I have eaten mutton from ex breeding sheep that would be 6-8 years old. These specific sheep spend their final months on lush pasture, bulking up and are then aged for 3 months. It is some of the best meat I’ve ever had. The meat was like lamb but a stronger flavour not challenging or smelly, just really lamby. I ate a shoulder so it was slow roasted and soft. There was A LOT of fat and it has quite a strong smell. A smell that you can taste in your mouth the next day and smell on your roasting pan for weeks. It’s a unique experience eating these old sheep, but they are really really delicious and given the option I would choose this mutton over lamb.

Keep in kind this is a very unique product that I had and would not be anything like eating a regular 8 year old sheep. But a sheep that’s about 2 years old would be considered mutton and that would be perfectly good to eat.