Pasture and rangeland for livestock is much too broad a concept. We concentrate on profits from domestic and wild animal-specific products and opportunities (e.g. hunting in the wild). As we consider sheep, we see the decision needed among the alternatives for wool and mutton from among the following:
- Fine wool -
- Rambouillet are crossed with other fine wool breeds
- Merino - few
- Long wool - no known locally suitable breeds
- Romney
- Lincoln
- Cotswald
- Leicester
- Border Leicester
- Medium wool - Columbia breed(only few options) perhaps:
- Corriedale
- Rouedale
- Targee
- Panoma
- Medium wool and mutton (the dual option) breeds:
- Hampshire
- Suffolk
- Stropshire
- Southdown
- Dorset
- Chevort
- Oxford
- Common Ewe -
- Rambouillet x Hampshire or Suffolk or
- Hampshire x Suffolk or Dorset
- Common Ram - Hampshire or Suffolk
The quest is to select a breed suitable for a designated pasture and structures ecosystem (including its pests, predators, and parasites) and, given GIS characteristics, that will consistently produce annually- assessed profits from the combined sales of wool, meat, and breeders. There are benefits in scenic quality produced by the presence of the herds, in historical education, and in wildlife species associated with early succession communities profided by sheep action. The scenic gains are from both the variety of the rural objects and the grazed pastures, but these are extra benefits and assumed to be a function of the quest for profit from the land platform.
Under development. See Pasture and Trevey's pasture and Range notes and see range file folder