CopperBeech
Member
- Location
- A Welsh man lost in England
Been having general discussions today with a couple of people about the future of the sheep industry, some very interesting points raised to be fair.
Someone pointed out that these days we have probably more young folk wanting to get into sheep farming / shepherding than at any other time (or at least for a long time), we have more young women wanting to get into it than ever before.
This is a good thing I think ! However are there the opportunities now to expand into a viable buisness after entry ? And I mean a viable buisness farming sheep / shepherding. I would say there is a huge call for good shepherds, but most of the new entrants seem to want to run their own flocks / have their own farms (which is entirely understandable), but is this actually possible ?
This led us on to a discussion about the kind of industry we are building, or more specifically the kind of industry that young and new entrants are building or seem to want to build.
It seems a lot of new entrants have a lot of nice clothes, nice kit etc and a very small number of sheep, with what appear to be high costs - cake, creep, treats, hay, stuff, and general messing about. So assu they aren’t making much money ? Which is grand if it’s a hobby, but if you want it to be your living ?
And I know that we only see a glimmer of those who are new entrants through things like social media, but it just seems that the whole attraction is the image, the look, the freedom to not work too much, or the cute lambs. But do these folk think about things like wormer resistance, anti biotic resistance, genetics etc? Do they need to ? Is there enough money in sponsorship and stuff like that ?
Just some musings we were having whilst having a meeting on top of a hill in the sun.
Someone pointed out that these days we have probably more young folk wanting to get into sheep farming / shepherding than at any other time (or at least for a long time), we have more young women wanting to get into it than ever before.
This is a good thing I think ! However are there the opportunities now to expand into a viable buisness after entry ? And I mean a viable buisness farming sheep / shepherding. I would say there is a huge call for good shepherds, but most of the new entrants seem to want to run their own flocks / have their own farms (which is entirely understandable), but is this actually possible ?
This led us on to a discussion about the kind of industry we are building, or more specifically the kind of industry that young and new entrants are building or seem to want to build.
It seems a lot of new entrants have a lot of nice clothes, nice kit etc and a very small number of sheep, with what appear to be high costs - cake, creep, treats, hay, stuff, and general messing about. So assu they aren’t making much money ? Which is grand if it’s a hobby, but if you want it to be your living ?
And I know that we only see a glimmer of those who are new entrants through things like social media, but it just seems that the whole attraction is the image, the look, the freedom to not work too much, or the cute lambs. But do these folk think about things like wormer resistance, anti biotic resistance, genetics etc? Do they need to ? Is there enough money in sponsorship and stuff like that ?
Just some musings we were having whilst having a meeting on top of a hill in the sun.