They are very friendly and pretty hardy, yes. But so are Mules - if you make friends with them
My experience with the Zwartbles which were here when I arrived was :
- feet often bad
- better lambed indoors, at least the first time, as mothering up not as instant and reliable with non-dairy breeds. (Mules and Shetlands are particularly awesome in this department.)
- fleeces unexciting to me for spinning, but nice for peg-looming. (Mules often have gorgeous fleeces - but they don't all.)
- black sheep generally can be more attractive to flies; we Crovected the Zwartbles lambs each year but mostly didn't Crovect the Manx x and Shetland x lambs
- they need feeding to cope with rearing two lambs, even on good grass. (But Mules may need feeding too.)
- they do do their lambs very, very well, so the lambs were pretty much always ready to go off by October at the latest. (Mules would ditto.)
- get fat if not bred and may then have triplets and / or struggle with lambing - both of which statements probably apply to Mules too
- the meat is excellent
- Mules more likely to have triplets
So I think my advice would be :
- make sure you get ones with good feet
- get whichever you like the look of best. (In terms of Mules vs Zwartbles and in terms of which specific ewes you buy.) You are going to be getting up and going out in all weathers to see to them, it really helps to have animals you love looking at!
