Ausra Farms - Updated

I’m sure that some of the difference comes from show stock vs. commercial stock. I know some people that raise show sheep and pull almost every one. Just something else that I thought of.
 
Mike CHS said:
This is kind of related to survival with sheep. A friend of ours did an apprenticeship in New Zealand at one of the large Sheep Stations and told us that when lambing season started, the Station owners went on Holiday till it was over. That way they avoided trying to salvage animals that should be culled anyway.
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But if they did that here Mike, they wouldn't be able to pocket a few bucks by selling them to some poor soft hearted soul at the sale barn :confused:
 
I will eventually shift to registered Katahdins. I want to buy from flocks that have a few problems as possible. I realize that sometimes, things just go wrong. I'll give an animal another chance, but if it continues, why would I keep it? I have a ewe that aborted her first lamb--and my first lamb too. I was broken hearted, but kept her for another try. She has since had twins every time and is a great mother. So there ya' go.
 
Baymule said:
If I had to assist an animal to give birth, especially over multiple times, I would sell it. So far, my ewes present me with lambs and my input to the process is exactly zero. I don't have many ewes, so maybe as numbers go up, problems do too. But I don't want to keep an ewe that I have to bury my arm in her back end, or pull lambs or otherwise help her give birth. If I had a crisis like that, I would pull out all the stops to save ewe and lamb, but I would sell her after weaning the lamb.
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I'll give a heifer a 2nd chance..most of the time, but not a cow and if the daughter of a problem cow has the same problem, they both go to the kill pen as well as any of their calves. I don't want 'my problems' going to a'back to the farm' buyer.
 
I've gotten a lot stricter on the ewes I keep too. I am like @Baymule I will usually give them a second chance. However, I am still a smaller operations and still building my flock and getting established, I am sure once my numbers triple (as I hope!) I will be able to be more subjective. I've been lucky and my girls have never needed assistance, I always place them in lambing pens though, never leave them out in the field. But again, it is the difference between small & large operations. Although the big sheep farmer close to me always moves his ladies to a lambing barn and never leaves them outside for lambing. It all comes down how you run your operation I guess.
 
I just realized she has an X on her head!! :love
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