The meat used to be much cheaper (at least local to NZ) when sheep were farmed primarily for their wool rather than meat. Basically each ewe could give you 5 or

The meat used to be much cheaper (at least local to NZ) when sheep were farmed primarily for their wool rather than meat. Basically each ewe could give you 5 or 6 rounds of lambs that were surplus to keeping the population stable and they'd mostly be timed for spring when pasture was productive enough for the extra livestock.