|
Since I was done with my own creatures having babies I had some time to pick up my other new babies. They're actually older than all the others on my farm, they turned 2 months yesterday. One of them now has a bright blue dot on her forehead so I can tell them apart. They're in quarantine for a bit but soon enough they will get to join in the XTREME GOAT FIGHTS.     Chunkers is getting to be huge, but he's still very sweet and polite and likes to scratch you back when you scratch his neck. 
|
#
?
May 16, 2013 16:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 15:54 |
|
|
So friggin cute. Both females?
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2013 17:27
|
|
|
Enelrahc posted:So friggin cute. Both females? Yep. The owner was hoping for red buck kids for his son to show at the fair but got twin white does instead so was selling them super cheap. Their sire is a CAGBA registered white from red lines and the dam is an unregistered grey with white splashes. I guess in previous years they have produced all sorts of colorful kids, including a tricolor, so I'm hoping these girls produce interesting kids when they're bred. White mohair yarn that we've dyed sells really well too so we're happy to have a bunch more white kid mohair to get spun this fall. Eventually, if these kids turn out well, I'm hoping to phase out my crazy white goats and replace them with more normal white ones that are perhaps better at being mammals.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2013 20:02
|
|
|
Primrose remains perfect as always in case you we wondering. It looks like she'll only have 2 horns, which is just fine by me.  She's getting so fluffy!  Bracken's nose is filling in finally.  Tiny sheep is 5 lbs now and will be a week old tomorrow. She's almost as heavy as the rest of the Jacob lambs were when they were born. 
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2013 21:18
|
|
|
Are you all sick of baby animals? I thought I'd mix things up by talking about the most exciting part of lambing, paperwork! Most of my animals are either registered or able to be registered through various breed clubs. This adds some value when I sell breeding stock and helps keep them out of freezer camp. Each breed club has a different registration process and requirements so after everyone is born, evaluated and has been assigned a flock number I get to start filling out forms. The Jacob sheep are all registered with JSBA, the Jacob Sheep Breeders Association. JSBA is my favorite breed club and I think they're the most effective and useful of the breed clubs I'm involved with. The studbook is open so you can register a sheep even if its parents aren't registered but every single sheep you register, even if they can trace their pedigree back to the first Jacobs in America, needs to be inspected through photographs by 3 different judges. I think this is a nice compromise that allows new blood in while not allowing poor specimens to take over the gene pool just because they're from registered parents. Since horns are important to the breed the registration form has a whole section on horns. Scurs are tiny horns with no real blood supply that knock off easily. SUED is an upper eyelid defect caused by the gene that causes multiple horns. They expect you to be honest because sheep people are generally honest folk and they can double check with the pictures. Rams are judged more critically than ewes so while a ram with weak horns and SUED might get rejected, an ewe with the same issues could pass. The thought is that ewes aren't going to have more than ~25 lambs in their lifetime, a ram can have that many and more each year.  The romeldale/CVMs are registered with the American Romeldale CVM Association, which is geared towards more high production outfits than small flocks that like personal attention. Any sheep that is more than half romeldale can be registered as long as it has been tested for scrapie resistance, and if crossed with a "black faced" breed they suggest testing for the spider lamb gene as well. I really like that they keep the breed open to outcrosses and encourage genetic testing. A sheep isn't rejected for being QQ (least resistant to scrapie) but it forces breeders to be more informed about their flocks. Of course sending blood or tissue samples off for testing means even more paperwork for me to fill out! The only problem is that the form is designed terribly and the boxes are tiny. Also some of the colors have such a long name or complicated combinations of patterns that it gets really confusing.  The cormos require all sheep in the animal's pedigree to go back to the founding flock in Australia so my new boys can't be registered since Al, their sire, is part of an outcross to bring in colored fleece and better hooves to the breed. Cormo fleece is so valuable that it doesn't really matter that they're not registered as long as they're soft. Lastly comes the goats who are registered or recorded with CAGBA, the colored angora goat breeders association. Like everything with goats its the most confusing and weird breed organization I'm a part of. If both of the goat's parents are registered you just have to sign a paper that says "yep its a goat" and they'll register it as soon as its on the ground. If one or both of the goat's parents aren't registered you have two options, you can record them with the registry or you can go through inspection in the hopes of getting them registered. Recording just means that the registry will give you a number and keep the pedigree on file, which is cheap and has its benefits when you sell the animal. You have to wait until the goat is at least 6 months old though because it asks for the color at birth and the color at 6 months. Apparently if its registered it doesn't matter what color it changes into but if its recorded they want every detail. They still don't ask for any pictures or anything to verify, you just sign that it is indeed a goat and they take your word for it. If you want to get your unregistered goat registered because you feel its a good specimen and fits the breed standard you have to get it inspected. You can do this by hauling the goat to a show where they're doing inspections or by doing a photo inspection. The photo inspection is excessively complicated and only done once a year and they actually prefer you to send a VHS of the whole thing instead of photos because so many people use VHS tapes now. Here is everything they need to see during inspection:  You also need to mail in the goat's whole fleece (that can be up to 5 lbs of fleece) and pay for them to send it back to you whenever they get around to it. You can tell why photo inspections are not done very often. Weirdly all of this paperwork gets sent in to the same guy, John at Accuregister. He is in charge of it all. So when I'm done filling out all my many forms and writing my many checks to various organizations I just stuff it into one envelope and mail it to him. Of course while I'm in filling out forms the sheep are out chillin' like it ain't no thing  
Instant Jellyfish fucked around with this message at 23:00 on May 20, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 20, 2013 15:49
|
|
|
The one on the left looks pretty smug about it all.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2013 19:12
|
|
|
Instant Jellyfish posted:
Ain't no party like a lambing party  Adorable sheepies! Can't wait for more pics!
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2013 19:13
|
|
|
Instant Jellyfish posted:Are you all sick of baby animals? Ain't no one tired of baby animals  quote:
Maybe it's just me, but this stuff is super interesting too to be honest. quote:Of course while I'm in filling out forms the sheep are out chillin' like it ain't no thing AHHHH look at the spotty son of a bitch on the end, love it! It's a good thing I'm not anywhere near you, because if I was close by all of your lambs would have atrophied leg muscles since there'd be no need for them to walk due to me carrying them all the time.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2013 20:03
|
|
on registration
|
Wait, Jacobs can have five horns? How does that work, do they get a unicorn horn or do they get a lopsided 3/2 split? (And why not 3 horns, why only 2,4,5, or 6?) Also I don't want to look up "spider lamb" it sounds awful. Sheeps are pretty cute though. :] Look at those sheeps. Primrose is a perfect name for the perfect lamb.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2013 20:05
|
|
|
I am a Thoroughbred person and on multiple occasions have gotten into arguments about the Jockey Club's registration rules. The discussion about the forms for registering sheep and goats was one of my favorite parts of this thread. I am a sad person. If you ever want to nerd out about sheep and goat colors I would be super excited. When a goat is "recorded" and not "registered", do their offspring have to go through the same process? Doesn't that lead to a whole section of the breed being kind of cut off from the main part, or can you just register the offspring of recorded goats at birth or something? That registration process sounds terrible. Also seconding why no option for three horns, but one for five?
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2013 21:04
|
|
|
I have no idea why 3 isn't an option because I know it comes up. One of the Things has 3 horns but one is technically a scur. Odd numbers of horns usually come about when horn buds aren't split all the way and the horns fuse together so technically both sides have the same number of horns but on one side a couple horns are fused. So for 5 horned sheep they would have 3 differentiated horns on one side and 2 plus a fused one on the other. 6 horned sheep are pretty rare so I'm having trouble finding a picture of one but here's the skull of a 5 horned one. I'm guessing one of the horns on the other side is 2 horns fused together.  Aravenna posted:I am a Thoroughbred person and on multiple occasions have gotten into arguments about the Jockey Club's registration rules. The discussion about the forms for registering sheep and goats was one of my favorite parts of this thread. I am a sad person. If you ever want to nerd out about sheep and goat colors I would be super excited. Recorded goats can only have recorded offspring unless you put them through the lovely registration by inspection process or if they have 3+ offspring that go through that process and get approved for registration the parent is approved by default. If your goat is older than 7 thats the only way it get become registered because they have to be between 1-6 years old for the inspection. The recording form just makes you say what color it is and sign off that it looks pretty much like a goat. If you know the parents you can write down their info and they'll store a pedigree for you. It does lead to a whole bunch of goats that are either recorded but never registered or people don't even bother recording them and just either keep pedigrees themselves or don't. Offspring of registered goats can be registered without inspection, you just need to put down the parents reg #, the goat's color, and sign saying you swear it really looks like a goat and away you go. I like the JSBA process much better. You have to submit pictures for every animal, but only 4 and if they want a fleece sample you only need to send a 1"x1" sample instead of shipping a whole fleece. The reg # is different based on how many generations of registered sheep are in the pedigree but the registration process is no different if your lamb has 10 generations of purebred registered sheep behind it or if you found it randomly in an auction and just think it looks like a pure jacob. I'm ordering a book on sheep color genetics that the lady I got my romeldales from helped with so I'll try to do a sheep and goat color genetics post at some point. It's all extension gene craziness for all of them.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2013 21:43
|
|
|
[quote="Instant Jellyfish" post="415641872"] Are you all sick of baby animals? NEVER! And I would never get tired of pictures of your adorable critters! Thank you so much for sharing and the education! 
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2013 02:47
|
|
|
Please post all of the nerdiness regarding paperwork, genetics, colors, breeding, ALL OF IT. This entire topic is endlessly fascinating to me.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2013 04:27
|
|
|
I'm so glad people found that interesting. I'll try to keep adding some "behind the scenes" sort of farming stuff. Interspersed with adorable babies of course. Besides the piles of paperwork I also like to do a post-lambing retrospective to see what went right, what went wrong and what I need to change for this fall. This year I had 10 live babies out of 9 pregnancies for a sort of mediocre 110% lambing rate. If I factor in the dead lambs that brings it up to a much more successful 145% and if I look at just the animals that were bred at my farm (which means I controlled their pre-breeding nutrition, the key to conceiving multiples) it jumps up to 180%. This means that my issues weren't with early nutrition, fertility or conception but with live lambing. For the animals that weren't bred on my farm they are all breeds that commonly twin so I'm guessing the drought impacted nutrition at the farms they came from causing them to conceive only singles. Of the lambs that were born alive the jacobs had a lower than average birthweight. Usually its around 7.5 lbs, even for twins. This year even if I remove the tiny lamb outlier they're averaging around 6.5 lbs. The romeldales and cormo on the other hand had really big babies. Its my first year for both of those breeds but from what I've seen they should average around 10-12 lbs, a 15 lb lamb is freakishly giant. This tells me I need better control of the nutrition the sheep are getting in the last month of pregnancy so I can make sure the jacobs get more and the giant moose sheep get less. I did body condition scoring when I sheared the pregnant ewes and notice the jacobs were all 2s and 2+s so I tried to up their food intake by hand feeding the skinnier ones but clearly I need to do more. Right now my plan is to totally rebuild my main pen in the barn into one that is both larger and can be divided easier. That way I can house different groups with different feeding needs next spring and have more spaces for lambing so that ewes aren't distracted by all the other sheep in the pen which will hopefully make them more attentive to cleaning off twins instead of focusing so much on the first born. I'm also going to have to use either marking harnesses or raddle powder on my boys so I have a better idea when lambs are due. That way I can keep ewes in more private areas when I know they are due and that should help reduce birth mortality. I'm also going to try feeding at mid-day next spring because I've heard that helps prevent middle of the night babies which drive me nuts. And now for some goats. I have discovered keeping small goats anywhere against their will is next to impossible so I ended the most pathetic quarantine ever a bit early. New goats are much happier and are fitting in with the rest of the gang well.  This one is Pearl.  And this one is Opal.    
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2013 17:03
|
|
|
Please tell me Opal got blue smudgies from snuggling Pearl. 
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2013 17:51
|
|
|
Instant Jellyfish posted:jacobs were all 2s and 2+s Can you tell noobs like me more about this scale? 2 out of 3 is a pretty fat critter whereas 2 out of 10 like on the dog grading scale is practically dead.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2013 20:04
|
|
|
I really need to convince my aunt to post more pictures of her goat babies. They're a little breed, so the newborn kids are smaller than her pet cats and it is adorable.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2013 20:50
|
|
|
four lean hounds posted:Please tell me Opal got blue smudgies from snuggling Pearl. You know it  daggerdragon posted:Can you tell noobs like me more about this scale? 2 out of 3 is a pretty fat critter whereas 2 out of 10 like on the dog grading scale is practically dead. Sure! I actually meant to do that before and then forgot halfway through writing all of that. Small ruminants have a body condition score out of 5, 1 being emaciated 5 being blimp. 2s are skinny and you don't want them to drop lower but not a crisis, a 2+ is leaning towards an average meaty sheep but not quite there. Jacobs in general are lean and don't carry much fat (or at least they shouldn't) so I would be happy with them all being 2+s with my older girls closer towards 3s because they tend to get sick and lose faster than the young ones. Some people like all their sheep to be 3+s and 4s but I've found that they're also the ones who need to go in and pull lambs or have issues with prolapses. It's also really hard to tell the condition of sheep until you really get your hands on them or you shear them because they all look fat with all the wool they carry and their big giant rumens. You have to be able to feel the ribs to be sure. Here's a chart:  Right now they're on lush pasture full time and I've had to cut back on grain supplementation almost entirely because the romeldales were getting to be 4s. Most of the jacobs are 3s, except Jazz, Juniper and Jewel who are 2+s and putting a ton into nursing their lambs but I don't want to grain them too much because it gives them the runs. I'll probably keep them at 2+ until breeding time then work them up to a solid 3 to encourage twinning and try to keep them there their whole pregnancy. I may have to lean down the romeldales first to do this.
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2013 20:58
|
|
|
I made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at a Klan rally today. Just kidding, I was vending at the Great Lakes Fiber Show today and took a break to go check out the sheep show. These guys are Hampshires.  I think these were Cheviots?   Mouse-grey nose=Southdown.  This Border Leicester had some giant ribbons.   This one just wanted to take a nap.  I brought 6 lbs of skirted washed fleece to drop off at a mill that was doing pickup there and ended up taking 10 lbs of raw dirty fleece home. 
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 01:59
|
|
|
Instant Jellyfish posted:I made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at a Klan rally today.  What are those jackets even for? Surely those sheep don't have fleece on top of their heads, or between their ears and eyes. They look like those caparisons that used to be put on war horses.Why is one sheep lying in what looks like sawdust?
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 03:23
|
|
|
Yeah, how come your sheep don't have sweet superhero costumes?
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 04:15
|
|
|
If I had sheep, I would feel compelled to make those covers in ridiculous colors/themes... just because.
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 04:20
|
|
|
LoreOfSerpents posted:
Never underestimate the ability for a white creature to get completely loving filthy the moment you take your eyes off of them. Those breeds have large, competitive classes so the owners really want their sheep to be perfect. They are all washed, carded, moussed, whitened and chalked into show form a day or two before then trailered to the show with a bunch of other sheep so if you want them still looking nice and neat when you get there they have to wear the klan outfit. If you ever have a chance, go see a sheep show. They aren't like dog shows where the dogs know how to trot nicely around the ring, some of the sheep looked like they had never been on a halter before. They were leaping and bucking or just turned into a sheep puddle on the ground. It took two people to show them, one in front to drag and one behind to push. This worked out pretty well for the little cheviots but they were doing columbias as I was leaving. This is a columbia ram:  They were dragging people everywhere as I was in the corner trying not to die laughing. The sawdust/woodchip bedding is just because the southdown doesn't have very much wool at all for the show. Sheep with longer wool get straw bedding because its easy to pick out of wool right before judging, sawdust is cheaper and more absorbent but its hard to get out of wool so its saved for slick-sheared sheep. Radio! posted:Yeah, how come your sheep don't have sweet superhero costumes? I don't show sheep and if I did they wouldn't be competitive enough for me to bother coating them like that. I think if I took a jacob in the judge would direct me to the goat stage instead. The next time the JSBA annual general meeting and show is in my region I'll probably take a sheep or two just to support the show but I can't imagine dragging them to county fairs or anything. My romeldale/cvms are more like a "normal" sheep but there aren't any others in my area with them so I would just be competing against myself. The one thing that pissed me off at this show is that there were too many sheep with tails docked way higher than they should. Regulations set in 2002 are supposed to encourage longer docks, but not require it. These sheep didn't even have nubs to wiggle around and its like the owners don't even care that it doubles the risk of rectal prolapse. I don't know if its because judges won't place sheep with longer tails or if its just that no one wants to risk it. Instant Jellyfish fucked around with this message at 16:40 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 16:22
|
|
|
Breeders will do what they have to in order to win, and judges will continue to pick what they're used to, so breeders will continue doing things that help them win, and judges will continue picking those animals, and... that actually reminds me. Back when I was still (very casually) breeding sheep, I remember hearing that people were calling for slightly longer tails. So I left my lambs with about a half-inch nubbin. One of the 4-H families I sold a lamb to had her re-docked. Their leader said as long as they could lift the tail with the end of a sharpened pencil it was fine, and that anything longer than that wouldn't win.  See also: the poo poo-fits over getting rid of HYPP in the Quarter Horse world. Also, thank you Instant Jellyfish, for continually making me miss having sheep. RabbitMage fucked around with this message at 21:35 on May 26, 2013 |
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 21:32
|
|
|
Are there any interesting color/coat genetics you'd like to sperg about?
|
|
#
?
May 26, 2013 22:12
|
|
|
Tasty_Crayon posted:Are there any interesting color/coat genetics you'd like to sperg about? I'm still working on that post but for now have some babies having a frolic.  Tiny lamb has gained 5 lbs in 2 weeks and is now going nuts over the happy fun hole.  The sidewinder is the favorite lamb bouncing technique.  Another game they play is trying to touch the top of the shelter with their heads.  Getting ready.  Not quite tall enough yet.  King of the hill is the most popular lamb game behind racing. This box was a great addition to the pasture.  Goliath is the only one who can make it up easily.  Other lambs are crazy jealous.  Mooselings are still too small.  And their wrinkles weigh them down.  Maybe if Bracken did some squats he could get up there.  Censored by the box, but "surprise piggyback rides" are another common sheep game. Especially when there are children over.  Primrose is very narrowly avoiding one here.  The spool isn't as popular for some reason.  Too hard to get a foothold I guess. 
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2013 03:25
|
|
|
Instant Jellyfish posted:King of the hill is the most popular lamb game behind racing. This box was a great addition to the pasture. Empty boxes: not just for cats
|
|
#
?
May 28, 2013 17:28
|
|
|
I'll start with the jacob color genetics because they're the most simple and have the least number of variations. Jacob sheep are genetically black sheep with white spots, not the other way around. They can also come in lilac which is a slate blue or chocolate color which I believe are genetically distinct and there seems to be some genetic factor the causes early greying in the fleece but not the hair on the face and legs that looks like lilac when complete but is not. Most black sheep are black because of the A (or agouti) locus. The most dominant allele on the A locus is white but there are also a number of agouti pattern alleles that can be combined in a variety of ways that I'll discuss when I go over the romeldale/cvms. The most recessive allele on the A locus is a which is recessive black. This is the mechanism that causes most black sheep. Jacobs have to be special though and don't follow that pattern. Instead they are black due to the extension gene, which controls whether the A locus is expressed or not. The vast majority of sheep are E+/E+ which allow the agouti patterns to be fully expressed. This is the recessive form of the extension gene. Jacobs are (theoretically) all Ed/Ed, or dominant black. This is the dominant form of the gene and eclipses all A locus colors and patterns. This is why you don't have jacobs that look like spotty Goliath the cvm romeldale who has spots but in an agouti pattern instead of solid black. White spotting is a pattern, not a color. It's like dripping white paint over a canvas, it just covers up whatever color is under it. The characteristic spots are due to the recessive spotting pattern. All Jacob sheep are s/s and most jacob mixes are solid black because few other sheep breeds carry the spotting gene. Lilac has not been well studied but the chocolate variety seems to me to be a simple recessive gene just like moorit/brown in other sheep breeds. Like chocolate labs its just black turned in to brown with a flip of the genetic switch. In other sheep it is b/b so I'm guessing that's what it is in jacobs too. This is what a fairly dark chocolate lilac looks like.  Blue or true lilac is a slate blue color. It makes sense to me that it is like the blue in weimaraners and there is a d gene in sheep but this hasn't been confirmed or studied at all. This is a true lilac jacob.  I'm sort of curious about what would happen if you bred a chocolate lilac to a true lilac but I don't have either so no chance to test it. Dennis and Jewel from my flock have both developed grey fleece but have solid black on their faces and legs so they aren't either form of lilac but it's also not just sun fading or mineral deficiency. One person I talked to suggested that this could be a sign that they are Ed/E+. She has one of Dennis' daughters that when bred to an icelandic ram produced lambs in all sorts of interesting colors that could happen if they were fully expressing their A locus instead of being Ed/E+. I think a lot of fading jacobs either get categorized as true lilacs or get culled for not retaining their color. I've heard of solid white jacobs being born from normal spotted parents which could just be that they are covered in one giant spot, but it could also be that they are white on the A locus and came from two Ed/E+ parents. You can see how pale Jewel's body has gotten here. She was born with solid black spots but when I registered her at a year old the inspectors wrote to ask me if I was mistaken about her color and she was actually a lilac. I sent them pictures of her as a lamb and she's registered black now. Its suggested that you cull fading sheep, but screw that.  Thats the tricky thing about animals that are supposedly homozygous for dominant genes, you never really know for sure unless you do outcrosses or end up with things you don't expect.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2013 15:33
|
|
|
Double posting yet again but as I was driving home from saving a giant snapping turtle from a busy road I had a thought about my fading sheep. The parts that have remained black are their hair, not their wool. In sheep the hair on their face and legs is all that's left of their guard hairs while the wool is the undercoat. In sheep like the icelandic where the wool still has the guard hairs they can end up with colored faces and colored guard hairs but the wool that comes in underneath is either white or very faded. Just like my fading sheep. This doesn't happen with all colored icelandic sheep though. Some have undercoats that are the same color as the guard hairs.  Suffolk sheep are similar. The hair is all black, but the wool is white.  There must be some genetic process that makes the wool a different color from the guard hairs on the face and legs. The icelandic sheep people call this color grey and they can be either black grey or moorit grey. Here is an example of a spotted black grey icelandic sheep who has a faded spot just like my Jewel's:  Here's a spotted black icelandic without a greying gene looking so you can see the difference:  The only issue with this is that icelandic people say that this greying gene is on the A locus and theoretically my jacobs shouldn't be expressing anything on the A locus. Its always possible that instead of being dominant black that some jacobs are actually recessive black and expressing the A locus because it would look exactly the same until you did some test crosses.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2013 04:30
|
|
|
Wow. That is all fascinating. I've always been into goats, but your thread has been making me think that it might be kinda cool to have a couple sheep around too. I know they are messier and harder on pasture, but omg, they are really starting to sound very interesting to me. Thank you for the intro to sheep color. Any more you could say about it would be extremely interesting. You said that Dennis and Jewel had a lamb that is now having very colorful offspring of her own. Do you happen to have any pics?
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2013 19:03
|
|
|
Haji posted:Wow. That is all fascinating. I've always been into goats, but your thread has been making me think that it might be kinda cool to have a couple sheep around too. I know they are messier and harder on pasture, but omg, they are really starting to sound very interesting to me. Sheep are pretty awesome and if anything mine are way easier than my goats. My goat sample may be skewed though.  I still have 2 other sheep breeds and the goat colors to discuss  Hopefully people find it interesting! It was actually Dennis' daughter from another farm that had the interesting lambs. Dennis has spread his seed all over Ohio as I'm finding out. I looked for any pictures of those lambs but the lady didn't put them up on her blog and she didn't bring any sheep to Great Lakes this year.Today I went out to do some shearing for the people who own a ram from my first breeding season, Roman. He's Twofer and Johnnie's brother.  I didn't get an after picture because I was trying to get 9 sheep done in one afternoon but I'll try to steal one when the owners post them. I was so proud of that boy! He's big and stout and just lovely. His horns are a little too close, but not bad, and he didn't get the fading from his dad Dennis or freckling from his mom Jazz. He's really the best traits of both of them (although he could use a bit less of Jazz's additude, he apparently killed another ram when he first got there). I also did this guy who is a karakul ram named Cthulhu. His hair was so matted and scratchy and terrible. Ugh. I told them he needs shearing twice a year because he was a mess.  I could not figure out what was going on with his rear end, but it turns out karakuls are a fat tailed sheep so he just had like a beaver tail covered in more itchy hair. He turned out to be a pretty handsome guy under all that. 
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2013 22:55
|
|
|
Holy crap, what a difference! And please never stop posting sheep and goat stuff. It's all fascinating.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2013 22:57
|
|
|
Instant Jellyfish posted:I made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at a Klan rally today. You've spotted the elusive black white supremacist! Instant Jellyfish posted:
What is that statue doing to the sheep?!
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2013 23:08
|
|
|
HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:What is that statue doing to the sheep?! The guy in the middle looks like Bob Hoskins.
|
|
#
?
May 31, 2013 13:48
|
|
|
HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:What is that statue doing to the sheep?! Oh man I was making sure I found a picture where it didn't look like the sheep was teabagging someone but that is so much worse  The people I sheared for on Thursday posted pictures so I am shamelessly stealing them. Any font choices are on them, not me. This was a teeny shetland ram. I did him in the pouring rain which was tons of fun.  The massive suffolk ram who turned out to be really sweet and mellow. Compare where the arms of the stand are between him and the shetland.  My handsome boy all grown up   And I already shared this guy but whatever.  I was going to take pictures of the wensleydale ram I sheared yesterday but it ended up being a horrifying bloodbath that really didn't need to be recorded. The sheep was fine, the owner didn't care at all but it was a total mess.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2013 17:53
|
|
|
How are sheeps' memories? Does Roman recognize you when you see him?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2013 23:15
|
|
|
Radio! posted:How are sheeps' memories? Does Roman recognize you when you see him? Because sheep are such social creatures they have an amazing memory for the faces of other sheep. Studies have shown that they are easily able to recognize 50 different individual sheep (that's how many they tested, sheep can probably remember many more than that) and don't start forgetting them for several years. I know all of my sheep have their own friends so it makes sense to me that they are able to recognize each other and remember individuals. I don't know how this correlates to different people but Roman did spend a lot of time staring at me (which definitely could be just because he's a big nosy jacob who wanted to see what I was up to) where the other rams got sheared and then got the hell out of there. All of my sheep know me and treat me differently than they treat my mom who they treat differently from random similar looking women who have come to visit, so anecdotally I'm sure they are able to recognize individual people but who knows to what extent. Here's an article and a video about sheep facial memory.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2013 23:38
|
|
|
In other fun science news, I got my scrapie genotype results back! Scrapie is the sheep equivalent of mad cow disease or other terrifying prion diseases you may have heard of. It is not known to be transmissible to humans but it will gently caress your flock up. The prions basically shred the nervous system and is always fatal. There's no cure and the government will pretty much come in and destroy all sheep that have ever been near an infected sheep and even then the prions remain in the soil and can infect new flocks that might come on to the property. It's really bad news but luckily people have known that you can breed for resistance to scrapie for about 20 years. Of course that doesn't mean that anyone actually has. Cheviots, Suffolks and breeds formed by these two breeds tend to be the most susceptible. I'm going to go ahead and let you guess whether either of those breeds require genetic testing for breeding animals to be registered. However the Romeldale club requires testing of at least the 171 codon (there are two codons that contribute to resistance 171 and 136) so I had to get a blood sample from Sherman to send in before I could get him registered. Goliath's parents are RR (Eleanor is resistant) and QQ (least resistant) so I know he is QR (moderately resistant). For giggles I did the cormos and Primrose the perfect jacob as well. I took the blood from the tail during docking so it was easy enough to get samples from them. Now the results! Primrose remains the most perfect sheep and is RR, resistant. Sherman is QR, moderately resistant. The big baby cormo is QR and little greytips is RR.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 21:11
|
|
|
This is fascinating stuff. How much does a sheep's resistance affect the price if you were to sell them? Do people ever try to lie about it to get more out of a less resistant sheep? What would happen if they did and were found out?
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 22:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 15:54 |
|
|
Anoia posted:This is fascinating stuff. How much does a sheep's resistance affect the price if you were to sell them? Do people ever try to lie about it to get more out of a less resistant sheep? What would happen if they did and were found out? Testing is part of the registration process for the romeldales so I wouldn't sell them for any more than I would sell any other registered romeldale ram. The only exception would be a QQ ram since romeldale breeders tend to breed away from QQ sheep so a QQ ram would probably only be bred to RR ewes. It would have to be an exceptional ram and I would have to find a large flock with lots of RR ewes who would want him so I'd probably have to sell him cheap unless I sent him to auction. There's really no reason to lie about scrapie codons because most people just don't care. I haven't seen any breed clubs that refuse to register QQ sheep and most breed clubs don't require testing at all. People aren't going to turn down an amazing sheep for being QQ, especially in the breeds most likely to be QQ. If some breeder was doing something sketchy and people found out it would get around. The sheep world is pretty small and everyone loves to gossip. I've heard of people with goats lying about CL/CAE testing and that got out pretty quick. For the most part sheep folk are really pretty honest though. Between that and the general ambivalence towards testing I really can't imagine someone faking tests. You can always ask for proof anyway. The company emails you and/or the breed club the results and you can even get certificates done up if you want.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 23:02
|
|