Sheep production

As extensively kept farm animals, sheep are indispensable in the maintenance of cultivated landscapes

The sheep production includes the systems of production of products of sheep . The most important products are sheep meat , sheep's milk and sheep's wool , the most important livestock is the domestic sheep .

Global sheep production

The largest sheepmeat producers (2007)
rank	country	Sheep meat production (in thousand tons )	proportion of
1	People's Republic of China	2500	24%
2	Australia	1254	8th %
3	New Zealand	883	7%
4th	Iran	390	4%
5	United Kingdom	325	3%
6th	Turkey	272	3%
7th	India	234	2%
8th	Syria	205	2%
9	Spain	203	2%
10	Algeria	182	2%

The largest sheep milk producers (2007)
rank	country	Sheep milk production (in thousand tons )	proportion of
1	People's Republic of China	2072	12%
2	Syria	1874	10%
3	Turkey	1783	9%
4th	Greece	1727	8th %
5	Romania	1638	7%
6th	Italy	1560	6%
7th	Iran	934	6%
8th	Sudan	498	6%
9	Somalia	468	5%
10	Spain	410	5%

The largest sheep wool producers (2007)
rank	country	Sheep wool production (in thousand tons )	proportion of
1	Australia	465	21%
2	People's Republic of China	395	18%
3	New Zealand	218	10%
4th	Iran	75	3%
5	United Kingdom	62	3%
6th	Argentina	60	3%
7th	Russia	51	2%
8th	Sudan	46	2%
9	Turkey	46	2%
10	India	46	2%

Sheep meat

In 2007, 8,303,867 tons of sheep meat were produced. The largest sheep meat producers are China, Australia and New Zealand.

Sheep milk

In 2007, 9,043,925 tons of sheep's milk were produced. The largest producer countries are China, Syria and Turkey.

Sheep wool

In 2007, 2,173,370 tons of sheep's wool were produced. The main producers are Australia, China and New Zealand.

Races

Sheep breeds can be divided into four groups: merino sheep , meat sheep , milk sheep and land sheep .

attitude

Sheep are kept according to their use: Dairy sheep are milked twice a day, while woolly sheep are shorn only once a year. Three main systems of use can be distinguished: extensive farming for the production of wool and meat, and intensive farming for milk production.

Extensive posture

Sheep on Heligoland

The extensive rearing (extensive land use with low livestock) is the most common in all countries accounting system. It ranges from the fenced keeping of relatively small groups of animals in the lowlands to the keeping of large herds on non-fenced pastures . In the humid middle latitudes of Central and Northern Europe and eastern North America, sheep are mostly kept on anthropogenically created grassland on which forest would stand without grazing.

Great Britain is the most important sheep producer in Europe and is very different from the continent in terms of its husbandry systems. The herds are about three times as big with 300 animals, and the forage is almost entirely grass. In Wales the herds are significantly smaller than in Scotland, where typical herds have more than a thousand ewes. The highland sheep are robust breeds - which hardly need human care - used in the breeding of lowland breeds and in meat production, which increases the resistance of the animals and improves their meat. The lowland farms are more diverse than those of the hill country farms; they range from pure grassland farms to primarily arable farms.

Pastoralism

Flock of sheep in Patagonia

The pastoralism - grazing in natural open landscapes - is found mainly in arid and other areas where farming is difficult or impossible extensive form.

Stationary pastoralism

With the modern, stationary forms of pastoralism, sheep are kept on managed (e.g. sowing of forage grass, separated hay meadows, drinking water wells, etc.) and very generously fenced natural pastures. In winter there is often supplementary feeding; Stable housing is rather rare. Typical representatives of this type of husbandry can be found on the ranches in the dry areas of North America, South America, South Africa and the sheep stations of Australia and New Zealand.

In Australia, the stock sizes vary and the types of farms can be differentiated based on the climatic zones. In areas with high rainfall and wheat-growing areas in the south and west, the number of animals on specialized sheep farms is between 1500 and 3000 animals per worker; well over 3000 in the east.

On the South Island of New Zealand, sheep farming is the most important pasture use. The herds have an average size of 1400 animals, rarely have stalls and are only occasionally fed with hay or silage in winter , as the grass grows almost all year round. Lambs are born in spring. The stocking density is a maximum of 25 animals per hectare. In New Zealand, sheep are used, which are less sensitive to the weather and hardly need human help. This is also achieved by herds living in the same area for a long time without human intervention and so an adaptation takes place.

Mobile pastoralism

These include the traditionally mobile forms ( mobile animal husbandry , nomadism , transhumance ) in the Middle East, Central Asia , in parts of North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa , in the Mediterranean countries and the North Andes . For many formerly nomadic pastoral peoples , sheep are very important due to the multitude of uses ( dairy products , meat , hides and wool as well as dung as fuel, organs for buttering and sausage production ). The herds are a capital stock and a hedge against risks, the milk is the most important source of protein and the sheep are sometimes used as pack animals .

In the evenings, the sheep are driven from the pastures into the camps to protect them from predators and to provide manure as fuel. Dogs are also used as protection. In temperate latitudes, where the animals are seasonally fertile, milk is obtained after the lambs have been weaned in spring and summer, and slaughter takes place in winter. In tropical regions, milk is available all year round. The milk yield is lower than in the other husbandry systems due to the poor supply of nutrients to the animals.

In the highlands of Tibet , herds of 60 to 250 animals are kept. An average of 30% are bucks that provide wool and carrying capacity, 44% are lactating ewes. 20-30 animals are slaughtered annually for sale or consumption. In summer the sheep are driven around so that the pastures can regenerate. After weaning, it is milked by hand twice a day. In Rajasthan , the herds are between 20 and 200 animals, the male lambs are sold, but the milk is processed for home consumption. In the dry season, the sheep graze on pastures, in the rainy season in the forest, and are occasionally fed with seeds, grains, straw, ghee or vegetable oil. The sheep sometimes play a role in religious rituals, for which they are washed, painted, hung with jewelry and fed with sugar.

Intense posture

Intensive sheep farming is rather rare and concentrates on dairy sheep farming, which is mainly found in southern Europe , the Near and Middle East, but is also gaining importance in Great Britain, the USA, Central America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The sheep are milked twice a day during their three to six month lactation period . Some of the animals live extensively on pastures all year round, but in Israel and Australia they also live entirely in stalls. There they are fed with silage, grain and protein-rich lupins , cottonseed and soy flour .

The natural suckling time is between 25 and 75 days depending on the breed, but is eliminated in some countries such as the Czech Republic, Germany, England, Australia and Israel so that milking can begin immediately after birth. The lambs are suckled either artificially or by a lower milk yielding sheep. In some cases, however, mixed systems with simultaneous suckling and milking are also used, as the milk yield decreases as a result of weaning. The milk production reaches a maximum of up to 3.5 liters per day after 4–7 weeks and is on average 2 liters during the 150 to over 200 days of lactation. The natural seasonal fertility is bypassed by synchronized oestrus and breeding and enables lambing intervals of around 300 days. In intensive systems, a ewe lamb for the first time at 14 months and can thus have up to 10 lactation periods, in traditional systems only at 22 months. Ewes kept on pasture have a 30% lower milk yield than animals kept intensively, but they produce more unsaturated fatty acids .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} faostat.fao.org FAO (2009): FAOSTAT. Rome.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} R. Kilgour, T. Waterhouse, C. Dwyer, I. Ivanov: Farming Systems for Sheep Production and Their Effect on Welfare. In: C. Dwyer (Ed.): Animal Welfare. Vol. 6, Springer Netherlands, 2008, pp. 213-265.
3. ↑ Jürgen Schultz: The ecological zones of the earth . Ulmer, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-1514-9 , pp. 219-221.