Teresa and Mike Lambing Thread Winter 2019 Part2

[Mike CHS]

My #21 ewe is about as close to being pet tame as any of our sheep. I was down in the stall to put some feed out and I noticed her sack was hanging and she came over and lay down beside where I was sitting on the door stoop and her water broke. She had a single lamb which I'm good with since she is one of our smaller ewes (or at least she was when she got bred). I'll get more pictures later but the first one is of her in labor.

Pepper is the next one due to lamb and isn't far behind 21 in the tame department. Every time I sit with them while they are feeding, she comes up for some scratches.

The picture with the ewe that looks terrible in her shedding but her winter coat was several inches thick and is shedding in clumps. She was a year old in early March which we planned since the ewe has to be at least a year old when they lamb for lambs to be registered. We bought her and four others last year from Sand Mountain Katahdins in east Alabama.

And last is a picture of a few of the lambs playing around the creep feeder.

 

[Mike CHS]

The ewe lamb born to 21 this morning is a hair under 9 1/2 pounds and showed us something new. We always do ear tags in the first couple of days after they are born since they don't have any fear of humans yet and they are easy to catch. This ewe lamb had only been on her feet for 20 or 30 minutes and it took some effort to catch her just to weigh her. They all tame down after a few days because their dams aren't afraid but this is the first time I have seen one that skittish so soon after birth. Especially since her dam is the tamest ewe we have.

 

[Baymule]

How sweet that she came to you and presented you with her lamb. She may be tame, but that is the result of being a good shepherd. Congrats on all the beautiful lambs.

 

[Mike CHS]

I got woke up by a bawling ewe around 4:30. She was laying in the little pen outside the spare bedroom. I got dressed to see if she might need help but she finally had a single lamb. She cleaned it off but this one doesn't seem as strong as it should be. I'll spend some time with them and see how things really are. One left to go and we can merge all of the groups and take the 10 week old rams to market. We need to take a close look at the ewes and ewe lambs since we need to get our numbers down in the next couple of months.

 

[Baymule]

With the 4 ewe lambs that I am keeping, I will have 13 ewes. I'll be taking a serious look at mine too. I don't think I can ever let go of my first 3 original ewes. Even if I finally wind up with a flock of registered ewes, I'll still have my 3 mutts. May not be good business sense, but some business comes from the heart.

 

[Mike CHS]

We still have 4 of our original ewes but they all have some of the most beautiful lambs and haven't needed worming in over a year so that goes along with their personalities. We are seriously talking about culling based on parasite history since we have so many that have excellent fecal results and about the right number that did not to make our numbers fit.

 

[misfitmorgan]

We still have 4 of our original ewes but they all have some of the most beautiful lambs and haven't needed worming in over a year so that goes along with their personalities. We are seriously talking about culling based on parasite history since we have so many that have excellent fecal results and about the right number that did not to make our numbers fit.

Sounds like a good plan, don't forget though all of the lambs will be half Maxwell too or whatever new ram you have next time. A lot of people locally just focus on the ewes and forget half of all the lambs is also the ram. This ewe 4yrs old had a weak single two years in a row....but you get your "new" ram two years ago, what was her performance before that? Only mention it because a lot of people overlook things like that and seem to always blame the females.

Another one is blaming the "poor" livestock when you really have poor management(i am guilty of this one) and seeming to only ever find "badly bred" livestock who end up with the same issues. Not that I am saying you manage your sheep poorly, quite the opposite. You have some of the best management/care I have ever seen for sheep.

 

[Mike CHS]

I know what you mean. Parasite hardiness is one of the reasons I drove an almost 1400 mile round trip to get Max the new ram. He has a background similar to the ram (Ringo) @Baymule has now. He came out of the ram lamb parasite hardiness program at Virginia Tech. The new ram Max, came out of a similar program ran by the USDA in conjunction with Arkansas State U. There are literally thousands of rams available in Tennessee but not with that kind of background. Ringo had a zero egg count when he headed south and Max had a zero egg count when he headed this way. We test the lambs fecals as much as the ewes until we get a history of those we plan on keeping.

 

[Baymule]

Rams worth driving for!

 

[misfitmorgan]

I know what you mean. Parasite hardiness is one of the reasons I drove an almost 1400 mile round trip to get Max the new ram. He has a background similar to the ram (Ringo) @Baymule has now. He came out of the ram lamb parasite hardiness program at Virginia Tech. The new ram Max, came out of a similar program ran by the USDA in conjunction with Arkansas State U. There are literally thousands of rams available in Tennessee but not with that kind of background. Ringo had a zero egg count when he headed south and Max had a zero egg count when he headed this way. We test the lambs fecals as much as the ewes until we get a history of those we plan on keeping.

Excellent, i figured Max had to be pretty special for that kind of a drive. I was pretty sure you had everything covered but never hurts to mention things not everyone thinks about.