Back in 2021 I put fencing up and got a trio of breeding sheep - two ewes and a ram - of the Barbados Blackbelly variety, due to their great fit in our climate. While there are many kinds of sheep one might raise, I chose these for very specific reasons, including:

• Being hair sheep (as opposed to wool sheep), they naturally shed their winter coats in the spring and thus don't require shearing.

• Their wild ancestry helps them not need hoof trimming and they have a 90% lower pathogen incidence than other more heavily bred varieties. 

• They are very heat tolerant (so do fine in our hot summers).

And maybe best of all, 

• They retain the delicious delicate lamb flavor people like from lamb long after leaving their adolescence. That means you get delicious lamb (not funky mutton) from animals older than one year. Somewhat like pastured beef, the texture is a bit firmer than lamb, but the delicious flavor we like in lamb is the same.

This has to do with them being hair sheep and not wool sheep; something about the wool sheep and the lanolin in the wool gets into the meat after a year, which is why normally sheep harvested after a year old are considered mutton, a low-desirability meat that has an off-putting flavor for many people.

But not these sheep. Each of the four mature animals I've harvested over the last three years has that lamb flavor I love, and it's amazing to enjoy such high quality red meat produced from grass right here in El Dorado County. 

And, to put it mildly, it's time to thin the herd! 

So I am pleased to be able to offer Lambshares from my herd! If you're familiar with milk herdshares or beefshares or other arrangements where you can get animals raised from your neighbors that do NOT go through the USDA slaughter, inspection and packaging process, then this is the same thing. 

Simply put, you buy a share of a live sheep, and then pay a small maintenance fee from that point until harvest, and then once it's harvest time the animals are processed at my ranch and then delivered to a specialized cut-and-wrap local butcher shop, and soon after that you can pick it up. 

I'm working out some of the details, but in broad terms we will have two options available - 1 share equal to half a sheep, or 2 shares equal to a full sheep. 1 share (or half a sheep) will be ~ $225 and 2 shares (a full sheep) will be ~$400. The "hanging weight", or the weight of the carcass before butchery and packaging, will be 30-50 lbs depending on the animal. So 1 share will be 15-25 pounds, and 2 shares will be 30-50. 

You can discuss with the butcher at harvest time which cuts you'd like, and they'll take it from there to break down and package all the lamb for you. I'm going to try to have pickup be here at my ranch for your convenience. 

But those are the broad strokes. If you would like to express your interest in 1 share (half a sheep) or 2 shares (a full sheep), please fill out the form below. I'll get back to you to confirm all the details and let you know about timeline and the money involved. 

Thanks a lot!

-  Jason