Using the MSU Sheep Ration Program

I have been working a lot with the sheep ration calculation program created by Montana State University. This is a really nice, free, online too for doing feed nutrient balancing for sheep of all stages of life. You can do this by hand using the Pearson Square method, but the online tool is easier, especially when combining more than two feedstuffs.

 

Snowscapes

It made international news, I think, our gargantuan snowstorm. For us it wasn’t too big of a deal. Inconvenient, yes. Life-threatening, no. I stopped measuring snow at 11 inches in our pasture; and the cumulative snowfall was a lot more than that, because it was melting some each day. That’s the funny thing about around here: most of the time when it snows, it’s not even freezing, at least during the day. Over a foot of snow is a lot for this area; I think we set a record for something like on-the-day-of-January-18th.

But it’s not very impressive to people who live with snow all winter. A week of difficult roads, limited travel, some power outages, and harder work on the farm, and then it’s over, probably for the season. Here are some images from our big week of snow.

 

Tubes vs. Barrels: Sheep Optimized For Different Feedstuffs

One of the most intriguing aspects of breeding animals, to me, is breed type. In simple terms, type refers to phenotype, or the outward manifestation of traits which tell your eye, this is a Katahdin Sheep versus this is a Romney. For people who show animals, part of the preoccupation with type is just emphasis on “purebred-ness.” An animal that lacks type is of questionable pedigree, or an indicator of undesirable genetic drift from the norm for that breed.

 

A Tale of Three Rams

I traded rams with a friend of mine, both of us needing some fresh blood for our flocks. She had spent a lot of money a few years ago bringing a White Post Farm ram over from the East Coast, an had several of his sons for me to choose from. I brought her a little pinto colored fellow who had the one of the best NSIP metrics of my group of rams, and whose brothers have been popular breeders at other farms. White Post Katahdins are very well known, and the sons of this big boy import all carried the typical White Post look, and substantial size.

 

Winter Lull

Things have down-shifted here for winter. I bred 34 ewes in the first part of November. After the crummy and cold 2011 spring, I wanted to lamb a little later next year. But I decided I couldn’t push it too far, the timing is tricky for me.