Lambing/Breeding 2014-Parsnip

[Parsnip]

I've been looking at MaryEllen, and her udder is getting bigger by the day!
I'm really hoping for a Valentine's Day baby! BUT I have a feeling it won't be for another week or two...
She has minimal amounts of discharge every day, so who knows?
I'll have to put a picture up of MaryEllen's udder sometime lol.


I'm pretty sure that MaryEllen was bred to the white Dorper because I saw them have at it, but who knows?
I nice big single white lamb would be satisfying. The white Dorper is known to throw white lambs even with colored ewes, so I'm excited!

 

[bonbean01]

Love the photos and those lambs are adorable...and they've grown!!!!! Can't wait for your next lamb or lambies!!!!!

 

[Goat Whisperer]

Love the pics! They are adorable!

 

[Womwotai]

@Parsnip I noticed your sheep tails are not docked and I've never seen that before. Would you mind detailing why you made that choice and whether you would make it again? I need to make a quick decision on whether or not to dock the tails on my own lambs so I'd like to hear all points of view. Thanks!

 

[bonbean01]

Here's my 2 cents worth Wom...we have dorpers and katahdins and crosses of the two. We don't dock any tails on any of them. Two we bought that were already docked and noticed in the summer when the flys are bugging the sheep, they are at a disadvantage with no tails to flick the flies off. Docking too short can cause anal and vaginal prolapse. If you are showing your dorpers or selling dorpers for herd ewes and rams, docking is the standard on dorpers. Here, we don't dock and never had any fly strike or problems with the tails. Does mean that at lambing time, you lift tails to see how close they are to lambing, but they are all tolerant of that. We have a very small number of sheep and this works best for us.

 

[alsea1]

Docking is not nec. for hygiene on hair sheep as it is with wool breeds.
We get to go natural.

 

[Womwotai]

Thanks Bonbean and Alsea! My lamb is from a full Dorset mother (wool) and mixed breed ram who appears to have some hair sheep in him. I'd love it if she leaned more towards being a hair sheep than a wool but there are no guarantees. I'd also love to not have to dock, since I do tend towards a more natural approach to all animal raising. I don't intend to show or even sell them, so I guess my only concern is the hygiene factor. The ewes I have are docked and one of them looks pretty messy around the rear end - like she poops where she sleeps and some of it sticks to her - so even docking doesn't necessarily seem to keep them cleaner. Plus, two of them, though they are docked, enough of the tap was left that I have to lift it to check them anyway (you're right - they don't seem to mind). Meanwhile my ram is not docked because the guy I got him from was disorganized and never got around to it (not because he intended to leave him). But he got through last summer without any issues. Which is why I started considering NOT docking the tail.

 

[Pioneer Chicken]

Love the photo of Samson looking up at Victor. Just adorable.

 

[Bossroo]

One may get away with not docking tails where you are and with small flocks , but here in Cal. we get lots of scoured rear ends in the spring/ summer, then FLYSTRIKE and that is not pretty and NOT good for the sheep when the maggets start to eat their flesh. So everyone I know/ don't know docks tails.

 

[bonbean01]

Agreed Bossroo...depends on where you are and how large a herd. Here not docking is no problem, in fact it helps them being able to swish insects away.