Prices for sheep of mutton age are low; not quite a third of the price per pound paid for lambs, according to each issue’s “Sale Barn Prices” tables in sheep!  A systematized sheep operation must normally sell at least one cull ewe or ram for every 6 to 12 lambs sold.

      Of course, the best growers always factor a “ewe depreciation deduction” into each year’s lamb crops, on top of wintering expenses, plus summer grazing cost for all of them.  But suppose cull sheep fetched half the money a lamb brought, instead of just a third.  How much more a sheep operation might return if mutton were promoted as the true delicacy that it is!

      If an old ewe sells for $45.00 today, then half again more would make $67.50.  If a grower got $1 profit from an old $45 ewe before, then he’d get $23.50 now.  Over 23 times the profit!

      A plan like that might even justify fattening the old gals up a bit, adding a little “plumpness” to the profit!

      Instead, old ewes today are often just old bags of bones when sold.  Much of this meat goes into pet food and Third World countries at 18 to 40 cents/lb.  Sadly, this can be true of the lesser cuts of top-quality lamb, too.  Ah well, who can begrudge them a cheap gourmet meal (even if at our expense)?  Their poverty was forced on them when past leaders postponed impossible debts onto today’s citizens.  For the same reasons, and the way America is trending nowadays, there may soon be demand again in the U.S. too for those cheap lamb cuts.