Theawesomefowl~ My Hair Sheep Journal ~ NEW LAMB PICS! YAY!

[aggieterpkatie]

Today I let them free range-- and they filled their rumens up tighter and fuller than when they either are in a fences area of grass or on hay. Does that mean they're not getting enough roughage when they are in their fence?!?

No, it just means they were excited to have "new" food and went to town eating.

 

[theawesomefowl]

Today I let them free range-- and they filled their rumens up tighter and fuller than when they either are in a fences area of grass or on hay. Does that mean they're not getting enough roughage when they are in their fence?!?

No, it just means they were excited to have "new" food and went to town eating.

Whew--you have reassured an anxious soul.
Good....as I still haven't fixed the fence they can go to town again today. But no way are they doing this once I have tempting baby lambs next spring!!!

 

[theawesomefowl]

Yay! Fence is FIXED!!!!
The sheep were starting to go across the road and eat our neighbor's pansies, so its a good thing.

 

[theawesomefowl]

alright, so flushing has officially begun. I am working my way up to almost a lb. of concentrate per sheep; right now they get 1/2 lb. Goat gets none (he wasn't happy about that ) Plus they get whatever grass they can scrounge up, and grass hay. Sound good?

The Dorp cross, Sadie, is SO wooly!!! She has at least 3/4" of WOOL and hair on her! Oh my goodness.

I should be able to bring in the ram in a week or so.

 

[doo dah]

"Flushing" is when you feed a female animal lots of excellent food to make her more fertile, right?

 

[SheepGirl]

Flushing is when you feed higher quality feeds or more feed to get a female in breeding condition, which will encourage her to ovulate more eggs, thus producing more multiple births.

 

[Beekissed]

I wonder if anyone has ever bred selectively for ewes that do not require prebreeding flushing to produce well? I'll have to read up and see if anyone has.....if they have, I bet hair breeds would be well-suited for it.

 

[SheepGirl]

Some years we flush our ewes, other years we don't. When we flush, we have had sets of triplets and twins and very little singles. When we don't, we just have primarily twins and a singles. We don't selectively breed for not flushing to produce well, but it would be interesting to see those who don't flush and what their production records are.

 

[Beekissed]

My sheep seemed to really get fat on fall fescues right before breeding time, so I didn't bother to flush an already fat and sassy set of ewes. Mine both had twins...but Katahdins are known for twinning, so I don't know if that counts.

If the sheep are already obviously well-nourished by these fall grasses, is it necessary to flush? Or is the objective already achieved?

 

[SheepGirl]

I've read that you're not supposed to flush ewes in already-good condition (BCS 2.5+).