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Wonderful pictures, thank you for the thread! Those four-horners are very striking. I grew up around my parents' flock of a few hundred sheep, so these pictures and videos throw me right back to childhood. Every spring we'd build a "barn" with straw bale walls and a rough fencepole & tarp roof and pen the sheep next to it, then park our little old camp trailer nearby. Mom and dad would trade off spending the night at the camper so they could handle night births. I'd frequently wake up to find a lamb or two in the bathtub after a ewe died on a cold night. At about 6 years old, I was pulling lambs... I think my small child hands were able to get in there and straighten out hooves/head pretty easily. The worst job was fixing prolapses, because it took a lot of work and you were always afraid they'd just prolapse again when you removed the retainer. I don't remember exactly what breeds we had, just that there were some with bald black heads and some with white heads & wooly foreheads... maybe Suffolks and Columbias? My folks got out of the sheep business when I was still in elementary school (switched to cattle) but my sister is currently lambing out her small flock. It's funny how 1) everyone uses those same black rubber feed trays, and 2) all lambs love to lay in them.
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Mar 18, 2020 15:47
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Related, I always found it interesting that the retainer you put in after replacing a prolapse looks a lot like a stylized female reproductive system:
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Mar 19, 2020 00:34
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StrixNebulosa posted:What does "dip his navel" mean? There's a couple inches of umbilical cord which remain attached to the lamb for a bit. You dip it in iodine to disinfect and, I believe, help it dry out faster. After a while, the cord dries up and falls off.
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Mar 19, 2020 14:03
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Yep! If you leave it dragging around it can pick up bacteria which usually travel to the joints causing “joint ill” or “navel ill”. Common practice is to clip the umbilical cord so it doesn’t drag if it’s particularly long and then dip it in a strong iodine solution to get it clean and drying quick. Clip, dip, strip (the teat to make sure the wax plug is gone and lambs can nurse) is what they tell you to remember. How long does it usually take the cord to dry up and fall off? I don't remember after so long, although I know us kids tended to watch the process sorta like we'd watch a loose tooth getting looser and looser. Also, I didn't know about the joint ill connection, so thanks!
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Mar 19, 2020 14:19
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Instant Jellyfish posted:They're usually dry in 12-24 hours if you've used the strong iodine, it can take a week or two to fall off though. Did you band tails/testicles too? I know a lot of kids who like to wait for the tails to drop off. Grosses me out! I cut mine so it's just done and over with. I know my folks had the bander and a big bag of bands sitting around, but IIRC they eventually settled on cutting for testicles and a hot knife for the tails. I think they considered the bands kinda risky due to infection, plus it took a long time and sometimes failed. We'd typically fill a gallon zip-lock or two with testicles because my folks knew somebody who ate them, but the rest + the tails went in piles on the ground for cleanup later. The dogs seemed to like grabbing the tails... not to eat, just to carry around for a little bit and drop somewhere when they got bored. If I had sheep now, I'd try cooking up some of the testicles. Have you ever tried them?
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Mar 19, 2020 14:59
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Instant Jellyfish posted:I haven't eaten any testicles but mostly because I don't usually eat rams. My meat buyer prefers intact rams so I put older ewes in the freezer for myself. That's interesting. We castrated all male lambs, because that's what the meat lamb market wanted; I didn't know there were people who specifically wanted intact adult rams for meat. Brains are one thing I tend to steer clear of and I think it's a good policy. I had a lamb brain curry at a Pakistani restaurant and it was delicious, but that's my sole flirtation with the forbidden skull treats. Apologies if you've mentioned it before, but how much land are you using for the sheep? Based on your pregnancy test spreadsheet earlier in the thread, it looks like you've got about 20 ewes and some number of rams... which might suggest around 5 acres? but I have no idea if you're primarily grazing them or feeding them from hay most of the year. I'd like to eventually end up on 10+ acres and get sheep of my own, so I'm eyeballing your operation for inspiration since it's way more applicable to what I want vs. the way my parents fed their sheep. Your meat + wool + hides setup is very much the sort of thing I hope to get into.
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Mar 19, 2020 15:25
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I demand videos of lamb tails wiggling as they nurse! Pro-tip you almost certainly already know: if the tail ain't wagging, just tickle the base and it'll start right up.
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Mar 25, 2020 16:56
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Wiggle tail  Love that cheeky little dude trying to sneak some milk from the next pen!
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Mar 26, 2020 18:03
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Big Betty did not have two ewes and a ram but she did have a ram and a ewe and that's pretty good too. She waited until I was busy last night and the lambs must have walked right out of her and all over the barn. Luckily I found them both and once I set them up in a jug they couldn't escape they did just fine. The ram is 8 lbs 2 oz and the ewe is 7 lb 3 oz. Big babies for big Betty! Whoa, Big Betty, had a ram
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Apr 9, 2020 16:42
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Instant Jellyfish posted:That’s him! They all have apple varieties as names this year or I would have used one of those who excellent suggestions. There are only so many apples that start with W. Seriously disappointed by the lack of a lamb named Cosmic Crisp.
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Apr 28, 2020 14:41
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drrockso20 posted:I assume that fence isn't powerful enough to do any real harm to the sheep Anything sold as an electric fence should be fine for the sheep. I've touched my fair share and they're unpleasant... for as long as you're getting shocked. It doesn't burn you etc.
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May 8, 2020 00:23
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YeahTubaMike posted:What a dramatic and sensitive young man. The Sorrows of Young Wether? obviously if he was a wether, OP wouldn't have borrowed him...
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Oct 19, 2020 14:51
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Chaosfeather posted:Good advice for any species IMO. I'm not OP of course, but as I remember it our average bottle-raised bummer lamb was pretty hard to pick out of a flock, but my personal pets (if they survived, the "pets" were the ones that needed the most babying) would come up to you.
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Apr 6, 2021 23:21
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Instant Jellyfish posted:Woodrose has some vaporub on her nose so they'll smell the same. Oh drat, I had forgotten about this particular trick. Mom never really used vaporub on us kids, but she definitely put it on the sheep!
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Apr 9, 2021 18:21
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My sister's flock just dropped the first lamb. It's currently -14F at her house. The lamb is ok, though. Looking forward to seeing your reports too!
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Dec 31, 2021 08:37
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Celestriad posted:Well, we don't let sex happen willy-nilly around here. So the girls end up frustrated because they want the D and it's not forthcoming (I am not dealing with kids in February, ladies. Too cold). So what's a girl to do? Yes, you're correct. Country goats make do. If a buck isn't there to sex them, it's lesbian orgy time. Cattle do this too. If you put marking chalk on the top of their tails, you can tell who's in heat by checking who got their chalk rubbed off. This is useful for artificial insemination: you have special feed bunks installed which can be locked to hold their heads in during feeding. Every morning, you lock them up at feeding time, then the AI guy walks down the line with a bunch of semen samples and inseminates any animal with the chalk rubbed off. Fast, cheap, and easy to read. Your illustrations absolutely kick rear end, btw!
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Oct 6, 2022 06:37
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I've been reading this guy's articles lately and have found them quite interesting. I'm sure the actual sheep/goat farmers ITT already know pretty much everything he covers, but it's good stuff regardless: https://www.whitecloversheepfarm.com/prl-articles.htm He does videos too... I find the "head gate" a less disgusting method for lamb adoption than the old "dead lamb cloak" technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aCTHfOgcf8
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Mar 9, 2023 01:42
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