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The development of sheep stocks has been declining in Germany for years. The reason for this seems to be the tense economic situation in sheep farming. To verify this thesis as well as analyzing essential factors on the economy, data from all in Germany active advisory initiatives of the years 2013 to 2019 were brought together and, as far as possible, placed on a comparable basis. As part of a follow-up project, regular surveys on economic efficiency in sheep farming are to be continued and evaluated centrally by uniform data masks by the advisory initiatives. The present investigation refers to the profitability results of > 700 farm surveys on full-time holdings with > 450.000 ewes in 8 federal states. The results show that for a total income of € 280 €/ewe + year, about 60% comes from public grants. In spite of this high proportion of funding, no positive calculatory operating result will be achieved in German sheep farming. In practice, this is compensated by a low reward of own work of about 6 €/hour. Increased public grants, lamb prices and/or productivity figures are required for a working time reward of > 15 €/hour, corresponding to agricultural level. In this context the relatively high lamb prices in the year 2021 are a welcome development. Due to large differences between holdings, regions and years, the results show partly large variations. For improving the economic situation in sheep farming, optimization options must also be exhausted in the shepherds, e.g. on the use of consulting services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]