The flock was established in 1997. The Dorset breed was chosen due to their strong maternal traits, good carcass traits, and ability to lamb out of season to meet ethnic market demands.
The K Bar K flock is managed as a relatively low-input flock. The sheep are raised on pasture as long as the growing season allows, and on hay in the wintertime. We feed some grain when needed, such as to winter-lambing ewes bearing triplets, and limit-fed creep feed to lambs we are pushing for an early ethnic market or due to cold weather or poor forage quality. Otherwise we rely on high-quality forages to develop our sheep. Easy-lambing ewes are a must and we cull hard for those that have problems at lambing time. As a result, our ewes are excellent mothers who know how to bear and raise their lambs with minimal assistance.
