[Jacob-list] (no subject)

[Susan J Martin]

Help!  Here is my situation.......one ewe lambed and 11 to go.....and
some of them look like it might be soon.  Cassie and her twins have been
jugged since Monday - I don't usually jug that long but the weather here
has been cold and damp.  Today I put Cassie and babies out in the meadow
with the other girls.......and World War III erupted!  Cassie is a mild
mannered 2H, very good mother with no previous history of personality
issues with the others.  Suddenly they all wanted to gang up on her - and
some of our 4H ewes are pretty nasty fighters.  I watched for a while,
thinking this was just normal pecking order being re-established since
she was away a few days, but it just kept on going..........and the ewes
were taking "pot shots" at the babies too!!   The butting was serious
stuff, with them backing up quite a distance and running at each other,
and some really nasty body slashing going on too.  Cassie now has been
bloodied a bit about her head and I have separated her & her babies from
the others...........what's this behavior all about?   I have noticed our
ewes are particularly quarrelsome this spring............everybody seems
very crabby with lots of horn slashing and butting.  Two things  we've
done differently this year is to shear before lambing.........so the ewes
are all minus their fleece and the weather has been damp and raw for this
time of year.  And, we have been feeding them a mixture of oats, corn and
an Agway premix............other years we fed only the Agway Sheep mix.  
 I've always heard that horses can get feisty when fed oats - thus the
expression "feelin' ones oats"..........does it do something to sheep?  

Do the rest of you experience this behavior?  Is this just a bad case of
female hormones?  Is it the feed?  

Sue Martin
Stonecroft Manor
Lititz, PA

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