Recent content by shepherdO

I need a few more bales of hay stored up to get me through the winter as I have more stock this year. Anyhoo, there's a good deal on some local hay around my way - it's 'reed canary grass hay'. Any experience with this? Apparently some varieties can be high in alkaloids and prompt staggers...

Thank you for your thoughtful and well-written post, Sheepshape. It is very difficult to get abx here in Canada now due to new rules. Does it have to be a tetracycline injection, or can it be (eg) the powdered form that you put in water? I've used it in the past with my chickens, and I know...

Okay, I spend a lot of time with my sheep on a daily basis, and I typically notice everything about them. I don't know HOW, but I seem to have missed a case of pinkeye or something similar. I just noticed it this morning when Sabine was lagging behind the rest of the flock when we took them to...

Oh dear. We'd earmarked two older ewes for slaughter at the end of October and I've had one separated for fattening up over the next couple months. I just added the other to the same pen today, with, (yes, I know you're going to think/say I'm an idiot) my lovely, newly purchased texel ram...

Okay, so I'm going to be sending my two old rambouillet-suffolk gals of to butcher at the end of October, as they're getting on in years. Both needed intervention (only 1 of their 4 lambs survived), although both fostered a couple lambs. I'm wondering how to beef them up a bit between now and...

Hmm... I couldn't get the link to work...

Any idea? I typically just guess weight in adult sheep, and I don't have a method to weigh lambs other than just hoist them up and step on a bathroom scale, which then takes about 30 seconds of perfect stillness before it registers. I did this last year with a 105 lb lamb and it was difficult...

Hey folks, I'm looking into buying some electric clippers, if nothing else for crutching my ewes. I tried with the hand shears this spring and it was very hard. Took forever (like, 45 minutes per sheep) and in the end it barely did anything. I will typically have about a dozen ewes per...

Sold one as a week old bottle bay, sold two when weaned as pets, and am keeping one wether for my new ram as a companion. Sold mama as a retiree to a nice old lady :)

Hi all, I'm in the process of choosing a ram for my flock of commercial ewes. There's a great Texel farm locally which I visited, and was astounded by the quality animals there. Anyhoo, I'm looking to purchase one of their young rams to use as my new breeding ram in the fall. The one that...

Right - it's definitely not an ideal situation, but the lambs need to live, and the ewes have to do their part as well. So finding a way for the sheep to do as much feeding as possible is ideal, to save on replacer. Trust me, it's not fun, and takes a long time to hold the surrogate ewes and...

Mike CHS - hence my asking for advice :) I'm trying to make it easier on her - she loves her babies and I'd like to give her a chance to raise the little two - they were only 2 and 3.5 lbs at birth, so they're not a significant drain on her. I'll bottlefeed them to top them up, so she's not...

Hmm... good point. I had wondered about this. I'm in the process of figuring out the best route to take. Nibbles (mum) is now back eating hay and grain after a very long 6 days 'on the edge', so that's great. She's only producing milk on the left side - the right is a hard mass. Thinking...

Seems she's well on her way to recovery. She even nibbled a bit of grain yesterday (something she's been avoiding). I put her with the other sheep yesterday b/c I think psychologically she needed to get away from the jug she's been in since lambing/labour. I still keep the quads in at night...

I got some calcium from the vet. Took forever to inject. I'm assuming (hopefully) I should see an increase in milk production? I also gave penicillin, some more PropGlycol and corn syrup, and syringed in some water as she's not drinking now. Basically, she's recovered and taken back all her...