Barbado Sheep

[kuntrygirl]

What do you feed your barbado sheep? What type of living quarters do you provide for them? Would like to know if there are any barbado sheep owners out there.

 

[fowltemptress]

Here! Well, my mother owns them now. She has about 20 on three acres of land, with an open front little barn for them to get out of the rain. It never really gets cold here, so an elaborate shelter isn't particularly necessary. It's divided at one end in case she needs to isolate any that are having birthing problems or other issues. She feeds them coastal hay and sheep pellets . . . sorry, I don't know what kind. When the grass is thick she hardly feeds them any of the pellets, and when it's thin she'll add a bit of cracked corn to the feed to offset the extra cost of feeding them. She has painted desert too, because she enjoys having a variety of colors.

She has to be careful when buying hay, because several people around here have klein grass mixed with their coastal. Luckily my grandfather is usually her supplier, but he tends to be stingy about hay sometimes.

I have a gorgeous picture of her sitting with her sheep . . . I'll have to ask her if I can post it. When she got sheep my grandfather had tons to say about how wild and untameable barbado are, and how they'll be hard as heck to work with . . . and in the photo she's sitting there smiling happily at the camera while the "untameable" sheep are gathered all around her.

 

[greyfields]

My neighbor has St Croix's, which I think are the same deal... hair sheeps, prolific year around breeders.

I think in the long run, breed selection is irrelevant.