Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium
Stephanie, I use a relative count for eggs. I use one cover slip to count from a solution made with 3 grams of droppings (fiascofarm.com). I count only that one cover slip portion and usually find 8 - 15 eggs of various types. I look for diarrhea and listen for coughing and general appearance and behavior. Not a serious examination, but I just look at them several times a day as I go about my business on the farm (we farm blueberries). We do rotate pasture and we try to keep the grass rather high (about 3 inches) but we cannot always do that when we have periods of drought. We will occasionally put a cow in the vacant pasture, but only to get the cow (we have one longhorn) out of a pasture we are working on. We have only had our blackbellies for two and one half years and been through three lambings. There have been no problems with the sheep. We currently have 14 sheep on about 3 acres of pasture. After another round of lambing we will open up another 4 acres of pasture for them. Being inexperienced with sheep, I really don't know what are proper animal/pasture ratios with our crude type of pasture management (not at all scientific...just a what does it look like? type of analysis). My plan is to increase the flock to a size where either (1) we can easily just keep the grass up or (2) we can just sell enough lambs to maintain the flock size, whichever comes first. Aside from the winter rye, our pasture grass is what came up naturally after we cut and dug out the pines. Maybe we are having just dumb luck so far. Jerry Picayune, MS - Original Message - From: Stephanie Parrish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 10:06 PM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium Jerry, To what do you attribute your sheeps' low fecal egg counts? Are the sheep grazed with other species? Do you rotate their pastures? Are there just a few animals on a lot of pasture? I'd love to know how you manage this, as most people in the SE tend to have more problems with parasites in their sheep. I know that we have had a few more problems with parasites here in SC than we did further north in MD. Stephanie Parrish Westminster, SC On Dec 15, 2007, at 8:34 PM, blueberryfarm wrote: I have enjoyed reading all these posts on nutrition, but they make me feel very inadequate. Am I not treating my blackbellies well? I simply put them out to pasture, fertilize once in the summer and again in the late fall when I put out my winter rye. They get granulated mineral ad lib and nothing else. I monitor their droppings for eggs and their load is light so I do not worm them and they lamb every 7 or 8 months, but I have not yet had any twins. I have trained them to a feed bucket and a vocal call, but they get a taste of the feed bucket only maybe once a month. They are a joy to have and to watch but require very little maintenance in my part of the country, if one is satisfied with single births. Jerry Picayune, Mississippi - Original Message - From: Barb Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 7:05 PM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium Thanks Shel! This sounds like a keen interest for you too! Our sulphur levels in the feed are averaging around 0.11 mg. I am going to be adding a horse product called Gen-A-Horse to the sheeps' feed which is biotin, another sulphur bearing compound, and zinc methionine. I may have the sulphur dilemma nailed! Reading more, I guess that sulphur isn't a common supplement because a lot of drinking water contains sulphates and some byproduct type feeds are also high in sulphur, so apparently excess is more of a problem than deficiency. Barb - Original Message - From: Asylum Farm [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 4:08 PM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium Barb- if I remember correctly, to supplement sulfur you should ideally add methionine. And the requirements were that 0.4mg was an acceptable level. Shel _ ___ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php? category=shopping ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info ___ This message
Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium
Actually, Jerry, it sounds more like you are doing everything right than dumb luck. It is nice to know that with proper management, deworming the flock can generally be avoided, even here in the SE US, where stories of debilitating worm loads abound! Thanks for the info. We are fairly new to sheep, also, so are still learning how best to manage the flock. Stephanie On Dec 16, 2007, at 8:18 AM, blueberryfarm wrote: Stephanie, I use a relative count for eggs. I use one cover slip to count from a solution made with 3 grams of droppings (fiascofarm.com). I count only that one cover slip portion and usually find 8 - 15 eggs of various types. I look for diarrhea and listen for coughing and general appearance and behavior. Not a serious examination, but I just look at them several times a day as I go about my business on the farm (we farm blueberries). We do rotate pasture and we try to keep the grass rather high (about 3 inches) but we cannot always do that when we have periods of drought. We will occasionally put a cow in the vacant pasture, but only to get the cow (we have one longhorn) out of a pasture we are working on. We have only had our blackbellies for two and one half years and been through three lambings. There have been no problems with the sheep. We currently have 14 sheep on about 3 acres of pasture. After another round of lambing we will open up another 4 acres of pasture for them. Being inexperienced with sheep, I really don't know what are proper animal/pasture ratios with our crude type of pasture management (not at all scientific...just a what does it look like? type of analysis). My plan is to increase the flock to a size where either (1) we can easily just keep the grass up or (2) we can just sell enough lambs to maintain the flock size, whichever comes first. Aside from the winter rye, our pasture grass is what came up naturally after we cut and dug out the pines. Maybe we are having just dumb luck so far. Jerry Picayune, MS - Original Message - From: Stephanie Parrish [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 10:06 PM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium Jerry, To what do you attribute your sheeps' low fecal egg counts? Are the sheep grazed with other species? Do you rotate their pastures? Are there just a few animals on a lot of pasture? I'd love to know how you manage this, as most people in the SE tend to have more problems with parasites in their sheep. I know that we have had a few more problems with parasites here in SC than we did further north in MD. Stephanie Parrish Westminster, SC On Dec 15, 2007, at 8:34 PM, blueberryfarm wrote: I have enjoyed reading all these posts on nutrition, but they make me feel very inadequate. Am I not treating my blackbellies well? I simply put them out to pasture, fertilize once in the summer and again in the late fall when I put out my winter rye. They get granulated mineral ad lib and nothing else. I monitor their droppings for eggs and their load is light so I do not worm them and they lamb every 7 or 8 months, but I have not yet had any twins. I have trained them to a feed bucket and a vocal call, but they get a taste of the feed bucket only maybe once a month. They are a joy to have and to watch but require very little maintenance in my part of the country, if one is satisfied with single births. Jerry Picayune, Mississippi - Original Message - From: Barb Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 7:05 PM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium Thanks Shel! This sounds like a keen interest for you too! Our sulphur levels in the feed are averaging around 0.11 mg. I am going to be adding a horse product called Gen-A-Horse to the sheeps' feed which is biotin, another sulphur bearing compound, and zinc methionine. I may have the sulphur dilemma nailed! Reading more, I guess that sulphur isn't a common supplement because a lot of drinking water contains sulphates and some byproduct type feeds are also high in sulphur, so apparently excess is more of a problem than deficiency. Barb - Original Message - From: Asylum Farm [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 4:08 PM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium Barb- if I remember correctly, to supplement sulfur you should ideally add methionine. And the requirements were that 0.4mg was an acceptable level. Shel ___ __ ___ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php? category=shopping ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's
[Blackbelly] Sulfer
Here in Missouri you can buy salt blocks with sulfer in them. They look yellow. Some folks say if they eat it it will keep the flys and mosquitos away. Who Knows about that one. It does take them awhile to get use to eating it though. Nancy - Mossyspringsranch Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php? category=shopping ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info -- ___ This daily digest is from the Blackbelly mailing list. Visit this list's home page at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info/ End of Blackbelly Digest, Vol 3, Issue 174 ** ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
[Blackbelly] problem with ram horns
Hi, I am the head of hoofstock at the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. I have a 3 year old hand raised blackbelly ram that has started having issues with 1 horn. It is a very nice spiral but it is too close to his face. At first it didn't look like a problem as it grew, but now it has grown too close to his eye and face. Can it be trained away after it has gotten like this? The spot is halfway down the spiral, so trimming it would be tricky. How close to the end is the blood supply? He is also a typical handraised ram in a close area so it is always a fight to do anything with him. Thanks in advance Jennifer Koehler Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
