[Jacob-list] Lots of lambs/scrapie programs

[Heather Hettick]

I love lambing time but am feeling a bit overwhelmed this year.  We had the
one set of triplets, 4 sets of twins and 3 singles so far.  I have 10 ewes -
all but one are purebred Jacob.  For the last 4 years we had perfect 50/50
splits of rams and ewes but this year we have 10 ewes and 4 rams with two
yearling ewes left to lamb - 1 is pregnant and one probably not - they were
all shorn this weekend so I got to look them over.  Two of the ewe lambs are
crossbreds, but that still leaves me with 8 ewes to pick from to increase my
flock, and I need to keep my total flock number to around 15 so I'll have to
sell some.  All have nicely marked faces, except one who has a pink nose,
but a black lower lip.  Amount of color varies from a couple who are dark
and freckled with lots of leg spots to some with no leg spots and moderate
body spotting. I had one ram with a really hairy birth coat but wool looks
generally pretty nice too.

I have no lilac lambs this year because my ram, J-Mar Clansey, isn't a lilac
carrier and just a few with blue eyes.  Horns seem to be well spaced this
year which is nice after last year when 4 of my 8 lambs had fused horns.
Most are 4 horned.  I think I have a few two horned, but I haven't had a
chance to feel all their heads.

Best of all, everything went pretty smoothly.  I missed every birth and all
the mothers did well except our most experienced ewe with triplets who
doesn't like her two boys so I have been supplementing them.  It is a lot of
work to have bottle lambs, but it's kind of fun too.  My three-year-old
daughter helped me feed the boys and seemed to really enjoy it.  She
actually told me she wants to be a farmer instead of a ballerina. (I doubt
that will last though!)  My husband doesn't care much for my sheep in
general, but even he doesn't mind doing the evening lamb feeding duty to
help out occasionally.

On the scrapie programs:  I am in the Ohio voluntary program as of last
year.  I have to tag my breeding stock over a year old and those I sell
other than for slaughter.  I can buy a ram from pretty much any flock, but
buying a ewe would change my effective date in the program so it would take
longer to get to the five years to become certified scrapie free, but I can
still buy a ewe.  I also have to be careful with the ram during lambing
season to keep him away from afterbirth and there's some other details in
record keeping but otherwise it seems to be easy and not much over and above
what I already do.  The USDA vet was recently at my farm and helped me tag a
couple yearlings I hadn't been able to catch and gave me some general
pointers so I feel I've actually benefited from the program overall. This
year I've been tagging all the ewe lambs at the same time as tail docking.
They are easier to catch that way and easier to keep track of when you have
multiple ewes giving birth at the same time.

Heather Hettick
Moonstruck Jacob Sheep
Creston, Ohio