As a sheep farmer, not only are you working with sheep, you are also probably working with some sort of fencing for the flock. Since sheep are not too tall, they don’t need an overly tall fence but they can jump pretty well, so how high of a fence do you need to contain the…
The adult sheep in the flock need to be shorn every year, but lambs don’t have all that much wool to worry about for most of their first year. Yet, as the lambs grow so does their fleece, which will eventually need sheared. When and why would lambs need to be sheared, as well? Most…
Sheep are susceptible to worms and, unfortunately, those worms can cause tremendous problems with your flock. Your job is to take care of the flock and handle any problems that come up, but there’s the catch: since the parasites are inside the sheep, how do you know if your sheep have worms? Sheep that have…
We all hope for every ewe to have twins, but we know that the lambs born per ewe can reasonably anywhere from one to three, and occasionally, none. So, how do we know which ones are having twins? Ultrasound scanning shows number of lambs in ewes The only way to know for sure if your…
Every sheep flock needs a ram for breeding season, but what about keeping more than one ram? Can you have two rams in a flock or is it better to have just one? Can you have 2 or more rams in a flock? You can have 2 or more rams in a flock. Keeping more…
Mowing is one of your pasture management tools that you have to decide if, when and where to use. Sometimes mowing is a great option, other times your pasture would be better managed with a different tool, so how do you decide? Should you mow your sheep pasture or not? Are the sheep keeping up…
Inbreeding and sheep, you’ve heard about it and maybe even considered using inbreeding in your flock, but the question is: is inbreeding good or bad? Well, as you may have guessed, inbreeding has advantages and disadvantages, both of which we’ll go over so you can decide if inbreeding would work in your situation or not….
A common problem with small flocks of sheep or sheep with a limited genetic pool is what to do when you need to breed the ewes but the only ram you have is the one you have been using for years. That means you’ll have some closely related sheep breeding to produce inbred lambs. Is…
It can be a challenge for the small flock owner to get a different ram every year or two, especially if you have kept back some of the ewe lambs to grow your flock. In this situation, many folks consider the option of inbreeding their sheep. Is it okay to inbreed sheep or should inbreeding…
It’s common to see sheep outside for the nicer parts of the year when the grass is growing and the weather is nice, but what about the times of the year when the weather is not so nice, like when it’s cold? Can sheep be outside in the winter or do they need to be…