This is Shaggy Carpet sheep #903. (With the wooled Jacob ewe behind her, and birds sitting on her back. I don’t know why these birds like to sit on livestock, but they do). I don’t really name any of my sheep. But in my head, they are all indexed by some primary characteristic by which I recognize them. Because I can still, barely, tell them all apart. And her 70’s shag carpet wool is this one’s most distinctive (and undesirable) feature.
Shaggy is #33’s daughter, one of triplets. They are all pretty nice-sized girls, and of course large, triplet-born and mother-raised are very desirable traits. Her two sisters shed out very nicely, but ol’ Shaggy didn’t. I’m not sure if she will shed this year, we’ll see. Here she is sandwiched between her mother and sisters during the summer, sporting her shag while they were all nicely shed out.
So originally I thought I’d sell or butcher her, given that her coat type isn’t desirable for a shedding breed. But as my lambs grew last year, all the reasons to sell or keep a sheep were rattling around in my head. I finally decided my most important goal is pounds-per-ewe weaned, and that makes Shaggy and her mother and sisters tops in that category. The bad coat can be bred out over time. Then because I wanted to increase my flock size, I just kept all the ewe lambs I had, since none of them had any real deal-killer traits. And there is something to be said for keeping unstressed ewes on-farm, versus risking purchasing new ones, as I found out from having a loss of a purchased sheep last summer.
August Breeding?
So, OK, fine, Shaggy stayed around for my planned breeding season in October. Except she was the only one that never got a crayon mark from the rams. This likely either meant that she is barren and never went into heat, or that she was already bred earlier in the summer. The second possibility was most likely, as I didn’t finish fencing and removing the rams from the flock until the end of August. There was some risk that some ewes would go into heat before then. But I wasn’t too bothered by that potentially happening, so I didn’t rush to finish the fence.
According to my math, even if Shaggy had been bred the last day the rams were with her, and she had the absolute longest pregnancy ever heard of, she should have lambed by January 30th. But she didn’t. And by now, she looks quite pregnant, like she could easily be carrying twins.
So, what happened? Ok, warning: frank biology discussion ahead!
The Wethers Weren’t Really Wethers…
I had two wether grower lambs in with the flock, sort of. When I banded them, I managed to miss one testicle on each of them! Ooops! Well, in my defense, those things are tiny, the bander is unwieldy and under a lot of tension, the lambs wiggle, and it’s hard to get everything lined up without banding your own fingers or shooting yourself in the eye or something!
I didn’t worry too much about this botched castration, however, because the result is a testicle which has no scrotum sack, it’s way up in the body cavity. Read: too hot for semen to survive. In fact, I’ve read that some people purposely neuter in this fashion, and it results in the wether retaining many desirable masculine characteristics that a totally emasculated wether won’t have. like fast growth, and behaving like a “real” ram, so that he can serve as a teaser ram.
I left these two wethers in with the ewes until butchering time in mid-September. I wanted them to benefit from the graze as they were finishing. Right before butchering, I considered what if they managed to breed one or more ewes despite the semen temperature handicap? They were both very nice animals, I almost regretted castrating them, so having lambs out of them would not be objectionable. As a precaution, I ran DNA profiles on them both before slaughter. This way, if I had to, I could do some postmortem who’s-your-daddy sleuthing on any lambs I’d wish to register. (And as a note: that costs $35 per sheep, so it’s not a cost effective way of sorting out pedigree information in general. You’d only want to do this in extenuating circumstances, like when you have an accidental breeding that results in some very nice progeny that you really, really want to keep).
Shagadelic Valentine Lambs, Maybe?
Well, lo and behold, she’s now past the final due date of birthing any legitimate offspring. So it’s looking like ol’ Shag managed to partner with one of those wether guys, and at least one sperm survived Hades! Unfortunately, they were her half brothers (same sire). So any resulting lambs will probably just be marked for slaughter, as that is pretty tight line-breeding (really, in-breeding) for my taste (though dog show people do it regularly enough).
This now makes her mystery due date, assuming she was bred on the last possible day she was with the wethers, around February 11th (148 days gestation), with a corner case last date of Feb 22 (159 days gestation). Wouldn’t it be fitting if she lambed on Valentines’ Day, considering the scandalous love affair that started this? 😀 Well, not really, they were all just being sheep and sheep aren’t very romantic. But it would make for a funny story anyway.
Here is one of the two sneaky potential fathers, a nice-sized boy at six months of age:
Tick Tock, Tick Tock
I hate the suspense! I am looking forward to the rest of the ewes lambing in orderly fashion according to the spreadsheet calculations, and my decision to have them wait until after daylight savings! It’s driving me nuts looking out the window several times a day wondering if Shaggy might be lambing. And due to her shag, it’s even harder to see if the lambs have dropped in her abdomen; though I’m not much good at spotting that anyway.
There are two other more remote possibilities:
1) somehow Shaggy didn’t get marked with crayon during the regular breeding phase in October, and she’s really due March 15th with the rest of the ewes. But considering her carpet-ey covering, I can’t imagine how the crayon wouldn’t have left a mark.
2) she’s not pregnant at all, just open and fat. If that’s the case, she’s going into the freezer in April! And that was what I originally thought would be her fate anyway, because a shaggy Katahdin is a dubious thing.
And that, my friends, is the story of the Shaggy Carpet Sheep and the Mysterious Due Date. I’m waiting, Shaggy! Hurry up!
February 9, 2010 at 2:23 am
LOL! I wonder if the wethers did breed her? I have a goat wether that acts like he’s not wethered, although he has no smell or other masculine traits. But the buck absolutely HATES him… I often thought maybe he wasn’t completely wethered. In my case though I am fairly sure he isn’t viable or I think he would have bred my doe. Interesting to say the least – now I too am curious what your shaggy ewe will do – pop or get stuck in the freezer…
February 9, 2010 at 3:59 am
The birds are eating insects – lice, mites or … Just symbiosis in action.
February 9, 2010 at 8:25 am
You can at least figure out if she’s pregnant or not by sending a blood sample to http://www.BioTracking.com
This of coarse won’t tell you ‘when’ she’ll lamb, but will tell you for sure if she’s open or pregnant. 😉
The test is $7.50 plus shipping to ID. I usually ship via Priority Mail in the small flat rate boxes (so under $5). If they get them by Wed, you usually can have the results back by Friday or Saturday! You can test them as early as 30 days bred.
February 9, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Another blog I read had a similar issue:
http://altapetestockdogs.blogspot.com/2010/01/no-lambing-ha-ha-sure.html
February 10, 2010 at 3:40 am
Ah, Shaggy is SO cute! And the white lamb in pic three. 🙂 That’s a really awesome picture.
Naomi
February 10, 2010 at 4:47 pm
MatronOfHusbandry, that’s what I wondered, surely the birds must have a reason for wanting to sit on sheep. But I’ve never seen them eating anything on the sheep, theys seem to just sit there, and they have a hard time staying balanced when the sheep are walking about. It seems like it was only for a short period of time during the late summer/early fall, and then they were gone, so maybe some species migrating through.
Michelle
February 10, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Linda, maybe he was born monorchid, such that he has a testicle up in his body giving him hormones, but it’s non-functional for reproduction?
February 10, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Thanks Jessica, that’s good to remember, I will bookmark their site for future reference. With this one, I should know in a few more weeks; but the ten bucks would have offset feeding her all winter if I would have tested her back in October and found that she was open. She sure looks pregnant though, so hopefully she’ll come through. Now watch, she’ll have three amazing triplets, and I’ll be stuck in a conundrum of whether to keep them!
Michelle
February 10, 2010 at 5:13 pm
I love it Jo! It’s funny how so often when you want an animal to get pregnant she won’t, and then when you didn’t plan it…
Michelle
February 10, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Hi Michelle!
Well, if they sire sheds well, they resulting lambs could be better then their dam, so it still could turn out ok. 😉
Yes! I love being able to do blood tests on the girls after 30 days, as some times it’s hard to tell if they are for sure before I need to get them dried off (2 mo prior to kidding)! I can also cull a problem goat, too, this way if she’s not bred at the end of the season and not milking well, or I had a couple of does that I tried breading early in the season, but I didn’t see them recycle so thought they were bred and ended up not being. The test let me know I needed to get them in with the buck! There have been times, too, where I’ve been able to just milk a doe through when I found out she was bred.
Jessica 😉
February 10, 2010 at 5:22 pm
They are cute, aren’t they Naomi? I think I like the ones with wild markings the best, but I really try to make myself ignore markings when choosing the best sheep. That was such a nice set of triplets, all girls, I came home from work and the ewe had them all delivered, dried and clean and they were nursing and all running around! The mother had such a casual look on her face, like she was saying “Three girls. Done!” It doesn’t get any easier than that!
Michelle
February 10, 2010 at 5:25 pm
The birds may also be using the sheep just as a perch and as the sheep walk around and disturb insects, the birds can grab a snack; kind of like when you walk through a field and get followed by swallows who are hunting the bugs you disturb as you walk.
February 10, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Jo, that makes a lot of sense. The birds defintely know about the tractor and mowing- not only do the swallows swoop all around getting the insects, the raptors stick close waiting for mice to run out! They are kind of nice company during a boring job, watching them all do their thing!
Michelle
February 11, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Hey Michelle,
I was reading on an earlier post you were talking about Bova-Sera??? Are you still interested in info on that?
BTW, I think we talked at the KHSI conference?
Hope all is going well.
Bethany
February 11, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Hi Bethany, yes we did meet at the KHSI conference! It was fun seeing you and your sister there. I so enjoyed that conference, it was an especially good one.
I am still interesting in learning more about Bo-Se, though I think it’s just a vaccine, right? It sounds like you guys use it routinely? It was originally suggested to Wardeh, a fellow blogger, and we were thinking it was a natural product, since that is often the topic of discussion especially in her blog- but in looking it up, I don’t think it is? I’m generally not keen on vaccines, but I do use them judiciously on occasion, much less than “the recommendations” from various establishments, but sometimes. I’m really coming to think that when shipping sheep, it may be safer to go ahead and vaccinate than gamble on them getting pneumonia from the stress.
What is your experience with it? And also, I meant to ask you more about your experience with using grain, it sounds like you no longer prefer it, and I was curious to learn more. It’s always helpful to hear what other people have seen!
Michelle
February 11, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Bo-Se is a Selenium, Vit E supplement. Not a vaccine. 😉 It’s primarily used in this area, since we are generally low in selenium here.
February 11, 2010 at 9:29 pm
And my understanding (and experience) is that if you feed kelp there is adequate selenium in it to prevent white muscle disease. So I don’t bother with the bo-se.
February 11, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Jessica, you’re right, you’re right, I get the acronyms confused- as I think that the bova-sera Bethany mentioned (and that came up in earlier discussions) is a vaccine to prevent and treat pneumonia and other bacterial infections?
Doris- according to my calculations, kelp does not contain as much selenium as is “recommended” (but who knows where the recommendations come from and how accurate they are). Thorvin kelp, as-fed for my sheep (and they tend to eat a lot!) is giving them 0.01 ppm in their diet, and the recommended range I’ve found is 0.1 to 2ppm. So the kelp is only providing 1/10th of the minimum requirement, and only if they eat a lot of it. (I go through about a pound per day for 18 sheep, and it’s expensive! Argh.).
Of course even in deficient areas, there is probably some Se in the soil, and most people’s animals will get more if they are eating any purchased feed; so combined with the kelp maybe a lot of people get by without further supplementation. But WMD is nasty, and usually irreversible. So I think it’s worth doing the math on your own feed combinations to make sure they are somewhere near the recommended range.
There is also risk of excess, and I’m highly suspicious that the lamb I had die last spring who lost all her wool was suffering from Se toxicity (and I could not find anything else to explain her symptoms). So, it’s well worth doing the calcs on the “top” end too, if you are supplementing, and measuring how much they are eating, to be sure they are in the “safe” range- which is annoyingly narrow!
Michelle
February 12, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Michelle,
For years with our goats we used Hoegger Goat Supply’s “Goat Serum” for new born kids. We were so happy with it because it gave the babies a big jump up and go naturally and can also be used for infections, mastitis, and shipping fever. But…it is expensive…10 doses for $30 plus shipping. That doesn’t go far when your getting twins-quads!
Even more then sheep,enterotoxemia is a big issue. (CD&T is also helps prevent enterotoxemia, but a babies system can’t absorb that part of CD&T until they are 2 weeks old.). We needed something they could absorb right away.
Also, we wanted something that didn’t have such a massive amount of copper in it. So we looked at a cheaper and multi-species alternative….Bova-Sera.
Here’s a squib on Bova-Sera from Hoegger’s site.
“For use as an aid in the prevention and treatment of conditions such as pneumonia and enterotoxemia, passive immune failure in newborns and shipping fever complex in adults. Bovi Sera acts much the same as Goat Serum although goats are not listed on the label. For larger herds, Bovi Sera is very cost-effective.”
It’s $32 for 250 ml (5 cc dose for newborns and 10-20 cc dose for adults).
It might not be this, but since we started using 3 years ago, we haven’t lost a kid or lamb!!! (We used to loose at least 1 kid a year to enterotoxemia and we had some odd deaths with lambs as well.)
I give babies a shot right after birth and the mom a 10 cc dose too. That’s the only time I use it, but if I was traveling with sheep, I would use it too.
Last year during the fair season I jacked up the sheep on a little pro-biotics and sheep drench. For sheep that get really nervous I’ve used a natural (plant made) relax powder during the actual traveling.
I prefer to use natural. We’ve been so pleased with Bova-Sera though that I’m certainly going to keep using it. There is no milk or meat waiting period. I think it’s a pretty safe product.
Anyways…that’s just my experience.
I’m pretty jumpy about WMD because we once where given a buck that had suffered from it by my goat mentor when she was getting out of goats. I don’t think Katahdins are as likely to get it, but I don’t know for sure.
I give 1cc per 40 lbs right after lambing and kidding per mama and sometime before breeding. (Basically ever 6 months.)
I give all babies a 1cc dose at birth. This has always worked well for me.
When we are feeding alfalfa we use eastern Oregon cuttings, which is much richer in vitamins and minerals. That might help too.
I’ve never done kelp because of the cost and I already enough trouble keeping loose minerals full and clean for the critters.
That’s my 2 cents. 🙂
As for the grain thing…It goes back to enterotoxemia.
I prefer feeding alfalfa when I can for multiple reasons.
-For me, it’s easier to keep clean and evenly distribute. (One critter can’t goble it all like grain.)
-It’s generally less expensive.
-It really kicks in milk production for my sheep as well as the goats. (That’s a must when your having triplets and such with your Katahdins).
-It keeps their insides working. A big thing in enterotoxemia is a tummy overload when their rumins aren’t working. You want to keep that working! (Especially during the night.) Grain, doesn’t do that. Alfalfa is like grass or hay, they have to chew their cud. If you keep that part of a sheep and goat working, it helps a host of tummy related problems.
-I love the look my critters get on alfalfa. They are sleek and “put together” looking. Often when you feed grain for proteins sake they get that pot-bellied look. (This is not a blanket statement). And it’s super easy to get sheep fat on grain. I had problems with delivery when we just fed grain and plain ol’ grass hay. (So we were feeding a lot more grain then we do now.)
What I do not like about alfalfa is…
-It’s harder to get to your house and hall etc… It takes more room to store. It’s harder to monitor how much they are getting exactly.
-Sometimes it’s to flaky and messy
-You still have to feed hay too and sometimes shuffling around is annoying.
Having said all that, I do use grain. This is how….
My milk goats get grain before the kid (but not a lot) along with alfalfa.
My meat goats get free choice alfalfa before kidding and afterwards for a month or so. I only feed them grain after kidding and for about 2 weeks.
My sheep I don’t get any grain (unless it’s a treat to keep them tame) before lambing, just alfalfa. After lambing I give them grain for about 2 weeks, depending on how many babies they are trying to feed.
I don’t give my lambs any grain at all (except what they snich from mom). They get free choice alfalfa in their creep feeder.
I don’t really think grain is that dangerous as long as your watching carefully.
The main thing is don’t feed to much at a time.
I’ve just had to much experience with enterotoxemia (which is something you want to prevent since it’s almost impossible to treat) and with a couple with overweight mom’s lambing.
Any critter that isn’t nursing other critters only gets it in the morning so their rumin is working at night.
Okay…that was probably longer then it needed to be…but there it is. 🙂 I didn’t mean to post a whole blog post!!!!
Thanks! I’ve been enjoying reading the discussion. I love learning from others experience (even more then books and vets!!!). The actual breeder as so much more experience and insight.
Bethany
February 12, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Bethany! This is great info, thanks!
I SO lie awake at night worrying about feed quantities and math- it seems like such a fine line between feeding too little and too much, and things can go wrong either way. Sometimes I think it’s a wonder we don’t kill more sheep trying to find that balance! Argh!
One lower risk factor for me in lamb health is I don’t wean, I just leave the lambs on the ewes. KHSI isn’t keen on that for EPDs, since it throws in an added variable of dam milk production instead of just focusing the data on the lamb’s growth as compared to other lambs all in the same raising conditions. But I think self-weaning offers several advantages- lowers risk of mastitis in the ewe, and keeps the lamb on a safer diet of milk and forage that they choose to control, instead of us juggling high-growth feeds to push them as hard as possible without killing them! And, of course, it’s just less labor- I do nothing with the sheep all summer other than move their fence, make sure they have water, and check on them once a day. But of course, this wouldn’t work for everyone, and certainly not if you are trying to milk the mamas. I plan to continue doing like you do-grain for the first couple of weeks of nursing, then onto grass before the lambs get old enough to be seriously gobbling solid food down. I want the lambs to be solely grass-fed, since the market demands that.
Michelle
February 12, 2010 at 9:31 pm
I wean my lambs by 4-5 months just to be easier on my ewes. I like the ewes to get back into condition before rebreeding. (Also, just in case there was some confusion there, I do not milk any of my Katahdins. 🙂
Grass feeding is great, and sometimes ideal. I wish it worked for us, but we only have about 3 1/3 of our acres actually in pasture and it has been for 11 years….I need to figure out how to fertilize, plant, and take sheep off it for awhile. I know I’m killing it… 🙂
Anywyas, thanks for the reply.
Bethany
March 4, 2010 at 9:34 pm
[…] Shaggy Carpet sheep did not lamb by Feb 22, the last possible date on which any lambs sired by the […]
March 15, 2010 at 4:35 am
[…] Llama, Sheep | Leave a Comment Our first lamb of the season was born today. By guess who? Shaggy Carpet sheep. So, the mystery of her due date is over. This lamb came a bit early, on day 143 of her gestation […]
July 6, 2010 at 1:12 am
Bethany,
You could look into setting up intensive-management rotational grazing. Don’t know whether it would work on your pasture. Also, for natural and inexpensive fertilizer that transfers through the meat to nourish us, see data on sea minerals. If you start at this NaturalNews article it has links to more info: http://www.naturalnews.com/022309_salt_minerals_health.html
Julie
July 6, 2010 at 1:15 am
Also, I have questions about weaning and re-breeding. How long until the lambs are weaned when you let them self-wean?
And how long after weaning (either way) do the ewes come back into season?
July 6, 2010 at 3:43 am
I’m not sure what Bethany does; we do MIG here. We have quite a bit of pasture, more than 10 acres in graze, so thus far, I haven’t done any pasture mineralization or additive; just because of expense. I hope to investigate it more as time goes on, and weigh its expense against that of feeding mineral supplements.
MIchelle
July 6, 2010 at 3:48 am
Julie, my lambs last year were born in March. I let them nurse all the way up until the end of September. By then, they aren’t getting much, the mothers only let them nurse a moment before walking on. The ewes’ udders are pretty shrunken; I think what nursing is happening by then is mostly “comfort” behavior. But it’s nice because it allows the ewes to dry up slowly on their own, I believe it lowers the risk of mastitis as compared to “cold turkey” weaning.
I separated the ewe lambs from their mothers just a week or two before breeding them- just because I didn’t want them to be stressing over that while I was expecting them to get pregnant. The separation was minimally traumatic though, I just house them next door to each other, so they can still be comforted by their mothers’ presence. I had no trouble with any of them coming into heat on time when I re-bred in October. I think as with humans, nursing is poor birth control- the ewes likely come into heat as the days shorten whether they are still nursing or not!
Michelle
July 6, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Thank you for the info, Michelle.
I am new at this, just acquired my small starter flock last fall on a new property where we still have facilities to work on.
I am about to arrange my first spraying of the sea minerals on a portion of the field/pasture as a test area.
I am also considering, albeit in my naivety, trying to get the ewes back in season to breed for winter lambs. If it were successful it would allow me to sell off my ram early this fall, and buy a new one in spring for fall 2011 lambs. Because of my facilities and small flock situation, I have a couple reasons for thinking this way. Does it sound wacky to someone who knows what they are doing?
July 7, 2010 at 12:34 am
Julie
I’d love to hear how things go for you in applying the sea minerals to your soil- I think it’s a great idea, if it is cost effective. One helpful resource I found for working on improving soil fertility from a natural perspective (versus just loading on the chemical fertilizers every year) is Barb Lee. She follows the Albrecht method, and her blog, though not often updated, has good info from her past musing and efforts. Her writings gave me a lot of courage to try feeding my sheep copper- something most people forbid!
I know that some sheep breeds have a higher liklihood of breeding out of season compared to others. “Normal” sheep go into heat when the days start getting shorter again, in late summer. But breeds like the Katahdin have been selected for year-round ovulation. I know some people who get two lamb crops per year out of their Katahdins just by letting them breed naturally whenever they choose. There is definite advantage to sheep that can do this- not only to produce more, but to line up lamb crops with things like Muslim holidays when lamb is most in demand.
But this isn’t always the case that you can get them to breed out of season, as I have Katahdins who were exposed to a ram in Aug-September, and they did not get pregnant until later in the fall. You might have better luck doing a “teaser” situation- housing the ram next door to the ewes where they can see and smell him, but can’t access him? And flushing with a high nutrient feed might help bring them into ovulation as well-it’s worth a try!
Michelle