Search results

Yay! One step closer. Now all you need to do is decide on a breed. Again, sheep come in a variety of functions. We wanted to raise ours for meat and didn't want to have to learn to shear or find someone to do it for us so we got hair sheep that are also meat breeds. Prior to deciding to...

I'm in a similar situation. Kept poultry for years but only this year added sheep and goats. Personally, I find the sheep the "easiest" (per the subject line of your post). They don't challenge the fencing, they don't try to escape and if they accidentally find themselves on the other side of...

Thanks to those who have voted so far but the results are tied. Anyone else want to weigh in and see if I can get a clear winner? Please???

I process my chickens, turkeys and ducks in sight of everyone and the only time I've had a reaction was doing a turkey. A turkey hen stood very close and appeared to get quite agitated. I think it was that she was calling to him and he wasn't responding more than that she was upset by seeing...

I have just read through a whole thread about how people came up with their farm name and it has inspired me to finally come up with a name for our farm. I am doing this as a poll as I'd like to get feedback on what appeals to the most people. If you feel like commenting as to why you chose...

LOL. Yeah, I knew they did it to draw the scent in - I was just concerned that it indicated he was drawing in "heat cycle smell" rather than "pregnant smell". :) I am relieved to know that isn't necessarily the case, as I'm starting to get excited about spring lambs :love

Interesting thread…. Several years ago I bought 30 straw bales to build a straw bale coop for my chickens. To be honest, I never gave a thought to whether it was herbicide free or not, but around here pretty much all farming is done using chemicals so I would bet that it was not. Although I...

Good to know - thanks Southdown. The ewe is the one who looks to be the most pregnant (pink vulva, teats starting to develop) so I was a little dismayed at the idea I may have got THAT wrong and don't have lambs on the way after all.

Okay, so I thought I understood the Flehmen response until this afternoon. I keep horses and I've seen geldings responding to a new mare. I've seen both my ram and my goat buck getting excited by scents that are in the air and curling their lips in the flehmen response. This afternoon I spent...

Ahhh…ok, thanks. Hmmm…I can't tell you how much I hate making phone calls even to people I know, let alone "cold calling" a government agency. We don't plan on selling any sheep or goats in the foreseeable future anyway since we want to build our herd, keeping female and butchering male...

Do you have a link for how you would sign up for this?

Okay, total noob here, but I went to that link and could not find anywhere where you can actually get tags for your farm. Also, under the "how to comply" tab, it lists steps that need to be taken and step two is "Request a flock ID number from your local APHIS Veterinary Services office." I am...

Thank you for sharing your housing ideas. Do you have any issues with the sheep rubbing against the shelters and destroying them? IME they rub pretty vigorously against anything they can (mine are hair sheep so perhaps they rub more than other breeds?) and I could just see them slowly...

I know this is an old thread and you probably already got the answer you want but your situation sounds so similar to ours that I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents anyway. Our pasture is 7 acres and we wanted to harvest the hay in order to over-winter our small sheep/goat herd on it. I asked...

Oh no, so sorry to hear of your loss.

We are all over the place. The ewes were sold as Dorset/Suffolk cross but when I asked the seller to clarify, he said he has 3 rams running with a bunch of ewes so its possible some of the lambs will be full dorset or full sussex while others will be mixed. At the time, we only wanted them to...

That is good to know. I've been reading some of the lambing threads and compared to those ewes (some of which lambed 10 days to 2 weeks after the pictures were posted), mine are not nearly as wide. I did see the ram showing interest sometime in October which is why I figured we probably still...

Wow. I am still in my first year with sheep. I have a ram, 3 ewes and 2 ewe lambs (4 months old). They are all together and I just kind of took my ram for granted. He is gentle and kind and has never shown the slightest sign of any of the behaviors detailed in the previous posts, and since...

Before our pasture was fenced, we had to keep our 6 lambs in a small fenced area and to give them more forage, I put them in the chicken yard at night (when all the birds were in the coop). It took them no time to figure out that chicken feed tastes GOOD, and the auto chicken door opening in...

What can I say that you haven't heard before LOL? Small homestead (10 acres) of which 7 acres is devoted to pasture. On that pasture are 1 ram and 5 ewes, 3 of whom we are hoping are pregnant (the other two are only 4 months old). Also have 1 Boer billy and 1 Boer doe. Again, we hope the doe...