). In our case, it’s easier to run them through the chute on the weekend and put my back into flipping them to trim hooves than to be awake all night with bottle lambs. In the case of retirement age farmers, the thought process might be reversed.

So there you go…three posts to lead you through deciding on what livestock to bring out to the farm. There’s always crossbreds and mixed breeds and unidentified “barnyard” breeds too. We have some Hog Island/Clun Forest crossbreds on the farm and they are excellent ewes! Or you can throw all this to the wind and come home with whatever you saw at the farm auction or show too. (We’ve all usually done that at least once as well!) But it always works out best in the long term if you sit down and think about it first. The animals will certainly appreciate it!

Our series continues with links below–And be sure to sign up below for our newsletter and receive your FREE copy of our Finding Land Worksheet, to help you in your homestead planning!

I’d love to hear about and learn from your experience too! Did you have something you recommend or something that totally didn’t work for you that you’d like to share? 

Dollars and Cents of Starting a Small Farm

Starting a Small Farm : LAND

Starting a Small Farm : BUILDINGS and SHELTERS

Starting a Small Farm : FOOD and WATER

Starting a Small Farm : HEALTH and WELLNESS

Starting a Small Farm : CHOOSING LIVESTOCK  (Part 1) and (Part 2) and (Part 3)

Starting a Small Farm : ORGANIZING