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Wild Flock or Managed Flock?

In deciding to have a flock of Soay one of your first decisions should be if you are going to have a wild flock or a managed flock in regard to breeding season. This decision should be based on your goals and intentions for having the flock.

Soay sheep require very little intervention and day-to-day management from their owners. As long as they have plenty of food, water, a place to get out of the sun and foul weather and enough fenced area to get minimal exercise they are content.

A wild flock is where you have all of your ewes and rams housed together in one pasture and shelter system. The breeding season and mating system is not managed by the flock owner. Rams will establish dominance among themselves with the alpha ram of the flock covering the ewes as they come into cycle. But, as you will have a field of ewes and rams you really do not have any easy way to establish paternity of the offspring - because the non-dominant rams will still attempt to breed and will be successful a certain amount of the time. With a wild flock the lambs are born and raised within the pasture with all the ewes and rams.

If your main intention for your flock is either meat for your own consumption or to sell, breeding stock that will be used as estate sheep or brush control, or to sell to other breeders whose flock is structured "wild" this system works well and takes up much less of your time. One possible down side to a wild flock is that most breeders that run managed flocks will not buy your lambs because they do not have full knowledge of the genetics that the lamb may carry - and most breeders have managed flocks.

Having a managed flock means that the ewes and rams are not housed together. The rams are kept separate from the ewes for 9 months of the year and then the rams you select for breeding are taken during the breeding season and placed with the ewes you want them to cover. All of the non-breeding rams are kept separated from the rest. This option allows you to track all of the genetics that may be carried by the lambs born, and allows potential buyers more data on which to make a decision. Having a managed flock is a lot more work but you keep all sales options open. You can still sell to wild flock owners - for meat, estate, and brush control - but your lambs can also trace their ancestry and genetic traits which is valuable to those running managed flocks. Also, lambs from managed flocks tend to sell for more money than those from wild flocks.