Sheep feed

[Cotton*wood]

Some breeds you can skip grain but it highly depends on your pasture and the sheep themselves. Not all sheep or breeds can handle pasture only feed systems. You are likely in a situation where the people sold the offpsring of sheep who were not really good on pasture....because of that very reason. Sheep that work for pasture only can be bred up too.

The people who sold me the sheep didn't really do any selecting at all, just herded the whole flock (of 66 ewes) into a holding area and let me choose four that I liked the looks of, so it was really pretty random. But indeed, as we do selecting, we will definitely be keeping the ones that do best on only pasture

Sorry I forgot to answer the other question. At 4 months they should have been weaned at least a month ago. Any nursing is still forcing the ewes to produce milk, long term the ewe can not sustain that esp without grain. If you can separate the lambs for 2-4 weeks to let the ewes dry off you should be ok to put them back together after that. If you have any male lambs you need to band them or keep them separate, they can breed at 4 months old.

It is very possible also that your sheep are great pasture only sheep.....just not ment to be nursing for 4 months after carrying lambs for 5 months. Thats 9 months of a calorie deficiency any animal would have a hard time keeping condition on just grass for 9 months while prego and nursing.

Thanks for answering my question. I think I can do this, and I think it'd be good for the ewes. Now just to figure out how to move the lambs and not the ewes, or vice versa. They usually travel as a mob.....

 

[misfitmorgan]

The people who sold me the sheep didn't really do any selecting at all, just herded the whole flock (of 66 ewes) into a holding area and let me choose four that I liked the looks of, so it was really pretty random. But indeed, as we do selecting, we will definitely be keeping the ones that do best on only pasture

Thanks for answering my question. I think I can do this, and I think it'd be good for the ewes. Now just to figure out how to move the lambs and not the ewes, or vice versa. They usually travel as a mob.....

How we do it is, lure them all into their sheep shed with grain, then close off the opening. After that you have 2 options.....go in there and grab lambs to transfer them to another area or make a short sheep chase right outside the building/pen and sort them out at the end of it.

We did something similar for shearing this year and works out sooooo well.

Sorting setup

Shearing setup

Note that there is a difference in panels used if you decide to go this way. Lambs can go thru corral panels and tube gates. For shearing thats fine, for sorting it is bad.

 

[Cotton*wood]

How we do it is, lure them all into their sheep shed with grain, then close off the opening. After that you have 2 options.....go in there and grab lambs to transfer them to another area or make a short sheep chase right outside the building/pen and sort them out at the end of it.

We did something similar for shearing this year and works out sooooo well.

Sorting setup
View attachment 86360

Shearing setup
View attachment 86361

Note that there is a difference in panels used if you decide to go this way. Lambs can go thru corral panels and tube gates. For shearing thats fine, for sorting it is bad.

Thanks! I kindof like the just "grab 'em" idea. Our sheep stall is in the barn, which is not attached to any of our pastures. Getting them in there is no problem (the magic of the grain bucket), but getting them out to various pastures will be much more problematic. Gosh, I wonder if we could set up our panels in the corner of the pasture, lure in with grain, and then lift the lambs over the fence to the pasture on the other side? Could two people lift a hefty lamb? Three people? Then they'd have a solid fence between them, and we could go from there.

Is it better if the lambs and mamas are far away from each other, or is being on opposite sides of a fence a reasonable separation?

 

[misfitmorgan]

Yes setting up panels in the corner will work....make sure it is a fairly small area. If the area is to big you will be chasing them in circles and they may try to jump out. Thats a part of why a chase is narrow...no jumping room. One person lifts our lambs, but we also lift 50 and 100LB feed sacks and 75-100LB hay bales. We have one person on each side of the panel to pass the lamb from one person to the other....a little calmer then just dropping them over. If you are not a reasonable strong person have a second person on hand to help in the pen.

Ideally it is better if they are farther away however separate is separate and one fence works just fine. The biggest down side to one fence is the lambs will cry for longer because they can see their dams. The sorting example I showed is literally how ours are separated, with cattle panels down the middle of the shed and across the dry lot to make a separate area. You should be fine, once they are in a small area things become pretty easy.

Also a good time to do any vaccinations or wormer they need another dose for.

 

[Cotton*wood]

Great! I have a plan now!

 

[Baymule]

That’s how we did things until we got our sheep working equipment (used) several years ago. We bought the drop gates, end gate and sorting gate. The long chute has cow panel sides, the short chute has hog panel sides. It’s put together with T-posts. The equipment is made by Premier.
Look up Premier sheep equipment to see what they have. Before we got ours, I used pallets for end gates and cow panels. I put boards through the holes to separate sheep, it wasn’t great, but better than nothing. Before that I used the chase and flying tackle. That didn’t work too well for me. LOL

You will need to load sheep in a trailer some day. Use this same idea with cow panels narrowing down to load in the trailer. Our trailer has a gate that the whole gate opens or it has a small sliding gate within the end gate. Before we figured that out, we haltered and dragged sheep to the trailer. LOL

Having the sheep equipment makes it so easy, I can work sheep by myself and I’m 66 years old. My husband helps and that makes it even easier. I found ours on Craigslist but have also seen it on Facebook marketplace.

 

[Cotton*wood]

That’s how we did things until we got our sheep working equipment (used) several years ago. We bought the drop gates, end gate and sorting gate. The long chute has cow panel sides, the short chute has hog panel sides. It’s put together with T-posts. The equipment is made by Premier.
Look up Premier sheep equipment to see what they have. Before we got ours, I used pallets for end gates and cow panels. I put boards through the holes to separate sheep, it wasn’t great, but better than nothing. Before that I used the chase and flying tackle. That didn’t work too well for me. LOL

You will need to load sheep in a trailer some day. Use this same idea with cow panels narrowing down to load in the trailer. Our trailer has a gate that the whole gate opens or it has a small sliding gate within the end gate. Before we figured that out, we haltered and dragged sheep to the trailer. LOL

Having the sheep equipment makes it so easy, I can work sheep by myself and I’m 66 years old. My husband helps and that makes it even easier. I found ours on Craigslist but have also seen it on Facebook marketplace.

Nice! We brought our four ewes home in the back of our pickup truck (with a topper on). We hoisted them up with two people, and got them out the same way. This sounds better. I think we'll wait a bit on sheep equipment, and see what we can make do with. We do have a lot of spare cattle panels we can rig up.

 

[misfitmorgan]

That’s how we did things until we got our sheep working equipment (used) several years ago. We bought the drop gates, end gate and sorting gate. The long chute has cow panel sides, the short chute has hog panel sides. It’s put together with T-posts. The equipment is made by Premier.
Look up Premier sheep equipment to see what they have. Before we got ours, I used pallets for end gates and cow panels. I put boards through the holes to separate sheep, it wasn’t great, but better than nothing. Before that I used the chase and flying tackle. That didn’t work too well for me. LOL

You will need to load sheep in a trailer some day. Use this same idea with cow panels narrowing down to load in the trailer. Our trailer has a gate that the whole gate opens or it has a small sliding gate within the end gate. Before we figured that out, we haltered and dragged sheep to the trailer. LOL

Having the sheep equipment makes it so easy, I can work sheep by myself and I’m 66 years old. My husband helps and that makes it even easier. I found ours on Craigslist but have also seen it on Facebook marketplace.

Handling equipment is not cheap but I can share the cheapest place I've found on the internet.
https://www.brusselsagri.com/Sheep-Handling-Equipment/folder/1030
They are located in canada but do ship to the US, the brand they carry is marweld even though it doesnt say that anyplace. Marwelds sister company is lakeland literally exact same equipment painted green but way more expensive.

 

[Cotton*wood]

Handling equipment is not cheap but I can share the cheapest place I've found on the internet.
https://www.brusselsagri.com/Sheep-Handling-Equipment/folder/1030
They are located in canada but do ship to the US, the brand they carry is marweld even though it doesnt say that anyplace. Marwelds sister company is lakeland literally exact same equipment painted green but way more expensive.

Wow--that is expensive, but thanks for the link. We'll probably make something make-shift.....

 

[Baymule]

Wow--that is expensive, but thanks for the link. We'll probably make something make-shift.....

That’s what I did for several years. We also raise meat chickens, Cornish Cross chickens. We have a few customers we do custom growing for and do quite well. One year I saw the sheep equipment on Craigslist for $650. We couldn’t get there fast enough. We offered them $500 and they took it. They didn’t know it, but I wasn’t leaving without that equipment! LOL Chicken meat bought my sheep working equipment. This year chicken meat has bought 13 round bales at $60 each. And money left over.