I'm reading Reay Tannahill's Food in History, and one of the things the author talks about is the sheer number and variety of sheep throughout Europe and the Near East. At one point, she makes the claim that there were roughly three times as many sheep as people in England in the 15th century. She also uses a quote that says that the population of 90 000 of Florence ate 60 000 sheep per year, in addition to other meats. However, this doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
So where did all the sheep go? Tannahill has made some claims that I think are a bit suspect over the course of the book, but I want to believe that there was - as she puts it - a "cheese mountain." Why don't we like sheep anymore?
The number of sheep dropped off because we found better, more efficient sources of their two main products: textiles (wool) and meat. Sheep will eat just about anything, can live in cold climates, and grow an average 7.2 pounds of wool. Sheep's wool doesn't breathe well or make the most comfortable clothing, but it was a local source of material that worked.
Cotton is a more comfortable clothing option, but it can't grow in Europe's cold climate and was labor intensive. Producing a pound of cotton required several hours of picking out the seeds by hand. When Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin in 1794, a single gin could be used to process over 50 pounds of cotton a day.
In 1857, Jackson County Texas had 1,800 acres of cotton that yielded 1,700 pounds of seed cotton per acre. Seeds are about 15 percent of the harvest. That leaves 2.601 million pounds of cotton lint. Even if we increase the average sheep yield from 7.2 to 10 pounds, it would take over 260 thousand sheep to equal the production of a single Texas county.
As for meat, the average sheep weighs 125lbs, while the average cow weighs 1,400lbs. Beef is simply the best choice for cheap protein.
hi! there was a related post last week regarding consumption of lamb in North America that may be relevant, depending on where you're located:
Why/how did North Americans stop eating lamb in favour of other meats?