About Mossy Dell
Dry ewes renovating a fescue valley by hard grazing in the fall
What's in a Name?
Dell: "A secluded hollow or small valley usually covered with trees or turf."—Webster's
Mossy Dell Farm is named after a bottomless blue spring of water, shaded by oak trees hung with Spanish moss, on a plantation in south Georgia. Richard Gilbert lived near the spring as a boy. Relocated to southern Ohio, he was reminded of mossy dell by the massive oak trees overhanging a pond and farmstead in a secluded valley on his first land.
Originally Mossy Dell Farm emphasized commercial sheep production and crossed a Dorper ram with commercial Katahdin ewes for market lambs. This is an excellent cross for early maturing, muscular lambs, especially for the ethnic market. The hardy, prolific, broody, and parasite-resistant Katahdin makes a profitable ewe base for topcrossing with various terminal sires.
A passion for breeding the best ewes possible moved Mossy Dell Farm into seedstock production. The farm produces Katahdin sheep under forage-based, commercial conditions. Emphasis is placed on ewes lambing on pasture in tune with the spring flush of grass, and then mothering well and raising their lambs without the assistance of creep feed.
We sell registered, recorded, and commercial ram and ewe lambs for breeding stock in the fall. Sometimes we offer mature ewes in late summer after lambs are weaned. Occasionally we have yearling and mature rams for sale.
The Mossy Dell Flock participates in the National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP) and the Scrapie Farm Certification Program (SFCP).