How We Classify Animals
In an ever-evolving effort to provide the best animals to meet your needs, we have had to continually change several aspects of our process and this year is no different. We are suppling this addendum to detail what, how and why animal categories are defined and what you can expect moving forward.
Deposit is non-refundable: Once a deposit is placed on an animal, we consider it sold. If you back out of a purchase, we’ll need to find another purchaser. Exception to this is if something happens to your animal prior to leaving the Ranch. Deposits can’t be transferred between different animals (i.e. down payments for a sheep, can’t be transferred to a goat, pig, or cow). If you choose to back-out of your purchase, deposits cannot be escrowed and count towards a future animal. All pick-up dates will be scheduled with you. After 30-days of non-retrieval past initial pick-up date, animal will be re-listed and deposit will be forfeited. All purchases are final once animals are picked up. We are not responsible for any latent health issues that may occur and do not except returns.
Katahdin Sheep: A hair sheep bred primarily developed to meet the North American industry standard for carcass quality. These easy keepers are low maintenance, highly adaptable to climates and conditions, and most favorably, internal parasite resistant. We have developed 4 genetically separate flocks from throughout the Pacific Northwest, this way you can pick up breeding pairs in one location. We try to get all our sheep to meet the following minimum requirements for breeding stock: Summer weight over 130#s, shed their wool completely, twin births beyond their second freshening and good confirmation. Adults that routinely fall outside these minimums are categorized as market sheep. These sheep are great in their own right, however not the bred standard or what we are trying to develop for you, so we encourage their offspring to only be used as feeder lambs intended for butcher. Developing breeding seed stock requires that we spend the time determining the growth rates and evaluating each lamb. We’ll document 30- and 60-day weights on most of our lambs before we open up sales. We want to ensure our seed stock is the best we can offer, and this information is used to score the mother on her rearing for future years.
Katahdin Breeding seed stock: Sold as ewe- and ram-lambs. Our breeding stock is the best we have, comprised of both registered and non-registered sheep. These mothers meet and exceed our minimum requirements and excel in confirmation. They possess all the attributes to deliver twins without assistance and have superb mothering traits. Some will even go on to produce triplets and quads. These should be “no nonsense” lambs that will grow to emulate their mothers. Our seed stock is offered at $200 for ewe lambs and $300 for ram lambs. If your desire is to have registered animals, there will be a few available on a first come first served basis. These can be obtained for an additional $50 until their gone.
Katahdin Market sheep: Comprised of adult ewes and ewe lambs; we don’t sell rams in this category. Not our best stock, but still very nice animals or we wouldn’t be breeding them. This group doesn’t meet our minimum requirements or just haven’t been with us long enough to build the consistency we require to move them up to breeding stock. If you are looking to save some money to fund your backyard flock, this might be the way to go. Mostly sold as lambs, but occasionally there are adult ewes offered. Market ewes sold on a case-by-case basis are $150 while market lambs at $125.
Katahdin Feeder lambs: These lambs are sold for the express purpose of growing your own butcher lamb. Most will be castrated rams (wethers), however there might also be ewe lambs. It is not recommended you breed these sheep for small flock operations as they came from mothers that don’t meet the Katahdin Sheep standard. Feeder lambs are also offered at $125.
Katahdin Butcher lambs: We understand not everyone has pasture to feed a lamb all summer, so we keep a select few to grow out for you. We concentrate on growth rates to provide the best bang for the buck come butcher time. For the last couple of years, finding a butcher has been an issue for clients, so we retain the service for you, so when you purchase from us, everything is taken care of. Use the butcher service or butcher your own, this is $5/lb hanging weight. Butcher fees with a butcher shop are separate.
Nubian Goats: Anglo-Nubians are an all-purpose goat, useful for meat, milk and above all, land clearing. It’s not a heavy milk producer but has a high average butter fat content between 4 & 5 percent. They have a longer breeding season which makes it possible to alternate pregnancies and produce milk year-round. It is labeled as the best suited dairy goat breed for hot climates but equally does well here during our winters. Nubians have the ability to produce roughly a gallon of milk per day, and can continue to produce that for over 280 days a year before needing to reset themselves for breeding. It is possible to maintain this level of production with a well-established and consistent milking schedule, generally requiring a morning and afternoon milking. Likewise for the Sheep, we are recording 30- and 60-day weights for our own record keeping.
Nubian Breed Stock: Sold as doelings and bucklings. Twin Births, Great confirmation, strong udders/teats. These animals will be welcome additions to any flocks, providing you with plenty of milk for all your needs. Our Breed Stock is offered at $200 for the Bucklings and $150 for the Doelings. We don’t have separate genetics to provide breeding pairs at this time.
Nubian Feeder Stock: Sold as weaned doelings and wethers. Lacking in some capacity from the standards we hold, or males that aren’t the top percentage. We encourage these animals to be butcher animals, and not bred, and as such we only offer castrated males (wethers) in this category. Both Feeder Doelings and Wethers are being offered for $125.
Red Wattle/Large Black: The Pigs we ranch are two amazing heritage breeds. The Large black sport a long, deep body, which are prized as excellent meat hogs. The Red Wattles are known more for their flavorful, tender, marbled meat, generally referred to as a lard hog. When bred together, the offspring take on the best characteristics of both, yielding a fast growing, hardy, and delicious pig. Again, we normally retain a butcher once the litter is born. Butcher prices are separate, and handled by the butcher, and are available to view on their website https://www.wearscustomcutsllc.com/pricing. We offer limited weaned piglets for $200 to grow on your own, or we charge $3/lb hanging weight (approx. 200 lbs) for the butcher hogs.
Highland Cattle: Besides being known for their adorable shaggy appearance, these amazing cattle with their slower maturation, produce a lean, firm, and very low-fat beef that is very rich in protein and iron. This slower growth leads to just the right amount of marbling throughout the meat, making it unmatched in flavor, tenderness, and juiciness (in our opinion). Pair all of this with our Grass fed-Grass finished process, and you will be getting the best possible meat we can provide for you.
Steers: This Spring, we will be sourcing yearling steers to finish out as butcher steers for this winter (2025) or the following spring (2026). These will be available to purchase as Whole, Half, and Quarter portions, with prices being cheaper for bigger purchases due to the less need for us to find enough buyers to cover the full steer. This is new to us, and we’ll try to be a forthcoming with our price information as possible before sourcing the steers.