# Selling lambs



## Laurie J (Mar 9, 2005)

Hello!

We've raised sheep for several years, and until this year have been fairly pleased with the prices we get taking our lambs to market. Usually $1/lb. or so. Way below what they are being sold for at the grocery store, but what we've come to expect. However, we just received our check today for 22 sheep, and it was only $937! 5 of these were ewes, from age 2-8, but we had 17 nice lambs that should have brought more than this! (A 130 pound lamb from a flock that produced the grand champion market lamb two years running at our fair brought only .57 cents a pound, and this was the high end!) Anyway, I know that raising sheep isn't a get rich scheme, but we'd like to try to make some money for all our efforts! I am wondering if we are going about this wrong. Maybe rather than hauling them to the market sale an hour and a half away, we should be selling lambs locally. We don't eat lamb, ourselves, and I don't know how I feel about having them butchered here. Is there any other way to do it? What kind of prices is anyone else getting for their lambs (these are Suffolk, by the way), and how are you selling your lambs. Just curious. Thanks!


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## derekv (Jan 31, 2007)

it depends on the time of year, gerenal location, and want, and also market
if your selling in stockyards, sell closer to christmas or holidays, if your selling in the sales barn down the road, the bidders will factor in the cost of them feeding, trucking, etc; because there going to take them home and finish them off before selling to the stockyards
hope any of this little information helps


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## thatcompchick (Dec 29, 2004)

I find direct to customer has worked best for us. We have a good ethnic market locally. Slaughter on premises is iffy - depends on you. A lot will take them live on hoof - for $2-3/lb - so no transport costs, etc. 

I have a customer that is coming out Saturday to pick up our last one that we had for meat. Lamb is 55lbs grass raised and I'm going to have the fleece/hides processed so revenue from each one like this is approximately $180 - which is about $3/lb. I may be able to sell the horns too. I wish I had about 5 more and 10 goats for meat right now, I can't meet the demand this year (our second year of providing holiday chevon and first lamb year).

Just think outside the box! Or in this case, the market! Good luck!

Andrea
www.arare-breed.net
www.faintinggoat.net


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## wendle (Feb 22, 2006)

Not sure about your area but around here there area a few sales that will pay well under market price. A few times they were called on it, and straightened it out, and it isn't right. I know a few producers besides myself who won't go there any more. I've also noticed another sale that caters mostly to cattle buyers who has very few lambs go through, they pretty much will rob you too.


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## FreeRanger (Jul 20, 2005)

I don't know about your auction house but around here people use Equity. They would have seperated the 5 ewes from the lambs. Sell the ewes as one unit (in the $0.35/lb range). Then the lambs as another ($0.80 to $1.10 range). Depending on the sizes of the lambs you may want to break them into small groups as well. 

Personally I NEVER sell lambs at auction, only cull ewes/rams. I can easily get $3.50/lb hanging weight for my grass fed lambs which I direct market. My local butcher cost about $65 to process them. I hope to sell for $4.00/lb this Fall.

By the way, I don't like Sufffolk. Not that it matters.


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## mawalla (Oct 28, 2002)

I did a quick look at market prices and Washington State had about the lowest this week. (I just checked WA, TX, MO, and OK though.) But, that 130# lamb price was even lower than what they were reporting for slaughter weight. Was it ram, wether, or ewe? Could it have been represented as something other than it was - like replacement ewe, slaughter ewe, cull?

A feed lot buyer doesn't care if the lamb they're buying is from grand champion stock or not. But they will look to see what kind of tail dock a lamb has. If it is one of those short show dock jobs the lamb won't command as high a price per pound as one that has not been docked or has a bit of wag left to what has been docked.


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## Laurie J (Mar 9, 2005)

Hello! Thanks for all the ideas and info! 

mawalla: The 130# lamb was a ewe. Very nice, and represented on our statement as a blackface lamb (like the rest of them, which, by the way, were broke up: some smaller lambs by themselves, each aged ewe alone -one brought only $1.00- and only 11 like-lambs were sold together.) As for the tail dock, we are very much against the extreme short show tail dock, and leave a nice healthy approximately 2-3" tail. 

thatcompchick and FreeRanger: I like the sounds of your operations! Where do you advertise the lambs? Craigs List, etc.???

Upon looking again this morning at our statement, there were some other lambs that went even lower than the .57 cents a pound for the one I mentioned yesterday. An 85 lb. lamb (on the smaller side), went for .31 cents a pound! Ouch! Not to mention that they kept out $128.00 for commission!!! A bummer year, and really depressing thinking about all the late nights/early mornings spent out in the barn in the cold at lambing time last February and March!!!!

Laurie

P.S. On a good note (trying to cheer myself up here!) the 8 lambs that our 4 kids showed and sold at the 4-H market sale brought in just under $4,000 total for the kids' college accounts.


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## SilverVista (Jan 12, 2005)

First, make it a habit to check sale yard trends so you know what you're likely to be facing when you decide to sell. The Capital Press, once-a-week agricultural newspaper covering the PNW, lists all of the sale results every week for every livestock sale yard. Then, find out who the bulk buyer in your area is. If you don't want to go to the trouble of locating individual buyers for 22 lambs, and if the lamb buyer is within a reasonable distance, you can sell direct to him and bypass the fees at the auction. That will also give you feedback about what he wants, and how he sorts and prices. Obviously, if you have a uniform group that can go on the truck to Denver straight away, it will be worth more to him than if he has to sort and background them. The Capital Press will have ads on the commodities page for lamb buyers. Smitty Cox used to be the big buyer for OR/southern WA, but he has retired. Maybe Eldon Townsend or Cleve Dumdi? If you don't get the paper, all of the feed-n-seeds carry it. Comes out every Friday.


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## kesoaps (Dec 18, 2004)

Laurie, I'm up in the northwest and always sell direct to consumer. In fact, this year I've been beating buyers away with a stick. We've got an organization called Sustainable Connections here that helps farmers market their produce, etc., locally. I sold all my grass fed lamb pretty quick (granted, I've not got many), but have had restaurants calling off the hook. If you can get into a farmer's market and just put up a sign saying that you've got grassfed lamb, people will be knocking down your door


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## hintonlady (Apr 22, 2007)

Direct to consumer is nice, however I find Craigslist to be sad for potential buyers. I have tons reply and just as many flake or come up with lame back outs. No biggie, they shouldn't bother in the first place.

I have found some luck with selling lambs that are pet friendly. Something halter trained is great for people with small set ups, petting zoos and nativity scenes. it takes more effort though. Maybe we can start a new trend in ecologically friendly pets.
1. They won't bite
2. They eat vegetarian and for free if you have the grass
3. looks cool and grabs attention when walking one down the road
4. fertilize the lawn

As for serious auctions, I agree with the holiday things, especially easter, Christams and middle eastern holidays (end of a fast). most of the killer prices are in the eastern states. Ohio is the best in the country from what I am told. 

I don't have enough to justify driving that far. Looking for sheep friendly auctions help, cattle people don't like our "pasture maggots" lol.

Look into United Producer auctions if they are in your area. They have a website but it takes some digging to get market info. since sheep sales are not every week or in every location. A sheep friendly location will have meat packers waiting and willing to buy which won't happen at a place who has a couple dozen come through once a month.


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## thatcompchick (Dec 29, 2004)

Farmer's market, and organizational listings is how most folks find me. Once you get one or two happy customers, the restaurants start calling, and then the restaurants customers, etc etc...

Think about going into ethnic markets and looking at what they are selling frozen product for. Talk to the owners, find out who is buying, etc...

I could easily sell 50 lambs and goats each this time of year and again during spring holidays. Now I couldn't handle raising that many mentally lol but I have thought about it ;-)

Get involved with local meat goat producers groups or similar - most of the sheep groups in our area have been fleece driven, so most of my connections I made in the meat goat world. 

I also had my rabbi over which then lead into folks talking...if you have muslim or jewish friends, invite 'em over ;-p for a leg o lamb roast! They'll probably be back during the holidays to buy their own!

I think personally our goat customers are liking the smaller size of the black welsh mountain sheep - so a lot of time it's fitting your product to your market. I was lucky that way since I started with the goats first and knew the market (actual customers asking me to do sheep too). Since you have an existing product - start looking around and say 'Who wants a lamb at X time of year at X weight" and start cultivating your operations to the market... 

You can do it!! Honestly the hard part of that stuff was the licensing, meat distributor's stuff etc. Just mostly lots of paperwork.

Andrea


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## wendle (Feb 22, 2006)

We used to have an equity near me, but they closed down, and now the nearest one is an hour and a half away. A friend of mine , though not very close found a locker that caters to a large ethnic market, and I hear pay much better. You might try that.


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## hornless (Jan 23, 2007)

That is low. I get at least $200 for each lamb here (Shetlands though) and they go like that. If I got $940 for 22 sheep, I just wouldn't sell them. I make about $500 a year with mine and I have 2.


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## kesoaps (Dec 18, 2004)

Apples to Oranges, hornless, as you're talking fleece/breeding stock vs sending lambs off to the freezer. I get a lot more for breeding stock as well and always try to pull those that I think will add value to a breeding program for anyone who'd want them before sending them to market.


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## mawalla (Oct 28, 2002)

Congratulations on those great premiums from the fair! I'm also tickled to hear that you leave some tail on your show lambs. I wish I could say the same for the show lambs around here. They are still taking the tails completly off. It's a sad sight to see. 

Darn shame that you didn't get better prices at the auction. I sell mine at auction, this year in July. They were 4 and 5 months old. There was a buyer from Ohio at the Missouri market and he paid quite well. I don't raise breeding stock, just feeder lambs. I do sell off some of the older stock, too. Those usually don't do as well per pound but it does make room for the replacement ewes that I keep and for the new rams I bring in.


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## thatcompchick (Dec 29, 2004)

kesoaps said:


> Apples to Oranges, hornless, as you're talking fleece/breeding stock vs sending lambs off to the freezer. I get a lot more for breeding stock as well and always try to pull those that I think will add value to a breeding program for anyone who'd want them before sending them to market.


Excellent point! You definitely should be getting more for breeding stock than you get at market/meat...

Andrea


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## therealshari (Jul 10, 2007)

I have two market lambs that are just over 100 pounds. Both are wethers (and brothers). I've advertised them on Craigslist with no response (St. George Utah, and Las Vegas). Been asking $100 for them on the hoof.

Two Mexican guys came out last night and offered me $70 a piece for them, which was a bit too low for me to accept. I checked the Cedar City, Utah Auction for this last week and 100-110# lambs went for $105.


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## chicamarun (Dec 26, 2006)

I'm with Andrea on this one. We just had ours USDA butchered so I could take them to the farmer's market. 

5 went to customers at $5-6 per pound hanging weight plus they pay processing.

3 very small ones went to us - private label packaged for resale. Today at the market I sold 5 of the 6 boneless rolled legs at $12/pound! I didn't expect that - but was thrilled as I still have sausage and loin chops left.

Look into other markets - I probably would have paid $200 for the ewe to use for breeding if she would add what I needed.

Research your area and see what you can get! I got most of my other customers from the web and from word of mouth advertising.


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## saramark (Nov 2, 2004)

I want some sheep for ourselves here in Maine. I may have a market for meat direct to consumer, so what price should I charge? What weight should I butcher at for higher pricing, and what percentage of meat should I get for live weight? It seems some people lose money because they don't direct market. We direct market home made food, meat birds, and eggs and make 2-3 times grocery store prices. Our customers want what we have and how good quality it is. They don't want Walmart anything. They want the best and we want to give it to them( in exchange for them paying us prime prices for our trouble) Is anyone catering to an organic/soy free market like mine, and if so, what prices would you ask for the product? We get $4 lb for whole chickens and $3 dz for eggs. We live in an very affluent area on the coast of Maine(translated into lots of people willing to buy anything as long as it is expensive or the best around)

mark


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## Goatsandsheep (Jun 7, 2006)

Do you sell to other 4-Her? I make more per a lamb sell to the 4-her then to individuals. Last year was the first I had to take one to the auction he when for 100.00 where the one I sold to individual when for 150.00. G&S


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## chicamarun (Dec 26, 2006)

I don't do soy-free but do grass-fed and pasture raised.

To find out my pricing - I did some research to see who was selling what at what price and went from there.

With $5/lb hanging weight - it came out to be about $150 for the lamb plus processing and raising them as 100% grass fed made them smaller than I would have liked - but customers were pleased.


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