Sheep Tales Part 2: Romanovs

On this episode of Sheep Tales we’re going to get into where we are now and why we chose Romanov Sheep.

So, after several years keeping sheep we went back to the drawing board.  I spent quite a while looking into every sheep breed I came across in my search. We had a lot of boxes we wanted to check and no breed seemed to check all of them until we happened across Romanovs while looking into sheep that didn’t need shearing. While some shed out their coats, not all do and some do so incompletely. But any reduction in shearing sounded like a good thing to us.

That wasn’t the only thing about them that appealed to us. Most sheep breed once a year and birth one to two lambs per lambing season. Romanovs don’t have a breeding season. The females become fertile around 8-10 months of age and have no anoestrous period, with an average 7 1/2 year reproductive period.  They can breed as early as 30-40 days after lambing, sometimes lambing 3 times in 2 years.

Their gestation is a few days shorter than typical and they are known to lamb litters rather than the typical 1-2 lambs. They average 3-5 lambs, but the record is 9! They make excellent mothers and produce enough milk for their large litters.

1/4 and 1/2 blood crosses retain higher than average birth numbers. So they can be utilized in breeding programs of commercial breeds to up production numbers.

Another thing they're known for is a milder flavored meat. They're supposed to be some of the best flavored lamb with little to nothing that could be categorized as gamey. This is really nice for people who as sensitive to it though we don't have a particular issue.

We couldn’t really find any downsides so we started searching out a breeder. There just happened to be one on the other side of the border in Oregon. We picked up a trio last year and they have been the sweetest most friendly sheep.

They greet us at the gate most days, and if they don’t a quick shake of a sweet feed scoop has them coming running. It’s such a welcome change.

We greeted our first lambs out of them earlier this year. Both girls gave us twins their first time out. We’re hopeful of many more lambings to come.