Help me determine is my sheep have started “showing” in their pregnancies

[MMGardens]

Hello all,

My mamas still look like skin and bones and will just leave the rest of the feed in the bowl when I try to increase the amount. Fed twice a day grain, and getting alfalfa hay plus forage.

My lambs are coming up on two and three months old and we are about to have one more really cold bout the first week of Feb, so I’m leaving them with mamas to get through that and then I’m going to separate my lambs and hopefully get weight back on my ewes.

It’s the wildest thing, the more I feed the bigger the udders NOTTTT the ones I’m trying to feed lol the babies are growing great though just with maybe I had gotten the ewes up to a higher BCS before lambing so maybe they wouldn’t have dropped so low.

We got snow down here on the gulf coast so here’s my snow covered flock. We got 11 inches of snow, so that was a big surprise and learning curve

My first ewe lamb Apollo is 50 lbs now and the twin rams lambs are a little over 30 lbs ( one is now a whether though) I kept the white and brown one intact

 

[farmerjan]

Snow in Mississippi... who'd have thunk it?????

 

[MMGardens]

Snow in Mississippi... who'd have thunk it?????

I know!!

Seeing our local landscape covered in snow was so beautiful and odd

 

[Baymule]

Beautiful pictures! I love the snow covered Spanish moss! You should frame that!

I have ewes that get run down looking when raising lambs. They put it all in the milk bag. It makes me look like a bad sheep momma.

 

[SageHill]

Beautiful pictures! I love the snow covered Spanish moss! You should frame that!

I second that!

 

[MMGardens]

Beautiful pictures! I love the snow covered Spanish moss! You should frame that!

I have ewes that get run down looking when raising lambs. They put it all in the milk bag. It makes me look like a bad sheep momma.

Thanks!!

Ugh yes it makes me feel so bad but I’m doing everything I can think to do.


Starting to plan for next year and need some advice

Most sheep farmers around me breed in July and have winter babies

After seeing how it was this year, I’d much prefer to have late winter early spring babies so that it coincides with an abundance of forage instead of literally the worst part of the year for their nutritional needs to be so high.

I have read a bit about sheep’s cycles, but also I’ve read that the breeds I have can cycle basically year round

Is it a fairly safe bet for me to be able to expose my girls starting around mid August or so?


Also, I checked my ewes teeth that I knew were older and they have all of their big teeth, so they are probably at least 5 years old and maybe more. Does this affect body condition? Like is it more likely for these older ewes to drop weight raising babies than say a 2 year old ewe? I’m not breeding my brown one again, she’s gonna be retired now that I have a good ewe lamb from her. Verdict is still out on my one who gave me twin ram lambs, but it was so hard struggling to keep weight on them and I don’t want to play that game again. My yearling lost her lamb so I didn’t get to compare a young mama to the older ones.


Also, for a long while only my lactating ewes were thinning, but I notice after the really cold snap here my other ewes are also a bit thinner than before (but still like 2.5 BCS) In a perfect world, I really don’t want to have to feed grain as my vet doesn’t recommend it in regular practice and I too feel that they are meant to live on forage and not a grain heavy diet, my girls are SOOOOOO picky about the hay that they will or will not eat. It has to be very fresh and still green. They would never entertain the thought of all the way dry brown hay. I just got them a round bale of Bahia and they literally won’t touch it. All of that to say, they can’t be too hungry because they are very choosey and I give them a full hay feeder of the hay they like plus a couple acres of rye planted that they graze and some other winter grasses. This isn’t a characteristic that I am looking to breed for, not being able to keep body condition decently. Does this sound like a normal thing for over winter or is something up? I bring fecal samples monthly for testing and check eyes weekly and none of them are bad off with parasites

 

[Mini Horses]

Quality of hay. Higher protein, sugars....alfalfa & orchard grass here. Alfalfa pellets can be substitute. I have goats but, same idea. It takes more hay in cold to keep warm. It takes more to produce milk than a kid/lamb. Yes, elders are harder as they don't absorb the nutrition as well. Yes, mine get grain.

Sheepies will respond on their experiences.

Also, my dairy girls require way more feed them my meatiest. Partly it's their body build and body use. Dairy girls will "put it all in the bucket". Big eaters, high quality feed.

 

[farmerjan]

Rye is mostly "water"... they love it but nutrition is lower.....and there is not near as much "bulk"/dry matter so it goes through them quicker... agree on the alfalfa being highest in protein...
Are you planting the rye in the pastures for them? Try wheat instead... a little less "high moisture" and very palatable... lots of cattle go on wheat pastures to graze for a bit and gain pretty good on it... I don't know if it will grow in the south though. It is planted in the fall like rye, for better germination... I just don't know what will grow better in the "deep south"...
Oats are a good crop also for grazing or making hay... my sheep loved the oat hay I got years ago... it was cut and baled early in the soft dough stage so lots of immature seed heads... they dove into it... Trying to talk son into planting some oats for hay making .

 

[Baymule]

You offer them Bahia, but give them the hay that they like. So what do they do? They eat the candy and refuse the vegetables. If you want them to eat the Bahia, stop giving them the candy. Wean their lambs, then dry lot them with the Bahia. No grain. They will learn to eat the Bahia.

On my old farm in northeast Texas, I planted rye grass mixed with white ball clover. I set out baking soda free choice to avoid bloat. Plus they got a round bale of Bahia and Bermuda mixed. They grazed the rye and clover, then I moved them back to the barn for the night. They got some feed, and hit the hay bale. They needed the dry grass.