[Blackbelly] An all black blackbelly lamb
One of our older ewes had twins yesterday. One of them is typically colored, the other, a ram lamb, is completely black except for a patch of dark brown on both shoulders. He is very striking in appearance. I may keep him as a novelty. Do any of you experience an occasional lamb with such markings? Jerry South Mississippi ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
[Blackbelly] Growth Rate for American Blackbelly Sheep
Fellow Shepherds, I have 5 ABB wethers that were born in February. Their weights now range between 34 and 53 pounds. They have always been pasture fed, except for some occasional sweet feed to keep them trained to the bucket. Do you'll experience similar variation in growth weights? Are these weights in the normal range for 9-10 month wethers? I appreciate your comments. Jerry Kirby Windmill Farms LLC Picayune, MS ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
[Blackbelly] broken leg
Hey Everyone, A neighbor saw that one of my older ewes had her left front leg hung up in a bush on which she was feeding and when she was released the leg was broken just below the knee.. I splintered it with a padded piece of PVC pipe split longitudinally and wrapped with an Ace bandage. The pipe extends from just below her hoof to about 6 inches above her knee. I put her in a small pen with water, hay, and sweet feed. It has now been 4 weeks since her accident and she looks fine, is eating well but puts no weight on her injured leg. My question is how long should the splint stay on? I am thinking about 6 weeks, then leaving her in the pen for another 2 weeks before releasing her back to the pastures. Thanks for your suggestions. Jerry Windmill Farms Picayune, MS ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
Re: [Blackbelly] Guard Dogs
Thanks to all who helped me decide how to transition Greta to the sheep. I also searched various web sites and heard a lot of local stories about the pryenees and I must say there was not consensus about how to train her. For better or for worse this is what we are doing. I put her in an 8 by 10 shed/corral with a simple dog house, water, litter, and with a weanling black belly and a tub of low copper all stock feed and hay. I feed Greta twice a day and go in and love on her a couple of other times during the day. She and the weanling are getting on like litter mates. She is now 12 weeks old and how been in the corral for 4 days. In a couple of days I will put another weanling in with them and if all is well in a couple of weeks they will go into a small (1 acre) pasture with a couple more weanlings. Then after a couple of months, they will all go with the main flock. Thanks again for your help and thanks to whoever started the listserve (Carol?). It has been extremely informative and fun for me. Jerry Kirby Windmill Farms Picayune, Mississippi - Original Message - From: blueberryfarm blueberryf...@bellsouth.net To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 12:21 PM Subject: [Blackbelly] Guard Dogs We lost a ewe this spring to coyotes so we bought an eight week old Great Pyrenees. I have been taking her (Greta) to the shed where I feed the sheep occasionally (they are pasture sheep) to acquaint her to the animals. I stand in the corner and let her hide behind me if she wants. The sheep are very interested in her and stare at her She will usually venture out after a few minutes and a couple of sheep will come up to her and touch noses. The first few times Greta licked the faces of several of them. But today one of the ewes ran up to her and butted her. I hope that didn't ruin her for guarding. She is now ten weeks old. I am training her to the usual commands (come, sit, stay). My question is about the transition process from puppy to adult guard dog. We have no grown guard dog to nurture her. Am I starting too early? Is there an established practice for the transition? I have looked on the web but so far found little help. Thanks for any advice. Jerry Kirby Windmill Farms Picayune, Mississippi ___ 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
[Blackbelly] Guard Dogs
We lost a ewe this spring to coyotes so we bought an eight week old Great Pyrenees. I have been taking her (Greta) to the shed where I feed the sheep occasionally (they are pasture sheep) to acquaint her to the animals. I stand in the corner and let her hide behind me if she wants. The sheep are very interested in her and stare at her She will usually venture out after a few minutes and a couple of sheep will come up to her and touch noses. The first few times Greta licked the faces of several of them. But today one of the ewes ran up to her and butted her. I hope that didn't ruin her for guarding. She is now ten weeks old. I am training her to the usual commands (come, sit, stay). My question is about the transition process from puppy to adult guard dog. We have no grown guard dog to nurture her. Am I starting too early? Is there an established practice for the transition? I have looked on the web but so far found little help. Thanks for any advice. Jerry Kirby Windmill Farms Picayune, Mississippi ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
[Blackbelly] lambs won't or can't suckle
Thanks very much Mark, Bonnie, and Oneta for your ideas. I tried milk replacement yesterday and last night with a little success. I searched for a fetus (nothing), palapated the udder (no lumps or pain), tried to express milk (no luck), gave moma a penicilin shot (diarhhea), fed her fresh clover (she loved it), and prayed. This morning the lambs are bright and cheery, take a little bottle milk, and then they go and suckle moma! Go figure! Maybe this ewe just has an extraordinarily large udder and despite long observation I never saw any udder action until this morning. And maybe I am just a paronoid shepherd. I put them all out to pasture with the others. Thanks everyone. What a great forum. Jerry Windmill Farms LLC Picayune, Mississippi ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
[Blackbelly] lambs can't or won't suckle
A two year old ewe had twins night before last. She was enormous with bulging sides and a huge bag. I watched yesterday in the pasture and never saw the lambs suckle. I put them in the sheep barn last night and this morning she seems to avoid them. One of the lambs does not make any effort but both appear normal: they move well and follow momma. I watched for about 1/2 hour this morning and saw no suckling. Her udder is MUCH larger than any of the other ewes with twins. It looks very tight, as if it should be painful, but the ewe appears normal. As a neophyte, I don't know what to do. Should I try to express some milk? Should I restrain momma and try to get the lambs to suckle? I tried attaching a couple of photos for you to have a look, but the moderator kicked that back. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Jerry Mississippi ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
[Blackbelly] more on Blackbelly lambs can't or won't suckle
I tried to express milk but could not. Her udder is neither firm nor lumpy and it doesn't appear inflammed. She did not seem senitive to palpation of the udder and she is active and feeding well. She has diarhhea. I gave her 300,000 units of penicillin. I will have to bottle feed the lambs. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help. Jerry Mississippi - Original Message - From: The Wintermutes winterm...@earthlink.net To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 1:41 PM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] lambs can't or won't suckle Definitely try to express some milk. Also check her bag to make sure it is not unusually hard. It could be that that huge milk bag has no milk! We recently talked about OPP and Hard Bag here. This could be an example (or not). If the momma is rejecting the lambs then a stanchion to restrain her would be helpful. Just make sure the milk bag is proper. It could be that the momma knows that she is unable to care for these lambs. Mark Wintermute A two year old ewe had twins night before last. She was enormous with bulging sides and a huge bag. I watched yesterday in the pasture and never saw the lambs suckle. I put them in the sheep barn last night and this morning she seems to avoid them. One of the lambs does not make any effort but both appear normal: they move well and follow momma. I watched for about 1/2 hour this morning and saw no suckling. Her udder is MUCH larger than any of the other ewes with twins. It looks very tight, as if it should be painful, but the ewe appears normal. As a neophyte, I don't know what to do. Should I try to express some milk? Should I restrain momma and try to get the lambs to suckle? I tried attaching a couple of photos for you to have a look, but the moderator kicked that back. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Jerry Mississippi ___ 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
Re: [Blackbelly] lamb died right after birth
Thanks everyone for the advice. Next time I help the ewe. Jerry - Original Message - From: Bonnie Chandler jbchand...@verizon.net To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2009 2:47 AM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] lamb died right after birth Another thing you can do is if it is too weak to drink milk on its own you should get something warm into it, either milk some colostrum from the mother and tube feed it or use one of those lamb picker-uppers like Nutridrench. You can also dry it with a hair dryer and/or put it under a heat lamp to help it get warm faster. If it was weak to start with, it is less able to deal with being cold. My sheep don't mind my helping at all, even the ones that are quite shy. Right after lambing they become very amenable and don't try to run away. Bonnie - Original Message - From: The Wintermutes winterm...@earthlink.net To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info; crbear...@copper.net Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 8:44 AM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] lamb died right after birth I agree with Cecil, delivery should have been faster. Most of my sheep deliver their lambs without my presence. But if I am around and they go into labor I assist (unless my help is very obviously not needed). They usually do not like my being there but to bad! When I see hooves I move in and pull the lamb gently out and downward. Then I clean the nose off well and leave as quickly as possible. If there is are twins/triplets they should be coming out within 30 minutes or so. Usually the twins/triplets do not need help once the first lamb has been born. There are always exceptions. There are also going to be lambs that just are not going to survive. For example, if your lamb was very small it might have been pre-mature with underdeveloped lungs. If you have a ewe laying down straining for any length of time after the water bag has broken it is time to reach into the ewe and help the lamb out. This is where it gets complicated: Is it a breach, is that a nose, is that a tail, do these two hooves go to the same lamb, I have a head but where are the legs??? Mark If the lamb was struggling in the birth canal for an hour that is too long. Assistance was required. My ewes will have triplets in less than 30 minutes. I would think the lamb died from stress/exhaustion. Sorry. Cecil in OKla blueberryfarm wrote: I watched a young ewe give birth to her first lamb a couple of days ago. It took her over an hour. To my inexperienced eye, everything seemed to go OK: ewe pushing hard, head first birth, momma licking all the mucus from her lamb, lamb struggling to get up, but then less and less struggling and finally death. The little ewe lived about 45 minutes after birth and never made it to her feet. Is there something I could/should have done? Did I miss some clue? Should I have lifted her to her feet? I watched the whole affair from about 100 feet with binoculars. Relative with my experience with dogs, it all seemed quite normal. All my other lambs have been born without complications and out of my sight. I would appreciate any suggestions. Jerry Pearl River County in south Mississippi ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.11.1/1961 - Release Date: 02/19/09 18:45:00 ___ 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
[Blackbelly] lamb died right after birth
I watched a young ewe give birth to her first lamb a couple of days ago. It took her over an hour. To my inexperienced eye, everything seemed to go OK: ewe pushing hard, head first birth, momma licking all the mucus from her lamb, lamb struggling to get up, but then less and less struggling and finally death. The little ewe lived about 45 minutes after birth and never made it to her feet. Is there something I could/should have done? Did I miss some clue? Should I have lifted her to her feet? I watched the whole affair from about 100 feet with binoculars. Relative with my experience with dogs, it all seemed quite normal. All my other lambs have been born without complications and out of my sight. I would appreciate any suggestions. Jerry Pearl River County in south Mississippi ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
Re: [Blackbelly] Blackbellies Settling In
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 3:28 PM Subject: [Blackbelly] Blackbellies Settling In Hello everyone, Thanks for the warm welcome. My little flock is settling in nicely. They are calmer today and not so scared. Their arrival at our farm Sunday night was uneventful, as we just left them on board the truck (with water they had rode home on a bale of hay)until Monday morning. The newcomers caused all of the livestock around the house to stir though, as soon as they were unloaded and penned. It was very comical on both sides of the fences. The lambs had certainly not seen anything but other sheep, herding dogs and a cat before. They we scared. Immediately they had to be inspected upclose by our dairy(nurse)cow and her three calves. Then our horses caught sight of them, and they had to come in from the field for an upclose look. I am glad that Jack and I and my son had followed Carol's advice and laid cattle panels over both ends of their pens...the poor babies thought they would be eaten for sure when those three giant horses came to look over the fence at them. It was really a funny thing to witness, we all laughed out loud! The flock will be exposed to all kinds of animals here! We have about 130 cow/calf pairs, steers, weanling calves, bottle babies, chickens, dogs (only one herding), cats (outside kitty has gone inside their pen numerous times to check them out up close), 3 horses and soon they will get their very own gelded donkey for a guardian. I am rambling on...sorry. They are all doing fine though and have settled down nicely! Thanks again for the welcome! Shawna ___ 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
[Blackbelly] Coyotes
We are primarily blueberry farmers, but started with American Blackbellies about two years ago and have two small flocks of about a dozen animals each. Coyotes have been stealing my neighbor's chickens one by one. A couple of weeks ago we found a dead ewe with her rear eaten out. We are regularly seeing and hearing the coyotes now and a neighbor saw a couple of pups a few days ago. The word around here is that the fox hunting club brought in some coyotes to hunt and they are now running all over the county; we had not seen or heard of any until this year. I have 4 foot field fencing around all five of my small sheep pastures, each about one+ acres. I understand that a coyote can sail over a four foot fence, but I have not yet seen one in any of the pastures. I have read that donkeys, llamas, and Great Pyrenees dogs are good at protecting the sheep. What are your experiences with any of these? Is an adult ram a good protector? I have a young ram (about 10 months) in with the flock where the ewe was killed and adult ram with the other flock. Your advice in dealing with coyotes and guardian animals or other protection methods will be most apprciated. Eat more blueberries! Jerry Windmill Farms LLC Picayune, Mississippi ___ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
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
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
