I was reading aa version of the Hebrew Bible with extensive commentary and I noticed during the section on animal sacrificed it mentioned that two lambs a day would be sacrificed at the Tabernacle. If this number is accurate (which it might not be, since the number of people was apparently very inflated), how did the priesthood have such a large supply of lambs? If you do the math, sheep only have one or two offspring at a time so you would have to have a very large herd to be able to sacrifice two a day and maintain the population.
Most historians agree that the majority of the professions of Israel in biblical times were agrarian in nature or one of the offshoot professions such as leather tanning or milling.
According to biblical accounts, at the dedication of Solomon's temple, 120,000 sheep were sacrificed over a two week period. The census under Solomon's father David made the claim that there were 1.3 million able bodied men of fighting age. Doing the math means that if every able bodied man attended, they would need one sheep per every tenth man.
A flock of sheep can be as small as 5 or as many as 1,500. Typically a single family of shepherds would have between 100-300 female sheep, with roughly 1 male per 50 females. Most of the males will be culled each year, the first born males are separated from the nursing herd and will become temple sacrifices.
First I should point out that sheep can breed beginning as young as 8 months old. Roughly a third of first season sheep will have multiple births (twins and triplets) so a herd with 100 first season sheep could produce 130+ offspring. Roughly half will be males meaning the herd will have grown to 160+ after culling. Most sheep species come into season once per year so the next years births could number over 200. Separating out the males leaves the herd at around 260+ sheep. The only limiting factors for the size of the herd is the available grazing land and number of shepherds.
Sheep between the ages of three and six years of age have the highest chance of producing multiple offspring so with older sheep a higher number of births can be expected.
According to William K. Gilders, Associate Professor at Emory University, the majority of offerings to the Temple were consumed by the priests.
"Ascending offerings" were herd animals, usually first born males, that would be entirely burnt by the altar fire.
In a "Fellowship offering" only a portion of the animal would be burned, usually the kidneys, innards, and a portion of the liver. The rest would be cooked and consumed by the priests.
He goes on to explain more elements that aren't really relevant here. The key takeaway I believe is that a large amount of the sacrifices are simply a means to feed the priests. Two sheep per day doesn't really seem that many when each herd can more than double in size every other year.
To be clear two sheep per day is seven hundred and thirty sheep per year. A thousand sheep can be expected to produce at least a thousand three hundred offspring. If half of those offspring are male it will provide nearly the entire years needs for the temple. That would be the production of only 4-10 families of shepherds.