Merry Christmas from our farm.

Just sold another adult ram today. That is the last one from 2013.
Three days of snow expected now in Ontario.
This is from the last lot:

This was the view from our kitchen window.

Check out the new website for our local sheep group. www.osmadistrict8.ca. Suggestions, additions or photographs of sheep welcome from sheep producers in this region. 

Lambs and llamas

We have already had orders for our spring ewe Katahdin lambs for potential breeding stock, but we still have five yearling llamas for sale. We are busy training them to halter and lead. One way we do this is by staking them out on the lawn in front of the house, where we can keep and eye on them in case they get tangled up. When they are used to the short rope, we give them a longer one-about five meters long. This is tied to a sturdy fence post, but as low to the ground as possible. Most of the young llamas soon get used to it and learn how to step over the rope if it gets over their legs. It takes three or four sessions to train the llamas to lead quietly.
Loading them in a horse trailer and taking them to a llama show is another great way to make a llama easier to handle. This also involves washing and grooming which helps to desensitize the animal so that it doesn't object to being touched.
Our llamas are raised with the sheep right from birth, so are ideally suited to being sheep guardians. They keep coyotes away and reduce livestock losses from predators.

Lavender the jumping ram

I expect this one was a bottle baby. Hope he doesn't turn mean when he gets older.

Lamb prices March 12th Hoards Station

Here are the prices from last Tuesday's sale at the Community Livestock Exchange in Ontario- Hoard's Station:

Lambs # Head Low $ High $ Avg $ Top $ Avg Wt 65 - 79 lbs 68 139.90 189.99 164.99 189.99 73 50 - 64 lbs 31 152.40 177.60 166.19 177.60 61 49 lbs and less 27 122.50 185.00 164.50 185.00 41

Considering that we are only two weeks away from Easter, the prices are pretty low.

Lambing spring 2013

These are some Dorper/Katahdin cross lambs born in February this year. OK, I lied. It really isn't quite spring yet, but we have made a few litres of maple syrup already.
Last year, we sold a lot of our better breeding stock lambs and young ewes, so were left with an assortment of first time mothers and very old gals. Three of the old ones developed toxemia and although we managed to save two out of three mothers, most of the lambs died either before birth or shortly after. We also had a lot of triplets and so are bottle feeding a few lambs. Only one old ewe managed to cope with all three by letting them take turns.

Toxemia, apart from the age of the ewes, might also have been due to poorer hay quality last year. We did feed corn as well, but obviously not enough. The treatment is propylene glycol (sounds like antifreeze, but it isn't).

On a more positive note all the Dorper cross lambs have done very well, and not one of the yearling Dorper cross lambs rejected her lamb or lambs. We prefer to let ewe lambs breed at 9 months old or less, so that they just have a single lamb in the spring as this is easier for them to cope with than twins the first time around. By the time they have twins the following year, they will be better mothers and will also be larger making for easier births.

Sheep handling system

We recently purchased a sheep handling system and used it for the first time yesterday to sort lambs from ewes and give some dewormer (Ivomec) shots and vaccinations prior to lambing at the end of February.
  This one is fairly similar to the one we have.

The idea behind this purchase was to make manhandling of the sheep less strenuous as we get older. We wouldn't have to lift them or wrestle with them- or so we thought. The idea is to funnel the sheep from a circular holding pen that can be adjusted to make it smaller, thus supposedly forcing the sheep into the long track called the race and eventually into an end gate. Maybe a dog could entice them to move into the race, but we had to push and drag the first ones into it, and then the others started to follow. We had to repeat this for every ten sheep or so. There must be a better way! Maybe we should try putting a little corn down at the far end. Maybe it should not have been painted a bright blue which might be scary for sheep. Solid panels in the sides of the race did not help much either. Perhaps they will eventually get used to it.

Another problem was that smaller lambs could crawl underneath and escape, or they turned right around and faced the wrong way. By the time the sheep got to the end, there was about a yard of "play" so that when you tried to give a shot, they moved forward or back a yard, breaking the needles and nearly breaking my arm in the process. I then resorted to having Jim stand behind them inside the race so they could not move back, and started giving the shots from that end instead of at the head gate.

One solution would be a squeeze chute at the far end, but they cost about $1000 extra. It might be worth it.

Also, our sheep are Katahdins, so that even in winter when they are at their wooliest, they are not a wide as a traditional wool sheep breed. The race needs to be about 4-6 ins narrower.
Has anyone got any helpful hints on working with sheep handling systems? We really don't want to get another dog. We used to have border collies, but have not had one for several years now.

BR-549

This is a comedy video from Junior Samples to give you a laugh in the New Year-if you like that kind of thing.
You may wonder what it has to do with Katahdin sheep. Well, we leased a rather famous ram to breed to our ewes last fall. They are due to lamb about the middle of March 2013. The new ram's tag number is BRT-549 and he was the top selling ram lamb at the Regina Agribition show and sale in 2011.
The original owner and breeder of this ram is Randy Thomas from Saskatchewan, who is known for producing top quality Katahdin breeding stock. He has shown his sheep at Agribition for many years.