I’ve been asking around, on forums and in person, over what to do about one of our ewe lambs.
After much deliberation, we now think we shall keep back Arabella, one of the lambs we bought, along with their mum, a while back. We decided to replace our barren ewes with one that might actually lamb, and we chose her for a number of reason. Partly because she is pretty. Having moved away from just having a Devon Closewool flock, we might as well have a mixture, and she is white with black face and legs. Her wool is good, and she is not related to the ram we hope to borrow this Autumn (unlike the other ewe lamb we have ). She is a Roussin xzwartlbesx Suffolk.
The problem is though -not having vast tracts of land, it will be difficult to keep her separate from the ram when he comes for his holidays. If we did, she would need a companion, so we would have to hang on to one of the other lambs a bit longer.. and we dont have that much grass.
But, the advice from fellow shepherds is often conflicting. Many feel they are too small to be put the the ram in their first year, and will only lead to lambing problems. Others feel she will be too young to take anyway. Some have told me it is important that we do put her to the ram in the first year.
The only really useful bit of advice is that ‘there is no right answer’! But it is clear alot depends on how well she has done by then, what breed she is vs the breed of the ram. etc.
Whenever someone tells me they are thinking of keeping sheep, after the usual lines about sheep spending their whole life looking for ways to die, I always suggest they make friends with an experienced shepherd local to them. But it has to be said, all along we have had very diverse opinions on the best approaches.. on the subject of triplets, we had everything from ‘bump one off’ (yes, really, but we wont be doing that) to bottle feeding them all. We have found the vet to be really helpful, we can phone and just ask a question, but they tend to be , predictably, very into intervention. Smallholders usually want to do everything by the book, and farmers trying to make a serious living, have to weigh up the cost of each action.
so I guess at the end of the day, we ask questions, listen to answers, compare notes, write up a lot to experience, and make our own decisions. It’s just the best we can do.
Sheep have been the hardest of all the animals we have kept – like you say – so many questions and so many more possible solutions. On several ocassions I would quite happily have sold ours and then I remember how tasty the meat is, what a good job they make of keeping the grass down and how much I have enjoyed watching the boys bottle-feed the lamb (who incidentally has just had his last bottle). You do your best, learn by your mistakes and hope next year everything will go according to the smallholders handbook.
its teh wool that keeps me interested – well that and the meat! – but every time there is aproblem i wonder if we should just stick to pigs and chickens which are so easy in comparison. but we would still have to cut the grass in the fields. and with no vehicular access.. that would not be a laugh… so the sheep seem like a good idea after all.
and they are nice to talk to and pat.
Poor sheep…they are the first of the animals we would choose to loose, but as you say they do keep the grass down and the meat is good (well for those who like lamb )
We’re just getting our heads around caring for chickens, and the idea of pigs or sheep really pushes my wee brain over the edge.
To solve the dilemma of keeping our grass down, we lease our paddocks to a stock agent. He grazes sheep and cattle. We get the pleasure of seeing animals in the pastures, the grass is maintained, and lease money pays for the property tax (just).
I’ve never wanted sheep or cattle of our own, but lately I’ve begun to think, well, maybe some day…
it’s a slippery slope!
I really enjoy keeping our sheep, despite the work. I like their difference personallities, and the lambs are a lot of fun..
I wouldn’t breed a yearling. You can, of course, but I’ve always been impressed by how much yearlings just look like big lambs, and how much two year-olds look like young sheep. There’s a big change for the ewes in their second year. It seems to me that nature is trying to tell us something.
Keeping the yearlings separate is always a problem for us. We have to make extra temporary pens for three months, each with their own water supply. Because we have an older ram, too, that we’re bound by an agreement to keep until he dies, along with the original ewes (sentimental former owners), we actually have to make four pens this fall:
1) All the two year-old and three year-old ewes with the visiting ram
2) The three older ewes, to old to breed, with the two ewe lambs. We bred these old girls last year. One didn’t take, the other two had hard birthings, so we plan not to breed them this year.
3) The older ram by himself.
4) The four ram lambs who will go to the butchers this fall, but in the meantime can’t be allowed to breed their mothers, aunts, cousins ans sisters.
It makes for a lot of pens.
it is a complicated business
btw we ‘whetherise’ our ram lambs – i guess you don’t, does mean one less complication, and we have the option of keeping them longer.
We can and have done. We have an “Elastrator” machine and lots of bands. But this year we let it go, haven’t regretted it yet. We didn’t dock tails, either. I’ll let you know how that works our with the ewe lambs.
I admit I have mixed feelings about it. the first year, you could see it was uncomfortable on teh lamb, and made him seem a bit depressed for about a day.
however this year,the ram lamb really didn’t notice.
as for tails, we dock them – although there are rules by law you have to do it within so many days etc or it is a vet job. also have to keep the length etc. we use the elastic bands too. The lambs dont seem to notice at all, and here we have flystrike as quite an issue, so I think its better for them in our set up.
re the ram lambs.. i have had ram tainted meat before and i dont like it. also we want to be able to keep them longer if need be. as it is the ram lambs tend to be bolshier. will be interesting to see how you fget on and whether you think the meat is effected.
We don’t dock tails. So far we have had no problems, but then with just a couple we can keep a close eye on them. With castrating – one we did as soon after the 24 hours as possible. We have found the younger they are the less it affects them. The bottle fed lamb isn’t castrated, he was so tiny when we got him neither of the testicles had dropped. Last time we checked only one had. As long as he remains well we probably won’t bother to castrate him now… a vets job if we do.
I did wonder about the meat tasting.
I don’t know if our meat has always been tainted and so I just don’t notice, but we’ve been eating both whole or cryptorchid ram lambs for three years now, and I haven’t noticed any difference. This is hardly scientific, though. Intervening variables. Either I am just not in a position to be able to tell, or it might differ by breed. I’ve heard that the quality of your graze affects the taste too. We don’t see fly strike here, never seen a single case. I guess this is the easy way to farm sheep. Our sheep are so well isolated from others, the nearest other flock nearly three miles away, so we don’t need to worry very much about any of the normal nuisance health conditions. Even foot scald, which we had when the college where we both work had a flock that were chronically affected and we would traipse back and forth, has disappeared, hopefully for good, now the college got rid of its ewes. Our biggest problem is selling lambs and fleece or yarn. No-one seems to want to buy either. Americans don’t eat lamb, and they don’t knit much either. We can sell all the pigs we raise, and all this year’s are spoken for already, but the lambs go slowly. We sold only one fleece last year, the rest went for insulation. As for the yarn (this year we had everything spun up), I hope to trade half of this years for a knitting machine. I need to make finished product, I think, to have a hope of selling at a good price.
I have heard that lamb is no really eaten there – I guess it’s a good way to secure your own though!. I’m surprised that you have trouble shifting the wool though – there seems to be a thriving community of spinners – it being ‘in’ these days – certainly ravelry has a large USA population. As you say though – ‘adding value’ to your product might be the way to go. finished garments. or maybe washed and carded fleece for the home spinner. Or balls of wool.
No flystrike? I’m jealous of that. Up higher on Dartmoor they dont have problems – there is a certain height the flies dont live at. we unfortunately are not that high.