Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Mike CHS]

I am going to try that. I am still in the woolly breed sheep and dairy goat mindset I guess. You have to feed them well for milk and growth. Dorpers not so much. In fact, I was just reading a couple of articles that said if you try to finish a Dorper lamb over 100 lbs. he/she puts it all into fat on the carcass. This time I am going to cut them back on hay a month before lambing and stop all grain. All our lambs were at least 9 lbs., with some singles around 11-12 lbs. The only lamb under 9 lbs. was a small twin who weighed 7.7 lbs. His brother was 9.9 lbs. That little guy looked like a midget, but finished out the same weight as the other wethers. The smaller lambs were just as lively if not more than the huge ones. And it is much easier on the ewes. Thanks, I will try that.

All of our twins were in the 8 pound range and the trips were all in the 6 pound range. The trips are all around 40 pounds at 6 weeks and gaining. All of the trips have normal gain at almost 1 pound a day so I'm happy.

 

[Ridgetop]

That would suit me fine. The ADG is more important than birth weight. Some of the best White Dorper rams are from Paul and Kathy Lewis. They are on NSIP and Lambplan and when buying you can look up the records to see what their lambs will do. That testing and record keeping shows which rams produce faster growing, lower birth weight lambs. My Lewis ram is supposed to produce lower birth weight and fast growing lambs and last year his lambs gained really fast, finishing at 100 lbs. at 4 months old. The lambs I just took to slaughter did not grow as fast as last year but they were out of 2 different rams. The spring lambs are out of Lewis, and are growing very fast. This year his lambs were larger than I expected so I probably was feeding them too well!

 

[Bruce]

He doesn't get a lot of time with the sheep since they go wherever I go.

Well then, you go to the far end of the pasture and tell Lance to take the sheep to the gate

 

[Mike CHS]

We took 16 sheep to the sale this morning. They are doing the safe distancing which works fairly easy the way they are laid out. They have a pull through unloading area so all you have to do is open the trailer gate and they are gone. I actually felt guilty with this bunch since the three ewes are about the tamest that we have. We didn't run them through the chute but rather I went in the trailer and Teresa opened the panel and the sheep ran to me in the trailer. We used the smaller horse trailer this morning and this number of sheep had it full.

 

[Bruce]

Kind of hard sometimes.

 

[Mike CHS]

Lunch wasn't healthy but it sure was tasty, fried okra and green tomatoes with a home made remoulade sauce.

 

[Mike CHS]

We are watching the livestock auction online and today was the day to take meat goats in and sheep prices that we are seeing is the best we have seen.

 

[Bruce]

Hey, okra and tomatoes are vegetables (OK fruit that we call vegetables) right?? That makes your lunch healthy.

 

[CntryBoy777]

That surely is promising for ya....

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Glad you hit the auction on a great day!