I am quite interested in your grazing program efforts. I have a large field, with not enough subdivision, and of course they tend to overgraze their favourite areas, and only get to the other stuff when the winter comes. I need to subdivide, and am budgeting for precisely that. I feed them round bales of hay when that time comes, and though they are not overly fond of the hay, they eat and do well on it when they ground is covered with snow.
regarding handling,I found that having a good tame dorper/katahdin ewe in with them, and will easily lead where you want her to go goes a long way to helping handle the BB ewes. It also help them be more tame if that is what you want. Most of my BBB ewes started out as wild as march hares, but now they are much more relaxed about being moved, allowing me access to their lambs, and being jugged for lambing. Its the horrible ram that i had to deal with, boy was he aggressive! I castrated him and he too lives with the flock now, as he is a wonderful coyote deterrent, and fortunately, no longer charges any human in sight. Marion (shepherd of a small flock) ===== Friendship is an horizon that expands as we approach it. =============================================== This message is from the Blackbelly Sheep mailing list (http://www.awrittenword.com/listserv/index.html). To respond to this message, send e-mail to [email protected] To unsubscribe or change your membership options, go to http://lists.coyotenet.net/mailman/listinfo/blackbelly To search the archives, go to http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
