Sheep Chat Thread

[RoyalT]

Shetland/Icelandic Ewe lamb


Icelandic (black spot) Ram lamb w/ dam


Icelandic (badger face spot) Ram lamb with dam

Cricket, her ram lamb and the Shet/Ice ram lamb

 

[kuntrygirl]

I had another lamb that was born this morning but the pic was too graphic to post. The mom was cleaning off her baby. It had just popped out, so you can imagine what it looked like. I will post pics when she is all cleaned up.

 

[kuntrygirl]

How old is your oldest Ewe everyone? I'm trying to decide what to do with my older girls. I have some that are up in age (7 years old).

 

[RoyalT]

My Shetland is 4 (they breed into their 20s, I guess) and the Icelandics all just turned 1.

 

[Penny Hen]

How about Buffalo Gal from the folk song "I danced with a gal with a hole in her stocking. And her heel kept a'rockn and her toe kept a knocking. I danced with a gal with a hole in her stocking.And we danced by the light of the moon."

My yearling ewe lambed last night!!! She had a lovely black ewe with a white hock. Isn't she cute!!

 

[Penny Hen]

How about Silver Fox! Gorgeous babes! Mine always seem to fade as they grow up, do yours? Perhaps it's the 'mile high' ultra violet fading.

Silkies, how is the lambs tail doing? Still waiting to hear.

They fade because the wool type fiber grows in and it doesn't hold the color the same. Think of it like this: Take a fat rubber band and a marker. Draw a slash mark parallel to the edges of the rubberband. That is the baby hair. Now stretch it. Watch it go from black to gray. That is what happens when the wool type fiber grows longer. Now with black (EE andEe) and brown (ee) , caused by eumelanin, there is not so much of the "stretch" fading. Usually it is more from the UV. But red (pheomelanin) is a finite amount of color cells and they get stretched out as the fiber grows. The ultra violet will fade it also sometimes causing it to look gold, A white sheep can show the red as a lamb but have it fade to an off white or ivory when grown. A blinding white sheep with a pink nose is most likely extremely spotted.

 

[Penny Hen]

We have never used Safeguard pellets either. I didn't even know Safeguard made a pellet labeled for sheep. Has it been warm enough for the insects to be active in your area? Our sheep will get stompy and agitated when the flies bother them. When they are lounging around they will jump up suddenly and throw their heads down, shaking their heads and stomping, and then they usually bolt for another shady place to lay down where they hope that they won't be bothered. It's pretty common to see in the summer time here, but our winter was fairly mild so our bugs are already out in force.

Here in TN that is caused by the no-see-ums. Vicious tiny little biting bugs that are about a 1/32 of an inch long. They are so tiny that all I can make out is that they are pointed at each end and their legs are too small to see. Need a microscope I guess. But they will come out in the early morning and at dusk and when the grass is wet with dew and chew your legs up. Fortunately they crush easy but by that time they have already bitten you.

 

[Penny Hen]

What a gorgeous badger faced ewe/ram lamb.

Here are some pics of my sheep.

 

[Penny Hen]

Guess I am not very good at this forum thing lol.
Maybe I should start over.
About 3 wks ago I got a starving lamb that the people at sale barn left for dead.
took him home, got him warmed up and hydrated then began a slow rehabilitation, I know some about sheep (not alot) but I have rehabilitated many many types of animals so just used basic theory, hydrate, slow with grain, free access to hay (if called for) warm and dry, plenty of water, electrolytes.
after I saw he was gonna make it and he was more stable he was wormed (however still researching shots needed)
anyway 3 weeks later he has gained good weight, playful, ALWAYS hungry. He gets sheep mix 1 cup 3 times a day at this point (but I think he is ready to get a little more now) mineral salt and free choice hay
BUT from day 1 he has had this issue of every 4 or 5 days he has a bout with diarrhea 2 or 3 doses of kaopectate and he is good to go for another 4, 5 maybe 6 days
What do you think? anyone had this issue? Has anyone used bio sponge on their sheep?
Thank you for reading this long post!!

I know you are probably past this by now but I will tell you what I know. Of all the ewe milk replacer mixes only Land O' Lakes is human grade. All other brands are animal grade and carry some contamination in them. If you are feeding 300 lambs you can lose 10 to scours (diarrhea) and come out ahead with the cheaper animal grad mixes. If you are small time one loss is too many. Feed the Land O' Lakes and you will not have the diarrhea.

 

[Penny Hen]

I just found this thread. I have Shetfindors, a blend of Shetland, Finns and Dorset. I have raised them for about 15 years. I also have 2 Dorset/ East Fresian/Lacune girls and have a ram lamb, Prince, by one of them and my Shetfindor ram that is going to the new flock sire. With this addition to the bloodlines I will have sheep that can go milk/meat/wool. The Shetfindor adds length to the wool that in the D/EF/L is already just short of Merino fine. I am selling a half-brother to Prince and could be talked into selling the twin sister. I also have a gorgeous Shetfindor yearling ram that is too closely related to most of my stock but has awesome wool as well as being a sweetheart. None of my males are people aggressive and I run them all together until midsummer when I separate the boys so I can control when the lambs will come.

This is Cory. He is two or three days old in these pictures.




This is JoAnn. She is Cory's twin sister This is day one for her.




JoAnn is a spotted English blue. If you look carefully you can see the tell tale signs of the sugar lips and the white teardrops by her eyes that is the hallmark of this color pattern. Their sire is Abram who is a brown English blue so JoAnn could be carrying brown (because black will trump brown) and Cody is carrying brown (because he got the white from his mom),. They are both out of Lorna, one of the Dorset/EF/L ewes.


This is Abram as a two year old. (the brown one). He is so much more impressive now at 5.

Abram yearling

I am going to have to look up the pictures of the yearling ram. I can't seem to find them at the moment.
If anyone is interested I can send you fiber samples of the sheep in question. I also have a ewe that is five that I would like to sell because she is two closely related to anyone in my flock. She has really good fiber and gave birth to triplets this year but one had a terminal birth defect (to o inbred) and she refused the second. The third got chilled in a cold snap and died of hypothermia when he was two weeks old. I will hunt up their pics or drag them in front of the computer for a shot. My camera is missing its charger you see.

Cory twin ram lamb, carries brown - $100
JoAnn twin ewe, English blue, spotted - $150
Peaseblossom, white ewe, carries brown - $75
Puck - white yearling ram, horned, carries brown - $125

I am just above Nashville, TN
If interested PM me.