Our Jacob Sheep

Our Jacob Sheep

We did not intend to, in our first year, acquire forty Jacob Sheep. We did not intend to immediately become what we believe to be the largest breeding operation of Jacob sheep in Texas. It just worked out that way; largely due to the liquidation, and our purchase of much of, the Stack/Millennial Way flock, from Arkansas. That purchase, after we have already acquired many Jacobs, was simply an opportunity we could not pass up.

We bought our first Jacob ewe with four Navajo-Churro ewes from a California breeder, who was moving to Georgia, in early 2008. These five sheep were our first entre into the world of livestock. The four Navajo-Churros from that initial purchase, have thus far failed to breed (they had not apparently previously been bred), and we have learned that our Jacob from that purchase, who has become our pet, Tillie, is a relative mutt, but it started us on the path of admiring, and aquiring Jacob and additional Navajo-Churro sheep.

At present, we have thirty-four Jacob ewes, two Jacob rams, and three Jacob ram lambs in waiting. They hail from California, Missouri, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. Their aquisition has put many miles on our new Dodge Ram pickup. They are registered and unregistered, although our emphasis and recent growth is in our registered flock. Most of our ewes are, hopefully, bred for Spring 2009 lambing. We hope to both selectively build our flock and sell many of our initial lamb crop.

We plan to continue to run two flocks. Our "breeding" flock will be our registered Jacobs, and we will intend to breed something really special from our sheep -- two and four-horned, black and lilac, small and large. We will also continue to breed our unregistered flock for meat production, hoping to develop a market for Jacob lambs in Central Texas. We also obviously plan to develop a market for natural colored Jacob wool, black, brown, gray, and other colors, here in the beautiful Texas Hill Country, which we now are very fortunate to call our home.