Sheep separation

[NEWCOMER]

NEWCOMER submitted a new resource:

Sheep separation - This is inspired by the post "9 month old lamb butting newborns:

When sheep have lambs you should build a pen for the lambs and their mama. However, the pen must be out of wind, reasonably spacious, and have a watering system. Leave the lamb and the mother alone in the pen after the placenta is out, make sure the lamb receives colostrum. In one case my ewe delivered a healthy male lamb but did not deliver a placenta. Eventually, the lamb looked weak so me and my helpers held her while one of us got the lamb on the teat. Afterward, the ewe was fine...

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[Legamin]

Great advice. I’m a great proponent of separating the rams from the flock once their job is done. They shouldn’t be alone or just a couple so it’s best to put the castrated weaned males with them once they are about three months old and ‘ready to run with the boys’. My experience with leaving the rams with or even in the next pen over to the ewe’s and lambs is that they are aggressive and can hurt each other. We added a 360lb BFL ram this year to increase the meat flock’s carcass size for market. He was the national 3rd place best of breed winner and set us back a few bales of wool for sure. We were trying to integrate him with the rams after breeding and they were still full of testosterone and decided that a running head butt would be in order. Both rams are polled and over 350lbs and I knew that my 160lbs was no match to go in anew separate. When they came together at top speed for the third time I heard a sickening crunch and the blood was flowing freely. Much four hours of first aid and antibiotics later I went in and drew up plans for individual stalls for a week of cooling down after separation from the herd. This seems like torture to a highly socialized flock animal but it is not. They are not in their right minds when they are first taken away from the ewes. I lost control of one a few years back and he rammed through a welded steel fence right back into ewe pen! It took three days to get him out without injury to me.
My point is that the rams need special handling, special post mating diet as they burn off almost double the calories during mating and can lose substantial weight. Now as I look back on this last year…I see building projects for next year and the need for a separating gate and sheep panels. The flock has grown to the size where just shaking a grain bucket and hoping the right one comes is no longer an option.

 

[Baymule]

I haven't used one of these, but I've read of these being used with great success. Ram face shields-they can't see straight ahead, so can't ram into each other.

Ram Shields

Protect your animals and yourself by blocking the ram's forward vision with a ram shield.

www.premier1supplies.com