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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2019 9:06:39 GMT
We had a fairly good year for lambs for 2018/2019. It was the first season where we had lambs on the ground that would grow out in time for Spring auction sales.
Took 4 lambs, 2 yearlings, and 1 ewe to the sale barn, and got a decent price, to boot.
Sure, 7 may not seem like much, but I had to cut the herd way back due to some issues, so I'm glad we at least had the good start on things.
Anyone else have reports on their flock?
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Post by PNP Katahdins on Apr 8, 2019 3:08:30 GMT
We just started lambing with our Katahdins. Three sets of triplets and two singles so far. We have about 50 ewes. The yearlings won't lamb until June this year.
We lost the first born yesterday, a single boy. He just never seemed strong, He got colostrum and nursed okay, always had a full tummy and warm mouth, but just went down hill and died. Sad. His mom is 7, one of the two oldest ewes, and now on the cull list.
Peg
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2019 14:03:59 GMT
We just started lambing with our Katahdins. Three sets of triplets and two singles so far. We have about 50 ewes. The yearlings won't lamb until June this year.
We lost the first born yesterday, a single boy. He just never seemed strong, He got colostrum and nursed okay, always had a full tummy and warm mouth, but just went down hill and died. Sad. His mom is 7, one of the two oldest ewes, and now on the cull list.
Peg
What are your reasons for culling? Does she always throw singlets, or is it her age, or...? I have trouble culling certain animals. The two oldest ewes here are twin sisters, the first born on the farm. They're 5 years old. Because I am a sentimental person, they will probably be here until they die from old age. But they do consistently throw twins of good quality, so there's that as well.
But there have been a couple I had no problem sending to auction. The mother/daughter pair that went back in March are a good example. The ewe was kind of a snotty witch, and she only threw singles. Meh. So off she went. The rams are sent along as a matter of course, unless I get a nice looker. I'll trade off nice rams with a friend to get fresh DNA in the flock.
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Post by PNP Katahdins on May 13, 2019 16:00:54 GMT
We just started lambing with our Katahdins. Three sets of triplets and two singles so far. We have about 50 ewes. The yearlings won't lamb until June this year.
We lost the first born yesterday, a single boy. He just never seemed strong, He got colostrum and nursed okay, always had a full tummy and warm mouth, but just went down hill and died. Sad. His mom is 7, one of the two oldest ewes, and now on the cull list.
Peg
What are your reasons for culling? Does she always throw singlets, or is it her age, or...? Age + she didn't raise a lamb this year + both lambs last year had to be bottle-fed and one died at 10 days old + she doesn't shed completely and her lambs are strictly for meat. I wanted to cull her last fall but Paul wanted to keep her. Hay was expensive last year due to the weather.
I keep an Excel spreadsheet page with every ewe listed for the year plus a page for current lambing results, thus two tabs per year. Easy to track the ewe's history.
Better to keep another ewe lamb this year with a possibility of being a good producerr than an older ewe losing money.
We do keep favorites, usually bottle ewe lambs or a bottle wether if we need a ram buddy. The candidates this year lost their mother right away, vet thought maybe perforated uterus.
Peg
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2019 21:00:36 GMT
Sorry you lost that ewe, PNP Katahdins. Stuff like uterine perforations are the things of which nightmares are made. We got a surprise last week. Two of my ewes got tupped by the jerky St Croix we sent to the freezer. I didn't think he was tall enough to do the deed. Got three ram lambs, one ewe. A little concerned. There was meconium in the fluid, though all the lambs are fine.
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Post by shellymay on Jun 28, 2019 13:19:58 GMT
Gosh I have a story for you guys................
We took 32 head of cull ewes to sale barn back in May, reasons where for AGE, bad milk bag one side, singles two years in a row, to much wooly fibers, on the small side, and my DH received a call from a guy yesterday. He said he has several of our sheep and wanted to know history on them, he gave my DH a couple of ear tag numbers over the phone and DH looked up info in his computer, those numbers are from the cull sheep group we just took to sale barn as culls in May.
He said he just purchased a total of 140 head from a guy in the next town over from us, the guy told the buyer he just lambed them all out this year and was keeping all the lambs and was selling all the momma's but that they were good ewes, what the heck.....................my DH proceeded to tell him the info on the few ear tag numbers he read off, they where the ewes with bad milk bags, and single lambing ewes, guy said to my DH no wonder I got such a good deal, my DH said back to him that the learning curve is very expensive........
Thing is, the guy he bought them from said he lambed them out and now is selling the ewes, he told him that he bought them from a Amish guy, so we can only assume that an Amish guy purchased from the sale barn and flip them and sold to this guy who intern sold them to the gentlemen who called my DH, WE ARE PO-ED, thank gosh the guy found us through the ear tags and called, when they go to sale barn as culls it suppose to mean that they will normally be sold to meat buyers, not be bought and sold as good ewes, okay so maybe our ewes looked good even though they are culls but still a cull is a cull...............the guy is going to get us a list of the ear tag numbers that have our flock number on them and e-mail it to my DH, at that time he will go through list and let the guy know which ones to get RID of and which ones where culled for age if the guy wants to breed and lamb out the aged ewes.....
But he said he purchased 140 so there are many many others that surely belong to other farms that someone is buying up and selling/flipping as good ewes, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
We did receive GOOD prices for our culls, guess we know why now, we also took in 3 rams that where only 2 years old and we received great prices for them as well, makes me wonder where they went? but they where great younger rams and it wouldn't bother me that they sold for breeders to someone.....we just kept to many that year and it was time for the extras to go....
This next breeding season I think we are going to cut the total ewe flock in half and do have registered Katahdins and breed the other half to a Dorper ram and sell ALL the lambs to market......less work for us keeping track of paperwork and other labor/time consuming tasks...
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Post by shellymay on Jul 16, 2019 17:03:26 GMT
We sold 58 ram lambs off the farm a couple days ago, sold them by the pound at $1.80 lb, very happy and no sale barn lot fee's ect.....
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