Is she miscarrying?

[Ridgetop]

Congratulations! Right on time for your zone! The lamb may be breeding soon too.

 

[Kusanar]

I will have to look into getting a marking harness and matingmark crayons the next time I am in the States. Here they don't use them and I don't trust the mailing system.

Another idea for you. A lady I watch on YouTube has a LARGE sheep operation (400 ewes) breeding for meat and so she has so many rams she doesn't do the harness on them, instead, she has a type of spray paint that is made for animals that she sprays on the butts of the ewes, if the mark still looks perfect, she has not been bred, if the mark is smeared badly then she has been bred and probably more than once. This also is good because it leaves paint on the chest of the ram, so if she has a ram that is not breeding she can tell. You could probably do that with yours, you could maybe even spray the ram's chest with the paint and let him mark the ewes the same way as if he was in the harness.

If you don't have access to the special paint, I'm sure a grease pen for marking livestock would work as well, they sell them here as "cattle chalk", it is just pigment in grease so you could even make your own if needed.

 

[BSue]

Another idea for you. A lady I watch on YouTube has a LARGE sheep operation (400 ewes) breeding for meat and so she has so many rams she doesn't do the harness on them, instead, she has a type of spray paint that is made for animals that she sprays on the butts of the ewes, if the mark still looks perfect, she has not been bred, if the mark is smeared badly then she has been bred and probably more than once. This also is good because it leaves paint on the chest of the ram, so if she has a ram that is not breeding she can tell. You could probably do that with yours, you could maybe even spray the ram's chest with the paint and let him mark the ewes the same way as if he was in the harness.

If you don't have access to the special paint, I'm sure a grease pen for marking livestock would work as well, they sell them here as "cattle chalk", it is just pigment in grease so you could even make your own if needed.

Thank you @Kusanar! I will have to look into a grease pen for marking livestock. That sounds like its going to be the easiest option to find here.

 

[Kusanar]

Thank you @Kusanar! I will have to look into a grease pen for marking livestock. That sounds like its going to be the easiest option to find here.

No problem. I thought that might be the easy way to do it without having to buy the harness and special chalk. Might not be as accurate, but if you have fairly few ewes, chances of them being mounted more than once a day is fairly high so more chance of smudging the pigment from sheep to sheep.

 

[mysunwolf]

We use raddle powder, that's the same idea as the paint. You mix colored powder with vegetable or mineral oil and smear it on the ram's chests.

 

[Ridgetop]

How do you change the color so you know when they remark the ewes that didn't take the first time. Does the color wear off completely between breedings?

 

[mysunwolf]

How do you change the color so you know when they remark the ewes that didn't take the first time. Does the color wear off completely between breedings?

I guess I just saw this. We start with the lightest color powder, usually green, reapply as needed for 17 days. Then replace with blue, and reapply as needed. Then replace with red. The powder doesn't disappear but it does fade a bit, so we check ewe butts daily. We also reapply the smear on the ram's chest at least once, sometimes more depending on how wet it is. The only problem we've had is that it just about ruins the fleeces (but that's not a problem for us since they're already trash).