Messages

1

All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: How Do You Stop Wood Chewing?

« on: January 09, 2018, 02:18:51 pm »

Salt?

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Bottle Babies

« on: January 04, 2018, 12:24:23 pm »

With Polypays, we often have triplets and quads so we have a lot of bottle lambs each year.  When we had lots of free labor (children at home) we used bottles and supplemented the triplets and quads while leaving them all with the mother.  Now we pull the extras and put them on nipple pails, usually divided by size and/or age.  This has worked really well for us.  We will still use a few bottles if a lamb needs a little extra supplementing while we are waiting to decide whether to pull the lamb or leave it with mom. 

Ewes are shipped if they can't take care of twins.  When we had fewer ewes, we put up with more issues but with 45 ewes, if they cause trouble they are gone.  Someone said once that 10% of the sheep cause 90% of the problems so get rid of the 10%. 

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Weak yearling ewe

« on: April 24, 2017, 03:17:58 pm »

The amount was 100 ml for two days.  The ewe lambed last week with a nice 9.5 pound ram lamb and isn't showing any symptoms at all of her past problem.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Weak yearling ewe

« on: April 11, 2017, 03:54:22 pm »

None of us can remember.  Maybe there was an amount to give on the bottle.  This ewe acts completely normal and looks like she will be giving us lambs is spite of her problems.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Weak yearling ewe

« on: February 13, 2017, 03:10:02 pm »

The ewe is doing great besides her one back leg looking a bit stiff.  She is back in with the rest of the yearling ewes and we are keeping a close eye on her and the rest but no problems with any of the others.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Weak yearling ewe

« on: February 07, 2017, 03:25:25 pm »

So last Thursday, we had a weak yearling ewe, bred to lamb the beginning of April.  When she stood, her back end was very shaky and she immediately laid down again.  She didn't have a temp but was shivering.  She continued to get worse throughout the day but continued eating well, didn't look in pain, and was very alert.  The vet finally got back to us and was pretty clueless about what it could be so had us give her A,D, and E, Bo-Se, propylene glycol, and penicillin.  She continued getting weaker.  Early Saturday my daughter was able to connect with her former university prof who said that the lab farm had a ewe like that last year and to give her calcium gluconate either IV or just under the skin.  Within an hour she was showing some improvement and has continued to steadily improve to the point that she gets up easily and walks short distances just a bit stiffly.  The sheep are getting decent grass hay with some alfalfa in it.  We have never had a calcium issue before and are stumped as to the cause but happy that she is on the mend.  The prof said if anyone else looks weak to mix lime and salt to get them extra calcium. 

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Happy New Year!

« on: January 02, 2017, 07:02:12 pm »

We got a Swann with four cameras and a DVR.  We have apps on our phones that we just click on to see what the sheep are up to.  We can also view on our computer or a smart TV.  You will need wifi out in your shed.  We ended up putting in antennas from the house to the shed to send the wifi signal from the house to the shed.  These antennas have to have a clear line of sight in order to work.  The electrician said it was cheaper than running cat 5 cable and would give us a better picture.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Happy New Year!

« on: January 01, 2017, 10:05:53 am »

After our dairy barn burned down in July, 2015, we built my dream sheep barn last winter.  Everything is so much easier with all the lambs in one barn instead  of in several small sheds.  We also bought a sorting system with a tub, chute, tilt cradle for hoof trimming, and a scale.  No more wrestling sheep!  We have a mini fridge and microwave in our heated office so no more bags of milk replacer in the house.  We just got the lamb cameras set up so I can watch them from work.  And we can lamb in the heated office if we need to. I can't wait for lambing this year!

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Lambing Barn Camera

« on: December 12, 2016, 03:44:44 pm »

We just put in cameras in our new sheep barn.  Our electrician put in an antenna on the barn and on the house to send the wifi signal from the barn to the house.  We put Swann surveillance cameras in the barn and can get it on the computer and our phones.  It is well below freezing and have no problems with a good picture.  This only works if you have a clear line of sight from one antenna to the other.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Grafting lambs

« on: November 16, 2016, 03:26:56 pm »

We always have an abundance of lambs with our polypays so have rarely had an opportunity to even attempt it.  The only time it worked was when a ewe lamb had lambed and never got up to clean the lamb up so it was dead.  The next day my husband put a lamb on her and she took it and was a good mom to it.  We joked she was too naive or stupid to realize it wasn't her own.  Another hint I've heard of is to insert your hand and make a fist to simulate another lamb being born, smear fluid on the lamb, and then give the ewe the lamb to be grafted.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Off ewe

« on: October 23, 2016, 05:01:09 pm »

Don, we giggled at the "self-proclaimed royal status".  We have moved her into the shed and put her in with a ram lamb.  She seems happier now getting feed but still isn't eating hay.

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Off ewe

« on: October 21, 2016, 04:41:08 pm »

I have a 9 year old ewe that is not bred yet.  She was always the pet of the flock and the biggest pig!  The last couple of months, she just hasn't been herself.  She doesn't come for treats and hangs back while the others eat. Often she is lying down away from the rest of the flock.  Her feet are good as are her teeth.  We have temped her a few times over the past few weeks and no temp.  We penned her with some market lambs a month ago and she was eating well and acting more normal so we put her back with the ewe flock and she started acting off again.  Today we  noticed her ears were cold and her temp was at 100.2.  Any thoughts on what could be wrong with her?

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Overeating on a milk bar?

« on: February 22, 2016, 12:32:51 pm »

Don, we offer it starting at about a week but they just don't eat it. The lambs still on the ewes eat it so I don't think it is a palatability issue.  As advised, we tried to keep the pail filled at all times with cold milk so they wouldn't overeat and they just kept emptying the bucket.  Finally we cut way back and only fed twice a day.  They finished the pail within a minute.  So should we just give them a smaller amount and not worry about keeping the pail filled?  How much should we limit them to?

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Overeating on a milk bar?

« on: February 20, 2016, 02:01:28 pm »

Our biggest problem is that when they get older, they eat way  more than they are supposed to.  They never get sick at all, but it is expensive and they don't eat feed until way after they should.  By 30 days, they aren't eating any creep feed.  It is impossible to keep the pail filled.  They are finishing the pail within minutes of us filling it with what is supposed to be about 24 hours of milk.  What is best in this scenario?

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All Sheep and Lamb Discussion / Re: Triplets and Milk Replacer

« on: February 06, 2016, 12:22:28 pm »

With Polypays, we have lots of triplets and quads.  When the kids were home and we had lots of help, we supplemented 10-15 each year.  Usually only one or two out of each set would take a bottle.  The last couple of years, however, we have switched more over to pails.  Last year we had 7 pail lambs and supplemented a few more only twice a day which was  manageable with my work schedule.  The pail lambs looked better than the supplemented ones.  Our biggest problem is getting them to eat feed.  They are much slower to begin than the ones who watch mommy.  We tried putting a pail in the creep pen with the general population once but it seemed that a lot of the other lambs were helping themselves too.