# Acquiring a flock pics added page 2 don't laugh



## jenjscott (Jun 14, 2010)

We have recently purchased a few acres of land.  There is probably about seven or eight acres in two pastures.  We have decided we would like to have some sheep, may as well be using the pasture space.  My husband has located a flock nearby that the owner has grown tired of after 3 years.  He started with 8 ewes and a ram of hair sheep.  He admits he lost interest and didn't get them wormed last year and lost four.  What he has now is a ram and 4 seven year old ewes, a ram with a failed castration, and 3 young rams (this year's?  I haven't seen them, my husband has)  and 4 of this years ewe lambs. These are grade white hair sheep except one with a black head. My husband is considering buying the whole flock if the price is right.

 Is there any testing we should do to start with?  

 How many years can a ewe have lambs?

Any tips on figuring how much these would be worth?  He said 3 yrs ago he paid 600 dollars for the nine original sheep.  

Anything else we should be aware of?

Of course, I will be heavily researching sheep on the internet, but if you think of anything easily overlooked, let me know.


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## Beekissed (Jun 14, 2010)

I would stick with buying the 4 yearling ewes and a ram lamb and leave the rest.  The older ewes are past their prime and the ram with the failed castration may be a hit or miss breeder.  They sound like Dorpers, judging from the description of the one with the black head. 

Start with the young herd and soon you will have more sheep than you can handle.  

This farmer sounds like a poor shepherd...I would not take his word or record keeping on worming or vaccinations.  I would start fresh with the younger flock and do your own thing.  

I would really scrutinize these sheep for evidence of foot problems, parasites, etc.  

He got his original flock pretty darn cheap, so it may be likely that he would sell you this stock cheaply as well.  Offer him $50-$75 a head....he only paid $66 per for his when he purchased them.


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## goodhors (Jun 14, 2010)

I would pretty much agree with just buying the young ewes.  I would shop another place for a ram who is FOR SURE not related to the ewes.  And getting a ram elsewhere, you could stay with the same breed, or get a breed you think would cross well for your desires.  Sometimes you can locate a good older ram being sold, has too many of his daughters in the flock to keep using him. Such rams are not as expensive as the new, young one of super breeding lines.

Those older ewes are going to have problems pretty soon, just by being aged.  My sheep friends told me that when their teeth are worn out, sheep are done because they can't eat, and seven is getting up there.  Don't buy the trouble they will bring.

The assorted rams sound like more trouble, don't get involved with them.  Maybe someone else would be interested in them, not related to their sheep.

Starting with five, you won't be overwhelmed, can expand a bit slower as you make plans for the sheep.

Being hair sheep, have you got a shearer lined up, and a place to use the wool or sell it?  Or you might plan to shear them yourself, so shopping for clippers in the off season now might find some bargin prices.  Easier to plan for that now, instead of rushing around at the last moment.  Will you be using the expected lambs in future or be selling them?


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## jhm47 (Jun 14, 2010)

Hair sheep don't need shearing.  The 7 year old ewes may or may not have another lamb or two in them.  Offer $30 - 35 across the board for the entire flock.  If you lose a ewe or two, you won't be out much.  At least they will have a good home for awhile.  All he can do is say "no".


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## patandchickens (Jun 15, 2010)

And worm 'em REAL THOROUGHLY (i.e. making sure they get the full dose, of a good wormer) before letting them loose on your property. Either go over to his place and worm 'em the day before you bring them home, if possible; or if not, have somewhere to confine them for a day or two when they first arrive (somewhere that you can then keep them out of for the next year or so) and worm them as soon as you get them off the trailer.

And ideally two weeks after that, to get worms that were in resistant stages during the first worming.

No point in buying any more of his worm problem than necessary, since once the worm eggs/larvae are in your pasture, there's not much you can do about them!

Good luck, have fun,

Pat


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## aggieterpkatie (Jun 15, 2010)

If you could get the older ewes for a good price (no more than $50-70 each), I'd get them.  Like jhm said, you can probably still get a year or two of lambing from them.  It's sometimes nice to have experienced ewes when it's your first year lambing.  They'll know what to do when you don't.    Well cared for ewes can lamb up to 10 yrs old or so, and then it's risky to breed them after that (really depends on the individual ewe).  I'd also offer something for the younger ewes, and probably buy a ram elsewhere like someone else mentioned. Spend the money for a good ram, because he's half your flock. You can buy this year's ram lambs for meat if you want, but I probably wouldn't keep them for breeding.

Definitely check the teeth, eyelids (look for nice, pink healthy mucous membranes), check feet for off smells or redness between toes.  Check udders on ewes.  Stay away from ewes with lumpy/bumpy looking teats (lambs won't want to nurse them), severely lopsided udders, or lumpy/hard udders.  

You definitely don't want to start your flock with bad stock, but this might be an opportunity to buy good/ok stock from a poor manager.  

And start low on price.  If he keeps them, likely more will die.  Plus you said he's tired of them so he probably just wants to sell them.


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## jenjscott (Jun 16, 2010)

My husband decided to buy the whole flock for $1000.  He plans on sending the old ram and the missed castration ram to the sale.  The younger rams he says will castrate and put in freezer or sell.  Then, find a new ram to go with the ewes, and hope the older ones still have a lamb or two in their futures.  

So this brings up the question.  Can you castrate, feed out and eat an older ram?  or what do you do with your older rams?


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## Beekissed (Jun 16, 2010)

Really too late to castrate a ram for any affect on the meat when they are older.  You can always butcher him for ground mutton but it may have a strong flavor.  

I'd sell him...some cultures like a strong ram taste in their meat and chances are you will pay to have it butchered and won't like the flavor.  

The younger rams, if they are ram lambs, won't need castrating before you butcher or sell.  Most folks don't bother to do so before taking them to market if they are young, as it won't affect the flavor of the meat yet. 

I would, however, keep your ram lambs separate from your ewes as they can breed as young as 3 mo. old.  

Post pics of the flock when you can?  It would be interesting to see them....did this fella tell you what their breed(s) is/are?


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## jenjscott (Jul 1, 2010)

Well, I still haven't seen these sheep yet, but DH has nearly completed a temporary electric " learning" fence inside a larger barbed wire fence.  I think it has 5 or 6 strands of 17 g wire.  He is planning on bringing them in this weekend.   A friend of his who has been helping with the fence was laughing saying at the local "liars' club" coffee drinking place, everybody was discussing the fence and wondering why the bottom strand is so low.  I guess they will find out!  There aren't many sheep in this part of the country.   I can't get a very good answer from DH, he said he thinks the man said one is a dorper, but from what DH says, these all came from the original purchased flock.  I guess I'll know more when I see them, maybe I'll give the guy a call and see if I can find out anything.

jen


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## jenjscott (Jul 4, 2010)

Well, we picked up out sheep today and what a motley crew it is.  

There were several misconceptions about the flock and I think my husband may be blind.  Some are black, black and white, white, cream and spotted.  One of the rams was purchased last year and is unrelated, but has completely shed the horn from one of the digits on a back foot.  He is horned and is supposed to be half dorper.  

Two of the sheep, a ram and a ewe I think, are out of another unrelated ram he no longer has.  They are bigger and still carrying a load of wool on their backs.  I'm going to have to do a review and see if I can remember what he said about them.  

I am going to vigorously treat the hoof rot to see if we can do anything with that.  We will slaughter of sell the other rams except maybe the big 2 yr. old.  Maybe leave one wether to keep a ram company if/when we separate, which should be now.  It depends on if we can find a nice replacement ram, we may just get rid of all the current rams, but I haven't found anything available at this time.  I will post some pictures for you to see and see what you think when I have time to go get some decent pictures.


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## jenjscott (Jul 7, 2010)

OK, now don't you all laugh at me.  Here are some poor pics, but pics none the less.  The first one shows the unrelated half dorper with the hoof rot.  Then there's twin black ewe and ram and another white ram, lambs 









The next two are two older brown ewes.









Then an older white ewe, the friendliest of the bunch, and two younger ewes, and "one-nut"  who hangs out with "hoof-rot" and is one of two out of a different ram no longer in the group.









Then another ram and wether ages unknown but young, last year's maybe, and a set of twins, ewe and ram.  Last but not least is One-nut's brother, a wether I think.  The two of them are quite large.











So unless anyone has a differing opinion, Hoof-rot will be slaughtered this weekend  One of the wethers and the ewes will be kept.  All the others will be sold or slaughtered.  I think his pasture was pretty much overgrazed.  He said when they started getting dirty butts he would worm them, No mention of vaccinations, and all were running together in the same pasture.  He said one-nut is probably the daddy of this year's crop. He is a failed banding.  

Note that several still have very heavy pads of wool on their backs.  Should I do anything about it?  Only a few of them are tagged.  I told my DH I'm sure there is something we did right, I'm just not sure what it is!  I guess we'll call this our practice herd.


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## jhm47 (Jul 7, 2010)

From what I can see, none of them are show quality, but with some TLC, they might turn out OK for you.  Be aware that foot rot is extremely contagious, and it's likely that they are all infected.


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## jenjscott (Jul 7, 2010)

jhm47 said:
			
		

> Be aware that foot rot is extremely contagious, and it's likely that they are all infected.


Yep, that's one of the things we found out after moving them to out place.  Out little barnyard has a chute and we plan on  a zinc foot bath for them to walk through (I forget the indicated interval) and will be doing a good hoof trim on everybody within the next couple of weeks, as soon as we can both get the time at the same time to do so.


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## aggieterpkatie (Jul 8, 2010)

I think with the right management they'll work out fine.  I wouldn't bother with the wool, it should come out on its own.  I'd definitely separate the hoof rot boy right away!  Foot baths definitely are a good idea, and I'd go ahead and give CD/T to everyone.  It would be good to do a few fecals (or at least check eyelids using the FAMACHA method) to see if anyone is wormy.  


Congrats on being a sheep owner.


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## ksalvagno (Jul 8, 2010)

Sounds like a rescue more than anything. Congratulations on your new sheep!


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## Bossroo (Jul 8, 2010)

Why keep a wether at all ???  ... they can't reproduce, it will compete with the producing ewes for feed, and at this stage will be much better eating than a ram would be.  It has no other/ further economic value other than it's meat.


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## jenjscott (Jul 8, 2010)

Bossroo said:
			
		

> Why keep a wether at all ???  ... they can't reproduce, it will compete with the producing ewes for feed, and at this stage will be much better eating than a ram would be.  It has no other/ further economic value other than it's meat.


Actually, its kind of a sacrificial wether, per se.  He can stay with a ram off season if we decide to separate him, or he can stay with a sick  ewe if we have to isolate, as it is my understanding that one sheep doesn't do well by him/herself.  At this point, I don't think there will be too much competition for the food, we are not going to push capacity at this time.  Am I making any any sense?


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## Beekissed (Jul 9, 2010)

Yep, I'll keep my wether this year to keep my ram company while he is separate from the gals.  Probably butcher him before he gets too big, though.  

The sheep don't look all that bad, really.  They seem fat enough except for a couple of the older ewes.  

The twins may have bred with each other and the ram of this set may have also bred other ewes, so I wouldn't count on One Nut being the father of any offspring.  I like their colors!  

They will eventually rub off any left over wool except maybe the yearlings, seems like they don't lose their wool as well the first year.  

I think you have a start, anyway, and you can cull for any problems that you see in production, conformation, illness, etc.  

Good luck!!!


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## jenjscott (Jul 28, 2010)

I went out today to try and get some better pictures.  One of the ones I have never been able to get a good look at to see if it was a ram or wether is a ewe!  I have two smaller whitish rams I was counting as one I guess.  Anyway, I was looking at here and she appears to be developing a bag!  

Also Mr. Hoof Rot (who is vastly improved by the way, but still in the pasture) was staying very close to a certain ewe, wrinkling his nose, and running off all the other rams.  They ewe was not acting interested at that point in time.  I guess I need to start keeping a calendar.  I thought it was odd that he wasn't hanging with OneNut today, because they are usually together, side by side, all the time.  

I'm going to try to get a better look at the possible momma to be to see if I can tell anything more about her condition.  Guess I better watch that ram a little closer too, huh?


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## ksalvagno (Jul 28, 2010)

Well, it sounds like you may have more sheep in the near future! Good luck!


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## jenjscott (Jul 29, 2010)

DH said today it looked like everybody was coming in season.  Had one young ram trying to breed a sheep while she was snacking, and big ole OneNut kept knocking him off.  

On another note, if things progress as it appears, my daughter will be trading a tattoo for a llama.  Barter is a wonderful thing.


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## Beekissed (Jul 29, 2010)

Were you wanting to have Dec. lambs?


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## jenjscott (Jul 30, 2010)

I wasn't thinking quite December, but I wanted them up and going strong before the buffalo gnat season in April-May.   And December is actually better weather-wise than January or February, but we may need to take some extra precautions for shelter through the rest of the winter.  Our winters are fairly mild compared to most of the sheep raising world, So I think we should do ok.   Our biggest problem will probably be the cold rains we get in the winter.  I will definitely have to do some more research in that area, we have plenty of time to prepare if we start now.


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## jenjscott (Sep 30, 2010)

We finally got the permanent high tensile electric fence up on the north pasture and got the sheep moved.  They were wary and hesitant about leaving the old pasture, but with some patience and a bucket of feed we were able to coax them across the yard and through the other gate without incident.  I hope they haven't done too much damage on the south end.  It has been so dry here, they have some big bare patches in their favorite eating areas.   Now we need to take down the barbed wire on the south side and get the corner assemblies in place (what's there now is not adequate for high tensile fencing) and then string the wire.


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