Many shepherds are finding the appeal of keeping a "Wild Flock" hard to resist. A Wild Flock is managed much as the sheep on Hirta and Soay are managed, or NOT managed, actually; rams are kept with the ewes and lambs year round. On Hirta it has been found that the rams will keep to themselves in their own little flock, only mingling with the ewes during breeding season. Nature decides which rams will mate with the ewes.
The disadvantages to keeping a Wild Flock are that you won't know who the sire is of your lambs, that it's possible that one ram will sire all the lambs, and that they will all be very closely related. This may hamper sales, as buyers will want unrelated breeding stock for their starter flock. You might also have lambs out of season, as the rams will have access to the ewes year round.
The advantages to keeping such a flock are ease of management; you won't have to move the sheep around at the start of breeding season, nor will you have to reintroduce your rams after breeding season is over, and you won't need to deal with weaning your lambs.
How to start a Wild Flock? First you will need at least 3 unrelated or distantly related ewes and at least 3 unrelated or distantly related rams. It would be best to begin with ram lambs, so that they can establish their hierarchy with little or no damage to each other. Adult rams can kill a ram lamb if they are just tossed in the same pen together.
How to keep the flock from becoming a genetic bottle neck? Remove the oldest ram(s) at periodic intervals, either by selling him or by culling. Bring in new rams, preferably in groups of at least 2, as two or more ram lambs will have a better chance of coping with the adult rams of the flock, until a pecking order can be established, and cameraderie enjoyed by your rams.
While we do not keep a Wild Flock ourselves, we do keep a flock of more than 20 American Soay rams of various ages, and a smaller flock of British Soay rams. We have plenty of experience in watching large and small groups of rams interact with each other, and over the years we have learned how to introduce adult rams or ram lambs to our bachelor flocks with minimal fuss.
Wild Flocks are registerable with Soays of America, which is the only registry that will register Soay sheep kept in this manner. SOA does require that you start with registered breeding stock and all stock later introduced to your flock must also be registered. See the SOA Bylaws at the above link for other requirements.
© 2000 - 2004. Website design, text and photos are copyright by Ronda Jemtegaard unless otherwise noted.
Reproduction by any means, electronic or mechanical, is forbidden unless written request
