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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...

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...

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...

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...

Hi all, As I just posted in my post re: Nibbles and her quads, she 'miraculously' came back to life after essentially being a goner. She now won't let me take the lambs away from her - if I do she races around, and ignores her feed completely. At least with her lambs there she'll eat a bit...

After almost a week of intermittent labour, Nibbles the Katahdin had quads unassisted. I walked into the shed this morning to the sight of 2 ram lambs (4.5 and 5 lbs) and 2 ewe lambs (2 and 3.75 lbs). Super cute and lively as heck. Gotta love katahdins... Anyhoo, ewe has a huge udder, but is...

Here's the lowdown: The suspect: Nibbles, a older-ish (specific, I know) katahdin ewe, who's had multiples in the past, including quads last year, only one of which survived due to crazy tangling and mal-presentations. I can't remember if she was late or early, but I THINK she was a day late...

So my little katahdin is on labour, and has been on and off for over 24 hours. Lots of stopping and staying, so I'm not overly worried about the duration. However, I would do an internal to see how things are going but for the size of her vulva. It's tiny. Literally a couple fingers long...

Okay, so this might not seem earth-changing, but after bottle-feeding a reject triplet for the last 11 days it's good news to me! So on Saturday evening my Rambouillet Bonnie gave birth to a big dead ewe and a tiny weakling ramlamb who's just holding on by the skin of his teeth three days in...

Hi all, So I have at least one bottle lamb who's currently 11 days old and doing very well on the bottle using homemade milk replacer. I'd like to get her eating something else so she can eventually be weaned earlier than normal. It's currently a few degrees below zero here during the day...

The title probably sounds very cruel and heartless. However, I'm currently sitting with a tiny lamb in a box with a blowdrier, having already soaked it in hot water for 5 minutes The blasted thing is coming back to life, and whereas earlier it did nothing but lie motionless with very little...

As I've detailed in my previous post, I have an older first time ewe in labour right now, and not seeming to be getting anywhere. No waters yet, did an exam and cervix is not fully dilated, though lamb seems to be there waiting (either head or back - something hard at least was felt). My...

Hey all, We came home from church at 1:30 this afternoon to find my rambouillet ewe Bonnie with sunken in sides, an udder the size of a basketball, and breathing pretty hard. As of now (2.5 hours later) she's in the jug doing all the pawing, breathing hard with head hanging down, lying down...

Okay, so I went out at 3:30am (about an hour ago) and Sabine was chortling over a newborn ewe lamb. Sweet. Brought them inside the jug. However, there's another dark bag peeking out - only started protruding after I held her against the wall so that lamb could nurse (first time mum, very...

Hi all, I'm a teacher, and since one of my triplets is now a bottle-baby, I was thinking about bringing it in to show my students. I work at an inner-city type school, and most wouldn't typically get to experience something like this. I'm not sure how long I'd bring it in for, but possibly...

So basically, I was gone for the weekend and my ewe had triplets two days early - I was kind of expecting it... Anyhoo, I wanted to weight them at birth for my records, but obviously I haven't been able to. They're now about 48 hours old - how accurate and similar do you think their current...

Well, Lambing has officially begun :) I have 8 ewes due to lamb this year (my first real lambing), and Tammy the beach ball was due yesterday, Sunday Feb 24th. My wife and I had to go off to a speaking engagement and were gone the entire weekend. However, my 10 year old son, with the help of...