Icelandic Sheep -
If you are looking for one breed of sheep that offers all you need - then you need Icelandic sheep!
Having lived with Icelandic sheep since 1999, we know that this breed is truly a triple-purpose breed. Icelandic sheep are perfect for homesteaders; they are excellent as partners in small, diverse family farms. And Icelandic sheep also have great potential as a commercial sheep breed for both meat and dairying. If you want to get more for your money, then you need look no further than the Icelandic sheep. The meat is excellent - and lambs can be fast growing - hence you can take them to market sooner! The fleeces can be excellent, soft, silky and versatile and appeal to spinners, weavers, knitters and felters. The sheep can be milked and you can make excellent farmstead, artisan cheeses. Three sheep in one!
If you want to buy your sheep from a producer who has worked with the breed since 1999 -- a producer who has written extensively about the breed and how to manage and care for them -- then you need to buy your sheep from The Lavender Fleece.
Spring 2013 will be our 14th lambing season. Because we are a small family farm, our sheep receive much individual attention. Our focus is on quality -- not quantity. That said, our core flock averages about 45 ewes (and yes I know all of them by name!) and roughly a dozen rams each season so that we can offer starter flock packages that include unrelated rams and ewes of the quality that we have come to expect from our sheep.
Raising Icelandic sheep provides for a quality of life that is priceless. We hope to offer and support others in acquiring this dream for their own families and farms. We offer pre-sale support, on-the-farm training, and after-sale support. Our sheep have brought us much joy, and they also have brought many wonderful people into our lives. Let us show you how Icelandic sheep can diversify your farm and enrich your life.
Please click on the links found on this page to learn more about Icelandic sheep in general and our flock in particular. We have been enrolled in the Voluntary Scrapie program (VSFCP) since the summer of 2000. Please Note: In May 2009, we decided to drop out of the SFCP and be enrolled in the scrapie "Mandatory" program. We made this decision because the USDA has been changing the "rules" and we no longer feel this program works for our farm. Please note that this does not adversely affect anything we do on the farm. We are still able to import semen from Iceland and to do AI with our flock. Our F1 AI sheep can go to any flock, whether enrolled in a scrapie program or not. (Exception: Canada - only rams from our flock are allowed to be exported to Canada.) |
