SCORE! Sheep Handling Equipment

[Xerocles]

Lady Baa Baa used to come to me for petting and attention-----until I started doing fecals. She hates it and will not forgive me.

You explained that before. I DON'T BLAME HER!
How about a belly band (like from a saddle). One end attached to the top of the side frame, lying on the floor until in the headpiece. Then raise it til she's on "tippy toes" (well, I guess goats are always on tippy toes, but you understand) and secure it to the other side rail just like you'd cinch in a saddle ring. Not "suspended" to cause discomfort, but discourages big body shifts...or even kicks, while you are back there getting your "kicks".

 

[Xerocles]

BTW. How do you get in the chute with them, once you get them in the headpiece?

 

[Baymule]

Suspended on their tippy toes would probably send them over the edge. I'll figure out a way to get her to hold still.

Not "suspended" to cause discomfort, but discourages big body shifts...or even kicks, while you are back there getting your "kicks".

I'm not getting my "kicks" this is an essential part of animal husbandry for the betterment of their health. They will die from parasite infestation, so will goats. I make jokes about it because I have a streak of dark humor. I'm a lot of fun in a funeral home picking out caskets too. I'd druther laugh than be grumpy.

BTW. How do you get in the chute with them, once you get them in the headpiece?

I get in the chute, but not on the stanchion.

 

[thistlebloom]

Bay, would it be too time consuming and unwieldy to work with them daily on loading on the stand, and letting them eat, while you just rub their legs and gradually get them habituated to the idea that the stand is a good place? (I think Ringo has already graduated the program!) No way to get around the unpleasantness of the fecals I suppose, but if they respond anything like horses a gradual desensitization would be helpful.

 

[Baymule]

@thistlebloom It would take a bit of time, I have 10 ewes, Ringo and the lambs. I'm going to shoot for once a week of running them in the chute and stanchion, no shots, no fecals, no hoof trim. Just feed, picking up feet and lots of attention.

Sheep are programmed to panic. They have absolutely no way to protect themselves. They hide being sick because a sick sheep is dinner for a predator. By the time you realize that one is sick, she can be darn near dead. If they feel trapped, they go completely bonkers. Much like your mustang, except she can bite and kick, and she can run faster than a sheep! LOL Before I tamed mine down, they ran into walls and bounced off the fences if I got close to them. Even the ones I raise can be easily frightened, it takes time, patience and a calm demeanor.

 

[thistlebloom]

I figured it would be a huge time commitment, I couldn't remember how many you had.

 

[Beekissed]

Maybe solid sides on the ramp, even if just a tarp to create the illusion of solid sides? Everything I've read says to provide solid sides to the race if you want them to move forward easily. Something you could lift at the bottom if you needed to access the feet? Even putting down a piece of plywood, with cleats on it, on the ramp itself may have them move up there more willingly. Could be that moving up into a space with all that open air around it feels a bit unstable to a sheep.

Maybe letting more than one sheep on the ramp would also move them upwards and onwards?

A trick I used the other day to get a ram to walk a far piece into a sale barn was to tail him, right up close to his rump....worked wonders on getting him to move forward. Like having a steering handle on the sheep.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Did you sell your ram?

 

[Baymule]

It is still a work in progress. One of these days, I'm going to move the whole thing to the other side of the portable building when I get a roof built like we did the sheep barn. The chute is now set up under a huge spreading cedar tree to take advantage of the shade it offers in the summer heat.

Solid sides are something that I have read about too. I may try draping something over the hog panel sides on the ramp and stanchion to see if that helps. Thanks for the suggestion Bee.

 

[Cotton*wood]

I finished all the fecals I took of the ewes. I am dumbfounded. Two of them have counts so high that I don't know why they aren't dead. And get this--their eye membranes are pink, not bright pink, but pink. Pink enough that I would never have thought that they are so wormy.

I followed the genetic trail. One ewe is responsible for the worst of the lot. One of my original ewes, Lady Baa Baa is the mother or grandmother of the worst sheep I have. I was going to keep yet another of her ewe lambs, but NOT NOW! She had a high worm count, was wormed, and later will go to slaughter. I will be keeping one and only one, of the ewe lambs this year. That is Scottie, daughter of Miranda.

Miranda is the best ewe, along with Ewenique, the other two original ewes. Both of them had a count of 100, meaning that I only found two barber pole worm eggs in the fecal sample. I only have 1 daughter of Ewenique's because she usually has ram lambs, she also had a count of 100. I have 3 daughters of Miranda, they also had low counts.

So it looks like I will have quite the cull list. Since Ringo has been with the ewes, I will wait for them to lamb, wean, then cull and take the lambs to slaughter. I won't be keeping any more from the Lady Baa Baa ewe. One of Lady Baa Baa's daughters, Lily, had a low count--BUT her wether lamb had bottle jaw last week, so he got wormed and the bottle jaw is down to normal. I have not tested him, it was already obvious. We ran the lambs through the chute today and he got a dose of two different wormers.

This has been a real eye opener. I have checked eye membranes and thought I had healthy sheep. What has really been interesting is tracing it back to one ewe. There will definitely be some changes around here.

I said it already, but I will say it again, Thank you Teresa for showing me what to do and putting this valuable tool in my hands. Thank you. I in turn will teach @Devonviolet and @Ridgetop has asked to learn how to run fecals too, when they come to Texas. So you are going to have a positive impact on others besides me.

I really really need to learn how to do this. I have the MacAllister slide, and a microscope, and I tried a couple months ago, but I need some coaching--someone to make sure I'm focusing right, and tell me what THEY are seeing. I looked at samples from all four of my original ewes, but alas, could make no actual determinations. Everyone has pink or bright pink eyelids. But we did cull the two persistently skinny ewes; the rest are all very well conditioned, so if they do have higher counts, they're handling it well. And we haven't had much of a load on the pasture--long rotation times with super-hot weather in between. Already I've decided to save one pasture for lambing month, and not have had any of them on it for six months.