The Flock At first we had a hard time deciding what breed of sheep to purchase. We both really liked Targhees after working with them in Montana, but found several drawbacks to this breed in the Eastern US: 1) they were difficult to locate, 2) of the Targhees we could find locally, they just weren't of the same type as the western sheep, 3) we were concerned about their adaptability to our wetter climate, with the strong ethnic market, we needed sheep to lamb all year round, and 5) the wool market was (and is) depressed, and it seemed that a meat breed of sheep that would lamb out of season was the way to go. So we started looking for Dorsets, at the time not knowing anything about show or production Dorsets. We lucked into a lady (on Sheep-L) in Binghamton, NY who was selling her flock. So we brought home 14 Dorset ewes- many of which were Beaver Brook farm breeding. Many were very old style, and three of the younger ewes were out of a prominent show flock ram with VERY different body type. These foundation ewes have worked well for us, and gave us a good leg on the beginnings of K Bar K Dorsets. For more information on our sheep, please see our Flock page.
The Farm Help We have five dogs on the farm, a two Border Collies (Ben and Maggie), and twp livestock guardian dogs (Great Pyrenees). The picture of the Border Collies includes a picture of Ned (on the left) who was Ben's sire, and a great herding dog. We brought him home with us from Montana. He was put down in 2000 at the ripe old age of 15. We still miss him.
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Ken
and Kathy Soder first became interested in raising sheep in 1991 when we
moved 2000 miles west (from Pennsylvania to Montana) for Kathy to pursue
her Master's degree in Animal Science at Montana State University.
With very little previous sheep experience, we suddenly found ourselves in
charge of 500-1000 sheep (depending on season) at the university sheep
farm where we lived (Fort Ellis Experimental Research Station), and Kathy
conducted research with a 500 ewe flock on the university ranch (Red
Bluff) 35 miles away. Let me tell you, there is nothing like
hands-on experience to drill hard lessons into your head. After
finishing her degree, they remained in Montana for two more years, with
Kathy working at the Montana Wool Laboratory, and Ken building new houses
in the area. At one point, Ken went on a sheep shearing crew, and
met a lot of great Montana ranchers, saw a lot of territory, and had some
experiences he will never forget. He shears our flock now, as seen in
the picture to the right. Kathy obtained her Wool Classer
certification and also traveled with the shearing crews. 
After
working for two years we decided to move back home for Kathy to pursue a
PhD in Animal Science at Penn State. We sure miss Montana and would
love to live there again, but don't regret our decision to move.
Once again we packed everything into the U-Haul and traveled 2000
miles. Kathy has since finished that degree (yes, we are finished
traveling across the country.....at least for awhile), and is working for
USDA-ARS as an Animal Scientist. Ken is very versatile in his
working abilities, and is currently working as a zoning officer for a
local township (with a hankering to become a full-time farmer). A
year after moving back to PA, we purchased a 17 acre farmette with two barns, an OLD house, and an apple
orchard.
One year later (October 1997) we brought home our first sheep, which was
the beginnings of K Bar K Farm. In April 2002 we sold the first farm
and purchased a 96 acre farm
about 40 miles south of the other farm, and moved the flock. The
motivation for the move was
a combination of a desire to escape development pressure and to obtain more
land to expand our flock.
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