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Whitmore Farm is an organic operation about one hour outside Baltimore, M.D. and Washington, D.C., which specializes in 'heritage' American livestock. We are in our 5th year of operation with Katahdin sheep, and we love this breed!
We are currently working within the NSIP to try and match strong EPD data with desireable carcass qualities in our flock. We select for sheep that are 'long' and 'low', more typical of sheep of 50 years ago.
Carcass quality remains challenging for the katahdin breed, so we are working to develop faster-growing animals that have good carcass quality at slaughter without sacrificing the katahdin's strong core traits of good mothering, easy lambing, and parasite resistance.
We follow a system of intensive rotational grazing and our animals are 100% grass and hay-fed.
We use a FAMACHA system of selective deworming and rotate our dewormers on a yearly basis. On average, we find we're deworming about 20% of our flock once a season. Losses to parasites are a rare event.
We check fecal egg counts to try and identify animals with low natural resistance/resilience and to identify heavy shedders in our flock. Because we co-graze our sheep with goats, our sheep are exposed to a continually high parasite challenge on pasture.
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Voluntary Scrapie Free Program
NSIP
We test yearly for OPP, Johnes, and CL.
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Please visit our home page at www.whitmorefarm.com to learn more about our operation!
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Katahdin