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Icelandic Sheep and Mixed Dairy Goats For Sale - $1 (Clearwater)
19485 Estes Road
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Icelandic Sheep:
Icelandic sheep are beautiful, intelligent, very hardy, and lamb easily and virtually without assistance. Lambs are born ready to run and sproing and jump. The vast majority of my experience with this breed during lambing season is walking out to the pasture and finding new babies that look stout enough to have been born a week ago, though they surely were born that night! We aim to lamb in the warmer months and on fresh pasture for the healthiest animals, and have had phenomenal survival rates. The only issue we’ve ever really had with lamb’s getting into trouble is high heat and dark colored young lambs stashed by grazing dams in the open before the sun comes up.
Icelandics have a truly beautiful double-fibered fleece with long, strong guard hairs and soft and fluffy undercoat. Together they make the toughest and most beautiful felt. The fibers can be separated if you like, or spun together to make a soft and strong yarn. We shear ours twice a year, and get great length averaging 6-8”. Though I’ve heard of folks letting the fleece grow long and shearing once a year for specialty long-staple wool, but our wool mill won’t work with long wools, so check in with your mill before you try that. In our flock we’ve got cream/moorit mouflon, badgerface, charcoal grey, red, black and white spot, and jet black. So the wool is beautifully and naturally colored, and over-dyes GORGEOUSLY. Our shearer consistently reports that we’ve got the healthiest sheep (and goats) and the nicest fleeces he works with, and while that sounds like a lot of hot air, trust me, he’s not the kind to offer compliments when he doesn’t need to.
Icelandics, unlike most other sheep breeds, can handle copper (and need it) in their minerals, which is great for running multi-species herds. They’re good browsers if you're interested in silvopasutre, they dig for graze through snow, and will be satisfied with a grassy pasture well after a goat would have decided to wander off to the neighbors garden. They aren’t cuddly, and though I’ve heard of hand-raised Icelandics being tolerant of cuddles and even milking, ours mostly like us to be at least 30 feet away, unless we have hay or mineral blocks. Even grown bottle lambs are standoffish, and only will occasionally stare at you wistfully remembering some nascent love for humans, only to turn back to their people and skedaddle if you get too close. To be honest, I love this trait in Icelandics. I really love such hardy, self-sufficient animals, that aren’t trying to get into your pocket every time you go out to check on them. They respect fences a thousand times better than a well-behaved goat, though, they do join our goats when they decide they’re bored and need to go wandering through the countryside–our neighbors are very patient and kind people. This last season we had the sheep in a different pasture than the goats, and would you know, they stayed in all season!
Icelandics are known as a triple purpose breed: fiber, meat, and milk, and while I know a lady who milked them, we’ve stuck with the first two. I’ve spoken to the merits of the wool already, and the meat is delicious, mild, and without a ton of “lamby” flavor (yay or boo, as your preference runs). The lambs grow very fast, and are well muscled. And the sheepskins are a very popular product for us.
About a third of our herd is naturally polled, and the majority of the ewes we're selling are without horns.
Dairy Goats:
Our dairy herd has mixed genetics, as we’ve intentionally cross-bred for hardiness, milk capacity and quality, animal size and vigor, as well as temperament. The majority of our herd’s genetics is Saanen and Nubian, but everyone has a La Mancha great grandmother–so the variation of elf ears to big floppy ones can be quite delightful! The does we’re selling are open and mostly yearlings and two-year-olds. A couple have freshened before–all kidded well and made fine mothers–and a few have never been bred. There’s still plenty of time for breeding yet this fall for a well-timed, late spring kidding for anyone interested in a milk doe. The best goats in our herd are capable of 2 gallons of milk a day on a once-a-day, hand milking schedule. Truly phenomenal!
We didn’t milk this last year, so the goats were out on the farther pastures and so may read as a little wild at first, but all have been well-handled and respond eagerly to new routines, snacks, and bribes, and get downright cuddly once they get to know you–that is, if you’re cool, they’re not going to like you if you’re an asshole. Which, perhaps is ironic, because they can be such assholes sometimes, but I still like them. Most days.
Our dairy goats are the only animals in our herd who get grain occasionally–but it’s only when they’re actively on the milk stanchion, to earn their cooperation–a mix of organic oats and corn, flax, kelp, and sunflower seeds, all slathered in olive oil.
These goats are wildly intelligent, sweet, and mischievous as heck, so please do check your fences before purchase. I’ve seen them pick locks with their tongues, and when that fails, fly over five-foot fences–mostly just for the love of the game.
I suppose I should mention, even if you’re not into dairying, these goats are great at brush munching. We just ran them through our woods, along with the sheep, to deal with a 2-3 year old stand of new buckthorn. They defoliated the understory in about an hour, and spent the next two days stripping all the bark down to the root, all while leaving the bigger trees alone.
Goats, unlike most sheep, prefer browsing hedgerows and understories. They’ll happily eat grass when it’s good, too, but by about July they’re looking longingly towards the treelines and the more diverse prairie lands.
Our herds are on pasture all year and supplemented with good grass/alfalfa hay in the winter.
Prices
All ewes and does are $300/ea if purchased singly, we’ll offer bulk deals if you want 3 or more, better deals for 5 or more.
320-five58-two8five3
Ask for Curtis or Liz. No texting--it's a landline! Email is good, too.