Sheep farming as a business for a beginning farmer - profitable or not

Making a profit from sheep breeding is possible if you organize continuous sales of meat products. Additional income is received from the sale of wool, from the sale of breeding animals to beginning farmers and other sheep farms. Costs vary by region of residence. With year-round grazing, expenses on feed will be minimal, however, in most regions, animals need to build a sheepfold and form feed reserves. By calculating all possible expenses, you can understand whether it is profitable to keep sheep for sale.

Popularity and demand

A sheep farm is popular and in demand. This business can be started even by a person who has never been involved in agriculture before. You can start a business with minimal investment.

Demand for products is high. Buyers are interested in cheese, meat, wool. Production is virtually waste-free. Over time, the business can be scaled up.

Equipment

To ensure the livelihoods of sheep, you need to purchase a number of equipment:

• feeders designed for roughage and wet food;
• drinking bowls in the form of knocked together wooden troughs;
• sheep clippers;
• electric scythe for summer collection of herbs and preparation of food for the winter.

The sale of perishable meat products is possible only if there is spacious refrigeration equipment, so refrigeration units will be required.

You will also have to organize transportation of products. At first, you can hire a truck with special markings. Meat is transported exclusively in special transport, the requirements for which are regulated by sanitary and epidemiological standards (SP2.36.1066-01) and Federal Law No. 29.

Content Features

A sheep farm is not difficult to maintain. Animals rarely get sick and are unpretentious. They do not need a special diet. In summer, sheep are kept free-grazing. In winter they are fed with hay prepared in advance.

Sheep tolerate cold well. Only lambs need a special temperature regime. The lifespan of animals is 20-25 years. Females produce offspring for up to 10 years. When raising sheep, farms obtain milk, wool, and meat. All products can be used for further processing.

Business development expenses

Calculating costs comes down to determining what is required to maintain sheep. For example, on the mountain slopes of the Caucasus, sheep are constantly free-range, and it is enough to equip only a temporary residence for the shepherd. In regions with a changeable climate, sheepfolds are built.

Knowing the main nuances of sheep breeding and comparing the amount of expected expenses and income from the sale of sheep products, you can reliably determine whether it is profitable to keep a sheep business and whether it is worth starting such a business.

Best breeds

Sheep farming as a business for a beginning farmer is a good option, but it is recommended to thoroughly understand this matter first. It is better to choose proven breeds for breeding.

Meat breeds

They gain weight quickly. They adapt to even the harshest conditions. The immune system is strong. Meat breeds include Romanov, Kuibyshev, Frolov, and Volgograd sheep.

Meat-fat

Also called fat tail. When raising such animals, an entrepreneur can obtain lard, which is especially valued in cooking. The meat and fat breeds include the following: Gissar, Tajik, Kalmyk.

Dairy

The main purpose of keeping it is to obtain milk for further cheese production. With proper care, they can produce more than 500 liters of milk per year. These breeds include miniature blesse and East Friesian.

Woolen

Animals provide an opportunity to obtain high-quality wool. The main breeds are Lincoln and Grozny.

Hybrid breeds

Ideally, a business plan for sheep breeding will be designed specifically for hybrid breeds. They combine several qualities at once.

Romanovskys

The Romanovskaya breed is prolific. Unpretentious in content. Sheep remain healthy even when temperatures drop to -30 degrees.

Karchevskys

Wool is highly valued among Karchev sheep. It lends itself well to processing. The breed easily adapts to different weather conditions.

Edilbaevsky

The breed is perfect for the southern regions. Fertility is at 100%.

Texel

Fertility is at the level of 170%-200%. The main feature is good meat productivity.

Gissarskys

Lambs grow quickly. An adult reaches 120-200 kg. Rams are heavier than females.

Jayjara

The breed is excellent for raising for meat. The female reaches 70 kg. Males can grow up to 115 kg.

Subtleties of breeding depending on the breed

The following breeds are ideal for beginners:

1. Romanov sheep. They are undemanding in care. They can easily tolerate minor changes in temperature.
2. Gorky sheep. The immunity of individuals is good. Animals quickly gain muscle mass.
3. Kuibeshevskys. The breed can be kept on pasture all year round.

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To successfully breed animals, you need to provide them with everything they need.

Types of content

There are 3 ways to raise sheep. You can use pasture, stall, or combined methods.

Young animals

Young animals are the most demanding to keep. The stall should be clean and warm. This is the main condition for reducing the risk of disease.

Adults

For adult sheep, fresh air supply is extremely important. The stall method is not suitable for them. It is better to choose a combined method.

Lambs

Lambs should be close to their mother for the first time. The best method is the stall method. This will improve your health.

Total expenses

Simple calculations will help you understand whether it is profitable to keep sheep at home.

When kept in a harem, there can be 40-50 sheep per ram. When breeding the Edilbaevskaya breed, the cost of purchasing 50 heads will be:

50 individuals x 6,000 rub. (average price) = 300,000 rub.

Renting a pasture will presumably cost 100,000 rubles. The cost of enriching the soil and planting nutritious vegetation will be another 50,000 rubles.

The average cost of building a pen is 150,000 rubles.

The purchase of equipment will cost 100-120,000 rubles.

The salary of a shepherd and auxiliary workers is 600,000 per year.

The cost of feeding sheep until they reach 7 months of age is calculated using the formula:

0.2 kg (feeding rate per 1 individual) x 210 days (7 months) x 12 rubles. (average cost of 1 kg of feed) x 50 (number of heads in the herd) = 25,200 rubles.

Fixed expenses will include energy costs, taxes, and other unforeseen expenses. The estimated amount of regular expenses is 20,000 rubles.

As a result, fixed costs over 7 months will be:

• taxes and other payments - 140,000 rubles;
• Full salary - 350,000 rubles;
• purchase of lambs - 300,000 rubles.

Total - 790,000 rubles.

Let's calculate the income from the sale of meat:

80 kg live weight x 55% (meat yield) x 410 rub. (price per 1 kg) x 50 individuals = 902,000 rubles.

In this case, variable costs are fully recouped. Profit is 112,000 thousand rubles.

A gradual increase in the size of the herd will make it possible to obtain large amounts of profit. So, with 300 heads, the amount of income will be about 5,412,000 rubles, costs - 2,360,000 rubles, and profit - 3,052,000 rubles. An analysis of the approximate calculation shows how profitable it is to keep sheep for meat.

A reasonable approach to choosing a breed, compliance with the rules for keeping animals - all this will allow you to establish a cost-effective long-term business.

Step-by-step organization

Starting a ram business is not difficult if you follow the basic recommendations. Only in this case will it be possible to succeed in the field.

Breed selection

At first, it is better to focus on a maximum of 2 breeds. It is advisable to give preference to the most popular ones, which are unpretentious in content. Only over time can you take on rarer representatives.

Search for land

If you don’t have your own plot, you will have to buy or rent it. The sheep farm should be located outside the city. For summer keeping, open pastures are needed, and for winter, closed paddocks. There must be heating equipment inside.

Building a corral

The sheepfold should be positioned with its rear facing the cold winds. New construction alone is not enough. A quarantine box is located at a distance of 100 meters.

The sheepfold is divided into pens using wooden boards. An important condition is a separate pen for the maternity ward. Its capacity should be at 30%. The room must have windows for ventilation.

Purchasing young stock

Young animals for home breeding are purchased from trusted sellers. Doubtful farmers may sell sick livestock. The best option is to contact specialized nurseries. Young animals should not show signs of illness.

Feeding

In spring and summer, animals are fed fresh greens. In the fall they are transferred to pre-harvested hay. Be sure to include grains and vitamin supplements in your diet.

Buying feed

Feed is also purchased from trusted suppliers. You can make hay yourself or purchase it ready-made.

Veterinary service

For the business to be profitable and stable, it is imperative to have a veterinarian on the farm. He will monitor the health of the livestock. It is also the veterinarian who will administer vaccinations and other important medical procedures.

The farm should also have a veterinary kit. An enema, sprays for external injuries, syringes, medicines for hoof rot, cotton wool and bandages are placed in it.

Staff

At first, 1 handyman will be enough. Over time, the farm will need to be scaled up, increasing the number of livestock, which means that more employees will also be needed. An additional accountant may be required. At first, the required personnel can be replaced by relatives and friends if they have free time to help.

Purchase of feed

The amount of feed depends on the farm's population. If there are fertile pastures, additional nutrition will not be needed in the summer. Suitable grasses for feeding sheep would be clover, alfalfa and bluegrass.

In winter, animals are fed oats, barley, and hay . On average, the daily diet of one sheep consists of two kilograms of straw, a kilogram of hay, and barley. You can add root vegetables, silage, and branches to the diet. For digestion, be sure to give mineral salt. In winter, animals need to be fed three times:

• In the morning they feed with rough and succulent feed: hay, carrots, beets, turnips, pumpkin, rutabaga and potatoes
• During the day they provide feed and grain crops: oats, barley, corn
• Roughage again in the evening

If the farm also specializes in selling sheep wool, then the nutrition should be more balanced and contain vitamins and microelements. In this case, concentrated feed .

Cons of sheep farming

Despite the impressive list of advantages, there are, of course, also disadvantages that cannot be ignored when analyzing the sheep breeding industry. At the moment, it is worth saying that the profitability of the industry is quite low, only about 15%, the same applies to profits. Many farmers give up sheep farming as soon as they encounter this problem.

These numbers, although not so quickly, are still increasing. Moreover, for maximum profitability, it is important to organize everything correctly and not save on the main cost items, which involve organizing the maintenance, feeding, grooming, and slaughter of the animal. If everything is organized correctly, the benefits and profits will be stable.

How to raise sheep?

It is recommended to start breeding breeding sheep when they reach the age of 12–16 months, when the body weight of females exceeds 40–42 kg. Mating is carried out in the fall so that the lambs that have grown up in the spring, after weaning from their mother, immediately have access to fresh young grass. Tips for breeding sheep look like this:

1. 6–8 weeks before mating, the ewes are separated from the lambs of the previous litter. At the same time, veterinary treatment is carried out and uterine groups of animals are formed;
2. Mating is carried out in accordance with the reproductive cycle, which in sheep is 16–18 days. During the hunt, the female behaves restlessly and does not run away from the male;
3. The duration of gestation in sheep is 145–155 days. As a result, 1–2 lambs are born;
4. Three weeks before the due date, the maternity ward is cleaned, tidied up and disinfected. In winter, the greenhouse is heated to 18°C, the floor is strewn with straw;
5. Two weeks before lambing, the wool on the legs and udder, around the tail, is cut off. Animals' hooves are also trimmed and treated;
6. At the first hint of childbirth, a round-the-clock watch is established in the sheepfold to help the female in case of complications;
7. The newborn lamb is removed from the amniotic sac, mucus is removed from the respiratory tract, and the umbilical cord is cut. The sheep must then lick it;
8. The female's udder is washed with warm water and wiped dry. The first dirty portion of milk is milked into a separate bowl, after which the lamb is allowed near the ewe;
9. After a couple of hours, the female is given 1.5–2 liters of warm water. In the first week she is fed hay, and later they begin to add root vegetables to her diet;
10. In order for the sheep to get used to the baby, they are placed in a separate pen and kept there for 2-3 days. Later you can transfer them to the general group of suckling queens.

Hiring

To operate a sheep farm you need to hire the following staff:

• Manager who is responsible for organizational activities
• Shepherd looking after herd on pasture and young animals
• Milkmaid collecting milk
• Veterinarian monitoring the health status of sheep
• Tractor driver
• Helper worker
• Part-time or outsourced accountant
• Visiting haircut specialist

Employees must have appropriate education and farm work skills. The number of personnel depends on the size of the sheepfold and the number of livestock. It is enough to hire 4 workers for a mini-farm.

General information about sheep farming

Every year, about 8 tons of fresh lamb are sold around the world, and this figure increases every year. As for sheep farming in Russia, not everything is so rosy: this industry is currently being revived after many years of pause.

If you look at the stage of development of this livestock industry, most of the livestock is owned by private individuals: about 9 million sheep, 5 million rubles. belong to various enterprises in the agricultural sector, the remaining 1.5 million belong to farms.

How to sell sheep?

The main products of the sheep farm are meat, milk, wool and hides. To obtain lamb and sheepskin, young animals are slaughtered at 10–11 months. Sheep give milk while feeding the lambs, that is, 4–6 months a year, and shearing is carried out once or twice a season. All this can bring income to the farmer.

Comparing keeping sheep with a business such as breeding bulls for meat, it should be noted that lamb is insufficiently popular in Russia. Therefore, the entrepreneur will have to make significant efforts to organize the sale of his goods. What to do:

• You should submit your proposal to the city's catering establishments. Popular cafes and kebab shops can take a whole carcass daily;
• If a farmer is willing to provide a daily supply of 200–300 kg of lamb, he should negotiate with grocery stores and supermarkets;
• Milk can be sold to wholesalers or directly to dairies. But if a farmer organizes his own production of products from it, he will earn more;
• To sell meat and milk to ordinary citizens, pavilions should be opened at food markets. Of course, the stalls must be equipped with refrigerators;
• Entrepreneurs engaged in businesses such as goat and sheep breeding can take animals to a meat processing plant. However, prices here will be low;
• To attract wholesale buyers, you need to register on special trading platforms on the Internet. A large farm may even have its own website;
• After processing, it is easiest to hand over the skin and wool to ateliers, tanneries and light industry enterprises.

Paperwork

Farm activities must be registered in the form of individual entrepreneurship or CLF at the tax office. To do this, send the following documents:

• the corresponding declaration indicating the OKVED code 01.22.1 for sheep breeding and the production of milk and wool
• receipt of payment of state duty 800 rubles.
• agreement to create a farm for KLF in the presence of two or more partners
• copy of the passport
• notification of transition to a special tax regime

The simplified tax system with a 6% deduction is suitable as a taxable system. When building a sheep farm, it is also necessary to obtain a conclusion from the SES and the State Fire Inspectorate, and a veterinary certificate.

Texel

Those who are considering breeding sheep for meat as a business should pay attention to this breed. Its representatives feel best in Central Russia. These are hardy and prolific animals.

Beginners will also like this breed for the reason that these rams, unlike other representatives of their species, do not have a rather unpleasant and specific odor. Therefore, breeding them is much more pleasant.

How to buy sheep for breeding?

Where to start raising sheep as a business?
Obviously, suitable breeding animals must be found. You cannot buy them on the market or in private farms, and therefore you will have to contact special nurseries that guarantee the purity of the breed. It is recommended to take sheep and rams from different breeders to exclude family ties. A beginner should not mess with lambs. It is better to purchase strong and healthy adult animals at the age of two or three years: they will be able to bring some profit for several years until the farmer gains experience. How to assess their condition:

1. A productive sheep has strong bones, wide withers, a long body and straight legs. Curvature or convergence of the limbs will interfere with her ability to walk;
2. The head should be of medium size. An overly wide forehead or heavy jaws are signs of a coarse constitution;
3. A sheep has 6–8 front teeth on both jaws. A lack of incisors indicates old age of the animal or possible problems with feeding in the future;
4. The back should be flat and wide. A sagging or hunched spine indicates defects of the musculoskeletal system;
5. A healthy udder is medium in size, without compaction or granular structure. If there are hard areas, mastitis or another infection may be suspected;
6. The hooves should be strong, healthy in color, and odorless. Lameness and elevated leg temperature are signs of foot rot.