Sheep Chat Thread

[ScottnLydia]

O.K., I'm in love!!! I've been staring at those lambing photos all morning!

I can tell by the green grass that you obviously are no where near me, so I won't even ask if I could buy any. No one in my area has any for sale now.

I've been raising Katahdin mix hair sheep for some years, but have recently begun to shift to dorpers as money permits. I got 2 pure ewe lambs last spring. One just had her first lamb, a little ewe! So smart, she even knows her name and comes running to me when I call her.

When I get a couple more ewes out of both of them, I'll sell the Katahdin ram I have now and hopefully get a pure Dorper. I just have to find one!

We have started training the young ewes to be milked, getting them used to being touched, etc. I know they won't produce as much as the dairy breeds, but Fiona (the Dorper that just lambed at Christmas) gave us 5 oz hand milking between nursings in a trial. That's not bad!

There is something so spiritual about being a shepherd, raising sheep. They are truly a gift!

 

[Acresofchickens]

Congratulations everyone on your new arrivals! It is so exciting to see new life!

 

[Acresofchickens]

PS. I am so jealous of all you guys that have lambs. I wish my sheep were pregnant...

 

[ScottnLydia]

PS. I am so jealous of all you guys that have lambs. I wish my sheep were pregnant...

Do you need a good ram?

 

[SilkiesForEver]

O.K., I'm in love!!! I've been staring at those lambing photos all morning!

I can tell by the green grass that you obviously are no where near me, so I won't even ask if I could buy any. No one in my area has any for sale now.

I've been raising Katahdin mix hair sheep for some years, but have recently begun to shift to dorpers as money permits. I got 2 pure ewe lambs last spring. One just had her first lamb, a little ewe! So smart, she even knows her name and comes running to me when I call her.

When I get a couple more ewes out of both of them, I'll sell the Katahdin ram I have now and hopefully get a pure Dorper. I just have to find one!

We have started training the young ewes to be milked, getting them used to being touched, etc. I know they won't produce as much as the dairy breeds, but Fiona (the Dorper that just lambed at Christmas) gave us 5 oz hand milking between nursings in a trial. That's not bad!

There is something so spiritual about being a shepherd, raising sheep. They are truly a gift!

Yes, I'm in California. We have so many rams, I wish you were closer!

Do you milk your ewes on a stanchion? We've tried to put our ewes on the stanchion to milk, but one of our ewes broke it!

 

[ScottnLydia]

I have yet to build a stanchion. The 'try out' we did, my wife just occupied her withsome alfalfa pellets while I hand milked her, one teat at a time, into a jar. It was just an experiment, but I couldn't believe the results! She was so good! The lamb was in there wondering what I was doing with her "equipment", though!

We have a total of 8 ewes, but only 4 are 'gentled' enough to milk. As I said, we plan to keep breeding for more and more Dorper, as well as easier to handle ewes.

Our original ewes were mixed breed hair sheep. I'm not even sure what was in them! They had horns, and boy were they wild! I kept the gentlest of their ewe lambs, plus the Dorper lambs, now my flock is a lot quieter.

 

[Acresofchickens]

Do you need a good ram?

No. We had one but he kept running us over. He also broke down every wall in our barn (not all at the same time but at different ones). So we sold him. But I am getting the Shetland ewe lambs soon, they aren't born yet but I reserved one I don't know which color I want yet though....

 

[ScottnLydia]

No. We had one but he kept running us over. He also broke down every wall in our barn (not all at the same time but at different ones). So we sold him. But I am getting the Shetland ewe lambs soon, they aren't born yet but I reserved one I don't know which color I want yet though....

That's too bad, I was going to use my old joke, "Boy, have I got a ram for ewe!"

(my wife hates that one.)

 

[ladyrsanti]

Hi all! I am new to sheep and only have three, two ewes and a wether, Jacobs, all three. They're about 9 months old now and I'm keeping them for wool right now. I'd like to get a ram someday maybe and try my hand at breeding but for now I'm just trying to learn the ropes. It's my first time keeping larger farm animals of any type. Chickens were my first. Before that... erm... I had a cat and bred cockatiels. Maybe I can lean on y'all when I'm feeling overwhelmed?


Tartan, the ham.


Tartan in the front (of course), then Tweed next to him and Twill in the background. Twill doesn't have horns and can't be registered. Only Tweed is registered.

 

[ScottnLydia]

O.K., If I were you, I'd be using Tartans photo for my avatar!

THAT is a one-in-a-million picture!