Photo ⇑⇑.   Two Registered, Suffolk Ram Lambs, 7½ months old, 190-200 lbs. ⇑⇑.   Examples of very good Suffolk Wether-Type Rams — very good loins and muscling.   When full-grown, these Rams will be around 330 lbs.   Kelly Vorac is on the right.   The Show Judge is next to Kelly.

Available:  Custom Processed Lamb — Hay — Straw — and Aged Sheep Compost

2022 — 2nd Cutting Grass Hay Square Bales.   Good, dense bales, no rain, no weeds, picked-up at the farm.   $5.00 per bale.   Have about 800 square bales of hay remaining.   Customers are reserving their hay for pick-up in the Winter and Spring.   Email:  [email protected]   Call:  301-371-4111.

2022 — Straw Square Bales.    Good, tight bales — protect your plants — mulch your garden — keeps soil cooler in summer — helps build organic matter — and growing soil bacteria/fungi.   Great for CSA gardens.   Only have 70 straw bales left — so order early.  $5.00 per bale.   Email:  [email protected]

Aged Sheep Compost is Available for both Home Gardens and Commercial Gardens — great for CSA Gardens.   Pick-up truck with 8′ bed — or trailer load — approximately 3.5 to 4 cu. yards.   $25.00 per truck or trailer load.  We’ll load your truck or trailer.   Email:  [email protected]   Call:  301-371-4111  to make arrangements.

Registered Suffolk Yearling Ram for Sale.    Vorac 220 Yearling Ram had the best rate of gain at the 2020 PA Ram & Buck Goat Performance Test.   Great for a commercial flock.   Sheared, feet trimmed, all shots and wormed.   Includes a Ram marking harness.   Email:  [email protected]

⇓⇓  Your Food Comes Directly From Our Farm in Frederick County, MD to Your Table — not hundreds of miles away, or imported.   ⇓⇓  Details  ⇓⇓ 

1.   CUSTOM-PROCESSED LAMBS  —  call and also email to discuss our farm-fresh lamb for individual customers — whole or half lambs.   Will email you our Lamb Meat Order Form.    Our lambs are custom-processed, vacuum-sealed, and labeled at Hemp’s Meats, 3740 Jefferson Pike, Jefferson, MD 21755.   Website:  Hemp’s Meats, Jefferson, MD    Hemp’s has been processing our livestock for the past 30+ years.   Email:  [email protected]

Click on our “How to Purchase” tab to order a lamb.   Recommend ordering your lamb weeks in advance.   A Crown Rack of Lamb, or Double English Loin Chops, and 1¼” – 1½” thick Rib Chops are great for that special dinner party.   Order early — Hemp’s is very busy in the Fall months.   By December, lambs born in February and March will be 9-10 months old.

•  Sweet Italian Lamb Sausage and Maple Brown Sugar Lamb Sausage..   Available in 1.0 to 1.1 lb. packages — 4 links per package — $11.00 pkg.   5 oz. Lamb Burgers, 4 per package, 1¼ lb. packages (20 oz.) — $10.00 pkg..   Call to order:  301-371-4111.

•  One great way to BBQ a Lamb..   For information on China Box Roasters, click on:  China Box Roasters  —  available at Home Depot and on-line.  Also, Google “China Box Cookers” — for a list of resources, recipes, making your own China Box, etc.

2.   DO YOU NEED — ON-FARM PROCESSING — LAMBS and GOATS.   We don’t have the facilities to harvest (slaughter) on our farm.   ⇓⇓ We have two contacts for lambs and goats ⇓⇓:

Mount Airy Locker (also called Wagner’s Meats) — 604 N. Market Street, Mt. Airy MD.  21771   Website:  www.wagnersmeats.com   Phone: 1-301-829-0500.

Horst’s Meats — 17807 Reiff Church Road, Hagerstown, MD.  21740   Website:  horst-meats.hub.biz   Phone: 1-301-797-8350 — and 1-301-733-1089.

Call and clearly explain what you need:  if for EID’s — live wt. — date needed — how to cut up (whole, or 2 half carcass, or 3″ chunks of meat) — packaging.  The butcher shop will harvest the lamb or goat for you.

Use MapQuest or Google Earth for directions.

3.   4-H PROJECT (MARKET) LAMBS.    (also called 4-H Club Lambs).   2022 – 4-H lambs to  show at your County and State Fair?   Call to arrange to visit, evaluate and pick-out your 4-H Project Lambs to be shown at your 2022 County and State Fairs.   We have a very good selection of wethers to choose from.

Click on the “How to Purchase ” tab for details.

4.   4-H LAMB LEASING PROGRAM.    We lease (loan) very good registered ewe and ram lambs to 4-H’ers for the summer to raise and show at their 4-H and Open Class County Fair and other Fairs — at no cost to the 4-H’er.   Then the 4-H family returns the lamb(s) in the Fall after showing at various Fairs — and transfers the lamb’s registration papers back to us (Kelly Vorac).   Interested — call us — 301-371-4111.

•  We follow-up with 4-H’ers and their parents.    We follow-up and are glad to help families who purchase and lease our 4-H Project Lambs and Suffolk breeding stock.   When a 4-H’er has a question, problem — halter breaking, exercising, what to feed, lamb not eating, high temperature, shots, rate of gain, anything — call for assistance.   We should be able to save you a vet call.

5.   REGISTERED EWE and RAM BREEDING STOCK.   2022 ewe lambs are all sold.   Click on “Sires & Breeding Ewes”.   We kept 8 – 2021 registered Suffolk ewe lambs as replacement stock — now yearling ewes, weighing 210 to 230 lbs. — all are registered — ewes that are in our “keeper pen” — ewes that would win at any County Fair.   These 8 remaining 2021 Yearling Ewes will be bred in the Fall, 2022 to have their first lambs starting in February, 2023.   Click on the “Sires & Breeding Ewes” tab for up-to-date information on our breeding rams.

•  Registered 2021 Yearling Ewe Lambs and a couple of Ram Lambs (sold out).

6.   EWE BREEDING SERVICES.   For shepherds with small flocks and just a few ewes — when the shepherd does not want to own a ram — click on the “Sires & Breeding Ewes” tab.   The maintenance and feeding cost for a full-grown Suffolk ram is at least $370.00 per year.   Example:  our full-grown Suffolk Rams and Ram Lambs eat at least 5 lbs. of a 16% grain per day, plus hay.   It’s usually not worthwhile to own a ram.   For more information go to the “Sires & Breeding Ewe” tab.

•  Contact us to schedule breeding services for your ewes in the summer of 2022 — for your 2023 Spring lambs.

• This summer — call to set-up breeding dates for your ewes — based on when you want lambs to be born in 2023.
• Breeding costs have been the same for past 7 years:  $70.00 per ewe, plus the same $1.00 day for hay, grain, worming if needed, any shots needed, hoof trimming, and minor vet care that we can take care of.   A 16% feed now costs $0.33 per lb.  ($16.50 per 50 lb. bag).   Used to cost $11.50 per bag 2 years ago.
• Ewe must be in good shape — not too fat, or very thin, sheared, feet trimmed, up-to-date on CD&T shots, wormed, no foot rot, no Ring Worm, no skin infections that are contagious.
• In 2022 we’ll have 4 excellent Suffolk breeding rams — MacCauley 3052 ram — Tom Slack 9155 ram — our new 0503 Russell Sheep Co. ram (top selling ram at their recent on-line Ram Sale), and a top selling yearling Suffolk Ram at the 2020 PA Livestock Evaluation Ram Sale.
• Our plan is to begin breeding around Sept. 1, 2022 — for late January and early February 2023 lambs.

7.   In 2022 GREEK EASTER is Sunday, April 24, 2022.   Plan ahead — you must order early — we schedule kill dates at Hemp’s Meats weeks in advance.   We’ll have smaller  75 to 95 lb. lambs (live wt.).    We’ll take the lamb to Hemp’s Meats.   Customer picks up their cleaned lamb carcass by Friday or Saturday, April 22-23, 2022.   New customers — a $100.00 deposit is required.   Call first — then mail your check to Peter Vorac.   Address is in the “Contact” tab.

Note:   2023 Greek Easter is April 16, 2023.   Order now, so we can breed some ewes earlier in the Fall of 2022 —  in order to have a lamb for your 2023 Greek Easter.

8.   SQUARE BALES of 2022 – 2nd. CUTTING GRASS HAY — $5.00 per BALE.   Very good dense bales, 2nd. cutting, made right, no rain, you can back-up right into the barn — bales are easy to load.   Have been spreading liquid manure from a neighbor’s dairy farm for the past 6 years.   We also use our manure bedding pack from our sheep barn and loafing shed as fertilizer.  Fertilizer builds soil organic matter — soil pH is 6.5 — improves quality of our hay — increases soil microbes/fungi in our soil. — helps improve holding moisture in the soil.   Call 301-371-4111 to order hay.   Email:  [email protected]

$5.00 per bale — picked-up at the farm.

9.   AGED SHEEP COMPOST — pick-up truck load, $25.00.   Pick-up trucks with 8′ beds hold 3.5 to 4 cubic yards —  6’x10′ trailers hold about 5 to 6 cubic yards.   We’ll load your truck or trailer.   Larger trailers:  $35.00.   Only need a few metal garbage cans of compost, $2.00 per garbage can — metal cans hold about 80 lbs.   Comparison: buying bagged compost at a garden center will cost at least $35-$45 per cu. yard.

10.   SUFFOLK & HAMPSHIRE FLEECES.   Skirted fleeces, fairly clean, good crimp, bagged individually, works well when blending with other yarn types.  Suffolk fleeces, $4.00 lb., Hampshire fleeces, $5.00 lb.

11.   NEED SHEEP and GOAT EQUIPMENT?    We’re a Dealer for 3 Sheep & Goat Livestock Equipment Manufacturers:  call or send an email with your questions — we’ll assist with your planning.   Can provide any kind of special steel and aluminum fabrication to fit your barn space.   We’ve been using Sydell steel equipment on our farm for over 30 years.   The Sydell equipment lasts.   Open these 3 websites and enjoy.

(a)  Dealer for Sydell Sheep & Goat Equipment:    http://www.sydell.com

(b)  Dealer for All Aluminum Livestock & Show Equipment:   go on website, look at list of products:    http://www.allaluminum.com

(c)  Dealer for Riverside Plastics hanging livestock feed troughs:    http://rsicalfsystems.com/hanging feeders.php

12.   ARRANGE TO VISIT THE FARM.   See a working farm, bottle feed and hold a lamb, help feed the sheep.   Are you thinking about raising sheep — we can discuss possible breeds to select?   It all depends on many factors — your interests, your “business plan”, your land’s soil quality, water, barns, machine sheds, equipment, pasture, ability to make hay, fencing, your plan to raise meat breed sheep, or raise wool breed sheep — do you want to produce woolen products — your marketing plan, and end goals — and your available time and energy.   Call to arrange a date to visit.

Welcome to Our Farm

Vorac Suffolks & 4-H Club Lambs, at Castle Hill Farm, is a Suffolk sheep breeder and lamb producer located in Jefferson, Maryland (southwest of Frederick), in Frederick County, Maryland.   The owners are Peter & Kelly Vorac.

We believe in a dual purpose sheep.   Our goal is to produce Suffolk sheep that excel in the traits that have made the breed popular, producing fast growing lambs, with well-muscled carcass composition.

Also important in our balanced-trait approach are:

• Maternal Performance — ewe must milk well, watch over her lambs, no bottle babies.
• Structural Soundness — good udders, growth, and good loin eye measurements.
• Structural Correctness and Eye Appeal — no defects in legs, hocks, mouth, no false teats, etc.
• Vorac Suffolk lambs look flashy in the show ring with their thick loins and full legs.
• Exceptional Lamb Carcasses — well muscled, good size lamb chops, racks, steaks and roasts.

We specialize in supplying whole or half custom-processed lambs, 4-H club lambs, registered breeding stock, and ewe breeding services.   Over 95% of our flock is RR at Codon 171 for genetic resistance to Scrapie.   All sheep are NN and carry the spider-free genotype.

Give us a call.  Come out to visit, see the baby lambs — and talk “sheep”.   Establish on-going communications.

Farm History — settled in 1803

Our farm was settled in 1803 and originally owned by Abraham Willard, passed down to Dewalt Willard, then Edward Willard and his family, from Frederick, Maryland as a dairy farm.  The Willard’s were of French Huguenot descent.   The Willard family named the farm Castle Hill Farm.   The Willard’s sold their farm to Marshall Ahalt in 1917, passed down to his son, Emery Ahalt.    The farm is located in the beautiful Middletown Valley, north of Burkittsville, and south of Middletown, Maryland.

We are the 4th. owners from the original land grant in the late 1700’s.

The farm was a dairy farm up to the late 1960’s, when Emery Ahalt (former owner, son of Marshall Ahalt) stopped milking and sold his dairy herd.   The farm was then leased out to Ford Harwood, the neighboring dairy farm to the north — up to when we purchased the farm.

Our farm is a working farm with sheep, lambs, barn owls, bee hives, barn swallows, a stocked fish pond, at times beef cattle, clean, well-managed pastures, fields fertilized with liquid manure, a rotational grazing system, various soil conservation practices, too much work, not enough money — and fences that need fixing.  The farm is currently managed by Border Collies Flip, and Kelly’s dog Sadie, who watch over the ewes and lambs.   Our 7 former Border Collies were:  Buzz, Snow, Jake, Jack, Mia, Shelby and Frisk.   They are buried on the farm.  Most of our Border Collies were “rescue dogs”.