Mule Sheep in the UP

We’re making mules, baby!

Okay, we’re not exactly making them, but, mules are currently being “made.”

What the heck am I talking about?

Mules.

And not the horse-y, braying kind either.

Mule Sheep.

What’s a “mule sheep” you ask? I’ll tell you.

It started for us when we realized that our drop-dead gorgeous, viking Icelandic sheep just weren’t cutting it.

Don’t get me wrong, the Icelandic meat is absolutely delicious and crazy mild, but, we never seemed to have enough to keep up with demand. The cuts are on the smaller side and we don’t get a whole lot of meat, even when we wait almost a full year to send them to the butcher. Even though the Icelandic breed is supposed to be thrifty, it isn’t quite what we are looking for.

BUT, I love my girls, with their bossy personalities, bad-to-the-bone horns (no, they’re not goats), and the flowing, show-stopping fleeces, so I refused to get rid of my best gals.

But, what to do?

Steve and I discussed it, and there was absolutely no way we were going to go out and purchase horribly ugly and strong-tasting commercial breeds just to bulk things up. Yuck.

So, that really ousted quite a few popular breeds, because even the heritage breeds of yesterday that would have fit the bill at one time are not being over-bred and are not what they once were. Now you not only get large hanging-weights but also health and lambing issues to boot. No thanks.

So, after quite a bit of research (who, me?), I remembered that years ago I came across the idea of Mule Sheep, Scotch Mules, to be exact.

So, now I am finally going to tell you what a Mule Sheep is, and then I will explain it further because it’s not going to make sense right away:

A mule sheep is the resulting offspring of a Bluefaced Leicester ram and a hill-breed ewe.

There, that doesn’t make any blasted sense, does it?

Let me explain:

For more than two hundred years, the UK has been making and utilizing mule ewes in what they call the “Three-Tier Breeding System.”

You see, the UK is the leader in lamb sales, and they have pretty much figured out what works:

They take a rugged, hardy, thrifty and great mothering breed of sheep that live in the cruel and mountainous “hill regions” of England and Scotland, like a Scottish Blackface, from Scotland, Swaledale from Northern England, and the North Country Cheviot hailing from the UK-Scottish border,, and so on, and breed them with a Bluefaced Leicester ram.

The Bluefaced Leicester breed is long bodied (more lamb chops!), very milky (fast growing lambs with all that milk), prolific (often lambing out twins and triplets) and large. They are traditionally raised in the lowland valleys, rather than the hills and “fells.”

Bluefaced Leicester ram

So, they take a BFL ram and mix it with a hill-type ewe, and bam! You get a mule!

The BFL ram is what makes it a “mule”, any other sire and the resulting lambs are just “crosses”.

A Cheviot Mule, Scotch Mule, North of England Mule, Welsh Mules...

Why do you want a mule?

Here’s why: they are the second part of the three tier breeding system.

All of the male (ram) lambs are eaten because you only want to keep the mule ewes. But, they are not wasted because the mule ram lambs are still larger than our pure Icelandic lambs.

The mule ewe is the Golden Ticket. She is the Crown Jewel.

The secret sauce.

She is the crème de la crème and the most important part of the whole system.

She has inherited all of the great attributes from both parents: the thriftiness, health and hardiness, and great mothering instinct from her hill-breed mother, and the fast growth, long body, prolificacy and milkiness from her father.

Why does all this matter?

She’s going to raise your Prime Market lambs.

Just writing that makes me so excited that my eyes water.

I know it sounds silly, but a farmer wants to raise and offer products he or she can be PROUD of, whether it be vegetables, breads, flowers or meat, and

We have worked SO hard on our flock, learning, loving, and making necessary tweaks here and there in order to be able to offer the best possible.

The best life for the sheep. The best flavor. The best yield in order to provide you with all the lamb that you want and need.

So in order to do that, we have researched for HOURS, went to festivals in other states, met new, wonderful farmers and shepherds, spent thousands of dollars, and traveled thousands of miles.

To make mule ewes.

She is the the missing link in almost all of US meat flocks.

You see, here in the US, farmers only go so far: they mix one breed with a large, fast growing meat breed and stop there, attempting to come out with a nice sized market lamb. And, they DO get there, but, the quality is sometimes hit or miss, or the results are unpredictable.

They’re missing the precious link in the middle that makes the difference.

The UK has it figured out, and over 50% of the UK’s crossed commercial flocks are made up of mules.

It takes a special ewe to raise demanding, fast-growing lambs for market, and it helps to have “hybrid-vigor” with the best qualities from both parents from a well-planned and thought out breeding to make her.

The mule ewe is bred to a heavy meat breed, such as a Texel or English Suffolk, and has a long enough body to carry multiple lambs, enough milk and mothering instincts to raise them, and is healthy enough to do it. The Prime Market lambs are half mule and half heavy meat breed (quarter hill-type, quarter BFL, and half Suffolk, Texel, etc.). The result?

Lambs that receive a ton of milk and can get big and fat on air (or grass alone without grain), fast.

Why do you care about any of this?

Maybe you don’t, but you should.

We will be able to offer you [hopefully] unlimited lamb cuts so you won’t have to hear “We’re sold out” all the blasted time.

Lamb chops, lamb meatballs, rack of lamb for Easter.

You name it, we will finally have it, made from beautiful UK breeds such as the North Country Cheviot, Bluefaced Leicester, and Suffolks, along with our own little experiment, Icelandics.

It’s just about lambing time, and I’m so wound up I can’t stand it.

Keep an eye out for pictures, and eventually, meat offerings, mule ewes are coming to the UP.