Sheep producers - Where do you sell you stock?

I don't know how this forum is mixed between homesteaders and livestock producers or if there is a distinction.  But as I look into sheep more and more, I have this lingering question:  "where are people selling their sheep"?  I have encountered small producers marketing as CSA, and small farmers selling at local auction, with a few focused on selling registered stock to other would be breeders.

If a person raised 100 lambs a year or 1,000 is their a commodity market in the US?  I know as a consumer lamb is hard to find outside specialty meat shops and gourmet grocers.  AI searches tell me that the U.S. is one of the largest producers and consumers of lamb.  It also tells me that ranchers are marketing to specialized finishers/packers on contract.  Is that the way it goes?  Are there local markets aside from small local livestock auctions?

As with most things agriculture the rub seems to be in the marketing and less in the production.  In your experience where do you sell your stock?

Hey Jack.  Thanks for starting this thread, I look forward to hearing how folks approach this.

We raise Border Cheviots, but we're shooting for a classic style of Cheviot.  That's a dual purpose primitive breed of hill sheep that is low lanolin and has a unique wool crimp.  Being a more primitive breed, they are slower growing.  They are a bit small for butchering at the end of their first season, unless we sell them for specialty butchering.  This all matters because it affects how we sell them.

We use a tiered system for the 'destination' of each sheep.  We re-assess each time we evaluate them...usually once every 3-6 months.  As they develop, they may start looking better or worse and that can change our decision.

1. The very tippy top, we keep for breeding stock.
2. The tier below that, we sell to other shepherds as breeding stock.
3. If they aren't breed stock quality, but are still well conforming, we sell them as show animals, 'brusher flocks', or 'pets'.  Sheep used for sheepdog training fall into this category.
4. If their body is poor but their fleece is good, we will sell them as fiber animals.  Thee rams get castrated.
5. If their fiber is poor quality, they are sold for meat.

I'm sure you were only asking about meat sales, but I wanted to point the rest of this out to say that we make more money on ANY other alternative than we do on meat animals.  The rates of profitability also follow that order.

For meat, there are options, but they are all pretty low profit without some work (Marketing).
- We never go to a stockyard, it only loses money for us.
- For the least promising, we don't grow through the first winter and sell for specialty butcher.  We sell to a few halal butchers that process on property.  We turn a moderate profit on each animal, but it is ZERO hassle.
- More promising meat animals, we will grow through the winter and re-evaluate.  
- Exceptional meat animals we take to a USDA cutter to be able to sell by the cut.  We only do the exceptional animals because in W.WA any small scale USDA cutter ends up costing us $5/pound when it is all said and done.
- All else we sell to ethnic markets and our halal butchers, but we break even after paying to fed them through the winter.

Added benefit to the low lanolin breed.  They don't get muttony.  This means that I can sell older animals to our halal butchers as well.  I also process older animals for our own consumption.  It's a nice perk to have viable meat on the hoof for so much longer.  Most folks aren't fond of mutton.

For the USDA cuts: at this point, $10/pound is our break-even for USDA inspected and cut meat.  We sell some into local CSAs and a couple of local restaurants, but after the fees or discounts they require this ends up being about break-even for us.  Any real profit in this space is marketing organic, grass-only, lamb by the cut.  We can turn significant profits per pound, but it is significant effort to move enough cuts.  The markets that will pay are 60-80 miles away.