a blog at Firefly Fields

What Color is Your Finnsheep? (Intro & Quiz)

2010-08-03T18:18:00Z

In the past few years, I have had Finnsheep breeders (new, experienced or wannabe) email me with questions regarding color and color genetics in Finnsheep. They may have purchased a sheep or lamb and not know for sure what color it really is. Or they may have had a "different"colored lamb born in their flock and not be sure how to register it. So here is a little quiz and some information to get you started in learning more about color genetics in Finnsheep.

(Allthe photos in this current blog post are of my own sheep or sheep Ihave bred and all are purebred Finnsheep (aka Finnish Landrace Sheep). Jot down what color you think they are. Answers will be given at theend. Hint: choices are white, black, brown, grey, fawn and piebald (spotted). Sorry, there is no prize other than patting yourself on the back for being such an informed friend of Finnsheep.

Quiz - #1 What color?

Knowledge of color genetics is just one of the reasons why selection of a trustworthy and knowledgeable breeder is so important. This is someone who you feel really understands color genetics, wool, and other traits in the breed and keeps scrupulously careful records of breeding groups and parentage. Find a breeder who is trying to preserve the breed and improve it. Not just someone whois a good salesman or has the lowest prices.

Raising a healthy ewe and healthy baby lambs cost money. No breeder is going to sell lambs at a loss. If they are selling their lambs dirt cheap, what kind of feed and care has been invested in that baby? One you get your purchase home, a poor quality sheep and an excellent quality sheep are going to eat the same amount of feed. And a healthy sheep is going to cost you less in vet bills or potential losses than a poor keeper that you bought out of pity. Don't think that you are going to get some"starter sheep" (like a "starter home") for little money and later upgrade. You will become attached to the sheep you buy. Finns are charming and they will get under skin and into your heart. I promise you. The legacy of your original purchases will live on to haunt your breeding program for many years to come. You are better off buying a small number of the best quality sheep you can afford and taking your time to learn how to be the best shepherd you can be.

If you can't find the exact ewes you want (the breeder is likely keeping the best ewe lambs back as replacements for her own flock), then get good healthy ewes and invest in one or two really excellent quality rams. There is a saying that "the ram is half of the flock". That is because one ram can produce many, many babies in one year. (Finn rams have a serious work ethic.) But a ewe is only going to produce about 3 babies(on average) in a year.

Finns have lots of babies. So growing your flock in numbers is easy. Growing your flock in quality is the challenge because there is no perfect sheep. While a lot of progress has been made in wool quality in the past 10 years, there is still improvement needed in the quality of the natural colored sheep if we are to reach the levels that they have in Finland. (And if you have problems in the wool of your white Finns, then you have big trouble!) While Finns are a lightly boned breed, that does not mean spindly like a toothpick.

Superior conformation, friendly personality,good udders and milk production, attentive mothering, and lovely wool are all traits which may be stronger or weaker in each line of your sheep. And although the US Finn breed standard favors maternal traits above all else, who wants tons of healthy lambs that all have Brillo pads for wool? What good is a friendly sheep who doesn't have the structure to carry a load full of babies? (Ever seen a pregnant woman carrying twins? A full term pregnant Finnsheep is at least that big!) Balancing these important qualities and never doubling up on a fault isthe art of being a good breeder. You owe it to your sheep to make them the healthiest and best that they can be.

Quiz - #2 What color?

If you are going to breed colored sheep (or even white ones), the buyer must also educate him/herself so that he/she can recognize all the colors and how they are inherited. Then when someone tells you that the grey lamb you are buying has a black dam and a brown sire, you will know that can't possibly be true. If you only want white sheep (which are just colored sheep with a white pattern masking the color) then understanding color genetics will help you avoid producing colored lambs in your flock.

In the United States, we have no genetic testing to prove our sheep are pure Finnsheep. In Finland, their breed association allows registration based on DNA profile. This allows them to preserve rare bloodlines which sometimes crop up in very remote parts of the countryside, but which may not be registered. And they can get genetic testing to do so, though it is expensive. Even if we were to get genetic testing of Finnsheep accepted in the U.S., it is possible that our North American Finnsheep might not test as pure anyway.

Whenthe original Finnsheep were brought into Canada in 1969 and subsequently into the United States in 1969, some were kept pure. Others were out-crossed to other breeds (to widen the genetics) and then"bred up" to be 15/16ths Finn. It was felt that 15/16ths Finns were genetically indistinguishable from purebred Finns and they were allowed to be registered as purebred until 1991. At that point, it was decided that the genetics in the U.S. were sufficiently diverse to prevent the problem of inbreeding and the "breeding up" program for any animal born after January 1, 1991, was discontinued. The Finnsheep Breeders Association (US) still allows the registration of cross-bred Finnsheep as Class II and this is useful for people who are trying to breed Polypays or other composite breeds which contain Finn.

The practice of "breeding up" is not unique to Finnsheep. It is actually common in the history of most breeds. For example, I was told that the Blue-faced Leicester was originally brought into the U.S. by using imported semen on Border Leicesters in the U.S. and then breeding them up until they were considered "pure". The USDA will not allow the importation of live animals (livestock, not cats and dogs) into the U.S. from other countries, except in rare cases of university and government research programs, due to fear of bringing in disease. So at this point, your options for importing new genetics from foreign countries are frozen semen and in some cases embryos.

Quiz - #3 What color?

In1998, frozen semen from 10 rams (white, black, brown and grey) was imported into the U.S. from the state flock at Pelso, Finland. Thanks to improved veterinary technology, artificial insemination is now possible to allow purebred Finn genetics to be brought into the U.S. I hope we will be able to continue to bring in new genetics from Finland. The average Finnsheep I saw in Finland are still far superior in quality to the average Finnsheep in the U.S. And they are still discovering rare genetic lines in isolated parts of the country. Although Finland is a very modern country, where you can be on an island accessible only by boat and still get 4 bars on your mobile phone (!), there are still older people who have been living "off the grid", and in some cases away from roads, raising their sheep. As these older people retire or die, there is an effort by some breeders in Finland to rescue and continue these very old bloodlines.

#4 What color?

ANSWERS to the quiz:
#1:BLACK. Elias is a black wether (neutered male). Note the black hair on his head and legs and the black pigment on his nose and lips. This is a bit of a tricky one because he has faded through out the years(i.e. what is known as a "fading black") to grey. His first fleece ata year of age was coal black. After that his fleece started to lighten till they reached a medium grey and have remained that color for years. He is now 8 years old. In this photo the tips of his wool are sun-bleached to a brownish color. But if you would part his wool, it is grey other than the very ends.

#2. WHITE. This ram lamb has a peach appearance due to the presence of pheomelanin (reddish brown pigment) in the hair (but not the wool). It has nothing to do with the wool color. (It is not a fawn color.) They still have pink pigment and a pink tongue like other white Finnsheep. When all baby lambs are born, they have a combination of hair and wool fibers on their bodies. Even in very fine wooled sheep, when you can't see any hair. As they grow up, the % of wool fibers increases, that is why the reddish color fades.

#3 BROWN. Kahvi is a brown ram. Notice the brown hair on his legs and face. Brown Finnsheep have a liver colored nose and lips (like a chocolate Lab or red Doberman).

#4GREY This is Taivo as a young ram lamb. Grey (and Fawn) Finnsheep are born black (or brown). Often you can see a few lighter hairs coming in on the flanks. The dilute color will always appear by age 8 months and usually does by age 6 months. The pigment and tongue color in the greys are a bluish pink. (Eat a blue popcicle and look at your tongue.)

"The Rise" and Finn wool

2010-07-18T12:30:00Z

Once upon a time... sheep used to shed their wool in the spring. The process that led up to this shedding was called "the rise". The wool would get a thickened area and then a natural break. This allowed early shepherds to remove the wool from the sheep by plucking it off -- called "rooing". The modern or "improved' breeds of sheep have tried and mostly succeeded in breeding away from this trait, so they can shear when they want to rather than when nature dictates. But this trait is still found in some members of landrace or "primitive" sheep breeds.

Wendall is "molting"! He is 69% of the new bloodlines imported from Finland. Because we sheared in April this year, this thickened bit is still on the sheep. He is the only one of my sheep that actually sheds off this retained wool -- well most of it. This photo was taken a couple of months ago, so most of it has grown out and shed off by now. We will give him a little haircut, now that this yucky part is out away from his body.

It is hard to find much information about "the rise" and most references to it on the web are in Shetland Sheep. However, this trait also occurs in Finns. As I get more of the imported bloodlines from the 1998 frozen semen importation throughout my flock -- and presumably my bloodlines become more purely Finnish -- I am seeing this trait more. This year I had three ewes and two rams who did not shear very well despite having good wool.

I need to look back through the notes I took in Finland to see when the people there do their spring shearing. One factor to keep in mind though is that they do not jacket their sheep to preserve the fleeces. To compensate for that and keep the quality of their fleece high, they shear twice a year. (The Finnish Landrace sheep in Finland have really beautiful wool!) The wool clip from the fall shearing is their high quality wool which is used to make yarn and finished products such as socks, hats and sweaters. The wool from the spring shearing has been fouled by chaff from feeding hay etc. This spring clip is either used for other things like felting or is discarded.

When dealing with "the rise" one option is to shear early enough in the year (such as early March in our area) so that you are shearing above the rise. This leaves wool on the sheep which tends to cot up as it grows out -- possibly ruining next year's fleece. This also leaves you with the quandary of having to house sheep for longer indoors because of the cold and wet weather and possibly face the danger of sheep getting ill from the stress of being cold. (I have had this happen in rams and wethers - but not ewes so far.)

Sini is 81% Kainuunharmas (Kainu Grey) bloodlines from Finland and has beautiful wool. But see how the she has more wool left on her back half than on her front half? That is because the shearer was not able to get under the natural thickened area (due to "the rise") and had to shear above it this year. Don't worry, we will fix her up so her fleece for next year is nice.

The alternative is to shear late enough in the year (the latter part of May in our area) so that the thickened area has grown away from the sheep's skin and you are shearing along the natural break in the wool. The drawback here is that there maybe a couple of weeks in which the sheep are quite hot and sitting in front of barn fans all day before shearing if we have a warmer spring. It also means that any ewes bred will need to be "crutched" prior to lambing. This means trimming away the wool on the ewe's belly and rear end to keep her fairly clean during the birthing process and prevent the baby lambs from accidentally sucking on soiled wool when looking for milk.

My shearer has convinced me that I need to try shearing in May next year and that I will get better quality fleeces with less waste left on the sheep. He said that Sandy DeMaster (Finns - though retired from breeding) and Julie Guillette (Shetlands) have both found this to be true. So if you order fleeces from me in 2011, shearing won't be occurring until sometime in late May and fleeces will be shipped out sometime in June depending on how chaotic things are with baby lambs. In the meantime, I am going to clip my "clumpy" sheep to give them a fresh start on growing beautiful fleeces for next year!!

More Zoe Pics

2010-07-16T17:42:00Z

Here are a couple more photos of Zoe taken on July 5th. This was a cloudy, breezy day. So the sheep were out grazing on pasture in the middle of the day (rather than hiding in the shade) and the dogs were out lying amongst them.

Here is Zoe. Her "badger" colored markings are becoming more subtle as her fur gets longer.

Rio (adult dog) and Zoe (10 1/2 weeks old) watching over the ewes and wethers

Meet Zoe!

2010-07-16T13:04:00Z

Meet "Zoe", also known as Beechtrees Flock to Me, our new baby Great Pyrenees Livestock Guardian Dog.

Her registered name has a double meaning. The litter had a sheep-theme for the registered names, but it was tricky to come up with something that sounded like a sheep guardian dog and not a herding dog. Other than the obvious meaning that the job of a sheep guardian dog is to stay with the sheep and protect them from predators, the other meaning is historical. According to my history-buff husband, in olden times, military commanders would command their troops, "To me men; to me," which mean that they should fall in behind him as he led them into battle. This is exactly the way our sheep all gather behind Rio when she is barking at a threat. Originally, Rio would place herself between the threat (or perceived threat) and the sheep. In time, she could stand nearly anywhere and bark, and if the sheep were in that pasture, they would flock up and get behind her. Somehow she has trained them to do this over time.

Zoe arrived here about 3 weeks ago on June 21st. She was 8 1/2 weeks old at that time and looked like this:

I took this photo at the breeder's farm the day I picked her up. I drove to Michigan on Sunday, June 20th and stayed at my friend Kila's house. Kila is a dog friend I have known for about 16 years. She was nice enough to take Monday off work and drive the hour west to Beechtree Farm to help me select my puppy. I had my choice between female #2 (now known as Cleo in AZ), male #3 (still available) and female #8 (now known as my Zoe).

When I arrived at the farm, there were 5 puppies playing and napping in a nursery pen in the grassy area next to the barn. This pen had a tarp partially covering the top of the pen for shade, but it did not have a complete "roof" over the entire top. A quick count revealed that one puppy was missing. Brenda informed me that female #8 had "let herself out" of the pen earlier that morning and was napping in the barn. She said that this puppy was the most laid back of all the pups, was not worried by the sheep, was curious but respectful of the barn cats, and liked to hang out at the barn. She let out all the puppies so they could go potty and run around a bit, then returned the 3 that were already taken by herself or others to the pen. In hindsight, I should have asked more questions about how an 8 1/2 week old puppy let herself out of a pen with 4 foot tall sides!

When looking at the puppy photos on Brenda's Beechtree Farm blog, I had sort of had "a feeling" that puppy #8 should be mine. I think it was the colored ears and white face that reminded me of Rio (our adult Great Pyr) and also Frolic (my beloved Border Collie who died at the end of May). But I firmly decided that I was not going to make up my mind until I had met all of the puppies. I wanted to be sure I selected the right one for our farm situation. After meeting all of the puppies, it seemed that puppy #8 really was the perfect one!

Based on my discussions with the breeder and everything I had read in my LGD books, Zoe would be spending the first couple of weeks at our farm in a pen in an area near where the sheep like to hang out. This would allow her to bond with the sheep, but not get stepped on, since an 8 week old puppy doesn't have the coordination to get out from under a moving sheep. Then I would go out several times a day and let the puppy follow me on little walks around the farm to learn the pasture boundaries and allow the sheep some time to come up and sniff her if they wished.

But after setting up a pen under the lean-to on the back of our barn (good shade, near the sheep's daytime resting place, nice breeze) on the first evening that I brought her home, it was clear that she was able to easily climb out of a 4 high pen. And if the tarp roof was not completely taut, she could squeeze through a tiny space in the corner too. Great Pyrenees have a reputation for being Houdini dogs (escape artists), I just didn't think those behaviors would emerge so quickly!! Fortunately she only wanted to go find Rio and hang out with her. So eventually I decided that it was best to just leave her in the pasture during the day with Rio while keeping an eye on her, rather than risking an injury from her repeated escape attempts. Usually, I tend to be a bit of a "smother-mother" when it comes to raising my puppies. But Zoe seemed to be "an old soul" who just knew what to do. And Rio immediately took her under her wing, watching out for her and "showing her the ropes".

Rio and Zoe patrol the boundaries of our back pasture together.

Zoe was wary of the sheep and they were wary of her. (A 120 pound dog is not scary, but who knows what a 15 pound puppy might do?) So there was little worry of them getting close enough to step on her. I had been told a few years ago, by Rio's breeder, that the Finnsheep were more flighty and "wimpy" around the dogs compared to her Lincolns or Suffolks. So I suspected that my Finns might be quite a lot more "wimpy" than Brenda's Blue-faced Leicesters.

Fortunately, because of the construction of the night pen we set up for her in the barn, she was not able to escape from it. All the Premier panels that comprised it were the same size and height and the tarp fit more tightly. So we were able to secure her in that pen just before dark each evening. I have been bringing the sheep into the barn and attached paddock at night so that Zoe would be around them more and would have some friends in the barn overnight since Rio is out patrolling the pastures.

Zoe hates her night pen and gives me a look like, "This baby pen demeans us both," every evening when I lock her and her dinner inside it. But I do not want her out roaming the pastures after dark yet for safety's sake. My thought is that when she is too large for me to physically put in the pen, then she will be large enough to fend for herself (with Rio's supervision) at night.

Firefly Fields Security Team

More photos and stories about Zoe to come...

Panda's 2010 fleece available

2010-07-16T00:01:00Z

UPDATE: SOLD! Panda's 2010fleece will have a new home with Joan. I know she will love it!

Panda's 2010 fleece is available. It was previously reserved but the buyer has gone incommunicado. So I am making it available to someone else. This is a large fleece and really beautiful. (Plenty of wool for a warm sweater for your husband or a beautiful glimmering shawl for you!) A couple of years ago when Sandy De Master (long time Finn breeder and my sheep mentor) helped me at shearing time, Panda's fleece was her very favorite.

Panda is second from the left in this photo with the dark panda-like spots around his eyes.

Panda is genetically a black/white piebald (spotted) wether. However, he has minimal white on his body, so the fleece is basically a solid color. With age, his wool has "faded" to a light grey. It has a fairly long staple length of about 7 inches and a wide, even crimp. It is extremely SOFT and has excellent luster for a colored fleece. There is a little sun-bleaching on the ends of the wool which will blend in when carded.

Like all my hand-spinning fleeces, this is a well-skirted fleece from a jacketed sheep. (The wool in the fleece is only the clean part from under the jacket.) We put the jackets on in the fall before we start feeding hay to keep the chaff out of the wool.

Here is a photo of the little sample I kept of the actual fleece from this year, which does not do it justice. The fleece itself is already boxed up and ready to ship.

Cost of this fleece:
5.65 lb x $12 = $67.80 plus shipping

I prefer money order or Paypal. I will accept a personal check but wait till check has cleared the bank before shipping the wool. If interested, contact me at tracy@fireflyfields.com with your name and street address so I can calculate shipping cost.

I guarantee you will fall in love with this fleece!!!!

Countdown to Baby Great Pyrenees

2010-06-14T15:54:00Z

A week from today, I will bring home our new baby Great Pyrenees!! (Not that I am counting.) We are getting a little helper for Rio , our 7 year old livestock guardian dog (LGD) who is also a Great Pyr. While Rio is still in excellent heath and I feel at the peak of her working ability, we felt it would be good to get a young dog to "learn the ropes" from Rio. Then as Rio starts to age, the young dog can help pick up the slack. I have known farms where the dogs work as a team and the smarter, older dog will bark at something and then the young dog will chase it away.

The life expectancy for Great Pyrs is 8 to 12 years, with 10 probably being about average. We have been very lucky with good longevity in most of our animals. However, I am not sure if being an outdoor sheep guarding dog will increase or reduce her lifespan. On one hand she has to deal with the elements and cold/heat/rain etc. But on the other hand she has full access to 6 acres, lots of exercise, fresh air and does the job the breed was made for.

We had two failed attempts to get puppy that was a Rio relative last year and this year. (Rio is awesome!) But those litters didn't work out and Rio's breeder is not going to be breeding any related dogs anytime in the near future. So, I had to go looking for another breeder and found Brenda Lelli in Michigan. I am getting one of the female puppies. Here are photos of puppies at 6 1/2 weeks old.

I don't know which one will be mine yet. Brenda, the breeder, is keeping the female with the darkest mask (labeled female #4). A lady from New Hampshire gets second pick (because she reserved her pup before I did). But she isn't actually driving to Michigan to select her. She is picking based on the photos and information from the breeder. So next Monday, I will choose from whichever two are not spoken for.

I am really not concerned. I have had last pick of a litter more than once with my dogs and have always felt that I got the best dog anyway. I feel that you pick the parents and the genetics and then you are generally OK with any of the puppies.

My doggie-friend of over 15 years, Kila, who lives in Michigan is going along with me to look at the puppies and make my pick. So it should be really fun!! I will post some photos after we get her...

"Juiced" Hay for Sheep: Friend or Foe?

2010-06-07T21:39:00Z

For the last couple of years, I have been trying to find information about the feeding of "juiced" or treated hay to sheep. Wisconsin can be extremely wet and humid especially in the month of June and sometimes July when most of our hay is cut. Sometimes it is a challenge to find enough dry days in a row to cut the hay and let it lie on the ground to dry. If freshly cut hay is rained on, it is not a big deal (despite old wives tales to the contrary) since freshly cut hay is pretty wet anyway. But you don't want nearly dry hay to be rained on.

At best, it requires that the hay be flipped an additional time, which costs money (farmer time and diesel) and knocks leaves off the alfalfa which reduces protein content as well as yumminess to animals. It also bleaches the hay out yellow -- which looks yucky so people don't want to buy it. At the worst, if you get a bunch of days of rain in a row, it will just get musty and gross laying on the ground. So if a big storm is moving in then you have to decide if you bale up the hay a little wetter (and risk mold) or let it lie there and risk it all being ruined from getting musty and gross.

In Finland, it is quite common to treat hay and/or silage (which is hay with a higher percentage of moisture that is packed so that it gets hot and ferments which helps retard mold. They use lactic acid or muratic acid. In Finland, they get one or maybe two cuts of hay a year, and the first cut in the best. If I wanted to see amazed faces in Finland, all I had to say was, "We sell a lot of our first cut hay and keep the second cut because it is better." <Shock and awe!>

Their first cut is big and I have been told better. In Finland, their growing season isn't long enough to always get a second cut of hay and I got the idea that it is rather sparse. I don't know what the protein content is. Some shepherds will cut and bale their hay field for one cut and then graze the sheep on it for the rest of the year because there is not enough growth to bother trying to cut / bale for hay. They use a lot of silage or haylage which they call "wet hay" because they often do not have enough hot dry days in a row for adequate drying.

In the U.S., our first cut of hay (usually early June in southern Wisconsin) grows fast and has a high percentage of grass and less alfalfa. There is a lot of it, like 3 times as much as second cut, but it is lower in protein. The second cut (usually in mid to late July) grows slower because there is a lot less rain. But because it is hotter and dryer outside, the grass goes somewhat dormant and the alfalfa flourishes. Alfalfa (a relative of the clover plant with smaller leaves and purple flowers) has deep roots which can find the moisture deep in the dry soil. (In July and August you may notice that all the grass in your yard looks dead but the clover is beautiful and green.) In theory, our third cut of hay is even better except that in Wisconsin we don't usually get a third cut of hay since growing season is too short or we don't get enough hot/dry temps to dry it. If we do get hay late in the year, some people turn it into silage since less drying is required.

We hire a farmer to do "custom hay work" for us since we only have about 12 acres of hay which isn't enough to justify buying the huge and expensive equipment required to cut / flip / bale hay. A couple of years ago, he got a new baler to make large squares which are 3 feet by 3 feet and as long as as you want to make them. This new baler has a tank on it for treating (or "juicing") the hay as it is baled with a product to retard mold.

Here is the haybine (a specialty tractor) that cuts our hay. This was a third cut which is why it is so short. The first and second cuts are usually about a foot high when the hay is cut.

When I talked to our neighbors (mostly hobby farms with horses) they had an extreme negative reaction and said that they would never feed it to their horses, though they didn't know if it would be bad for sheep or not. But when I asked WHY it was bad, nobody could tell me a specific reason. A few months ago, I emailed Dr. Dave Thomas, professor and head of the sheep department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He said he knew of no problems with using it but referred me to Dr. Dan Undersander, also a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who is a forage specialist. Here are my notes from my conversation with him. There doesn't seem to be a lot of info on this topic readily available on the web, so maybe it will help others as well.

Use of Propionic Acid Treated Hay in Sheep

Phone Conversation with Dr. Dan Undersander , Professor & Forage Specialist – UW Madison

June 7, 2010

Use of propionic acid in hay for sheep is not detrimental in any way. Propionic acid is a substance that occurs naturally in the rumen of sheep and cattle. So it is not considered a medication or anything unnatural. A Canadian study in sheep showed that the sheep consumed hay treated with propionic acid at a greater rate than they did untreated hay. (So there is no problem with palatability.) He said that in his personal experience with cattle, they would always eat the propionic acid treated hay first before they would eat the untreated hay. Propionic acid is often considered beneficial to sheep and is used to treat problems such as ketogenesis.

Moisture probes for hay should only be used for baled hay (not loose hay). However their accuracy can be greatly affected by how densely packed the bales are. Inaccuracy of 3 to 4% will make a difference in whether hay will mold or not. Also, going to a shorter bale (like 3 x 3 x 3) vs. a longer bale (like 3 x 3 x 8) will help in drying, as all areas are within 18” of an edge. Hay continues to cure after baling. So if you can stack the hay loosely somewhere for a week to 10 days before packing it into the barn, it will help with drying.

It is important to put enough of the product on the hay to be sure it works. (Follow package directions.) For hay with 18% moisture, you would need to use 8# per ton of hay. For hay with 16% moisture, you would need 5# per ton of hay.

There are several preparations such as one by Land O’Lakes and a few others. All contain propionic acid, something to make it smell good to humans and water.

Propionic acid treated hay is also safe for horses. In the past, horse people have had bad results due to feeding hay that was moldy despite the use of the propionic acid. But any illness was still due to mold and not propionic acid itself.

Shearing 2010 -- (lots of photos)

2010-04-28T17:40:00Z

We sheared the sheep on Easter morning this year. There are no true holidays on the farm and we were lucky to get a weekend time since then we can get more friends out here to help.

Here are the very wooly sheep outside at the hay feeders before being brought into the barn. This was Friday morning.

On Friday afternoon, storms were moving in. So the sheep, two smaller sized water tanks and some small basket type hay feeders were moved into the barn. The ewes had the run of the main part of the barn. The rams got a nice roomy pen in the hay room. The sheep need to be totally dry for shearing.

Friday morning, we fed the sheep again. Then on Saturday, they started their 24 hour fast. (Not for Lent, but for shearing.) It takes 12 to 24 hours for hay to be transformed into poop. Some people only fast them overnight. But I know from past experience that my sheep seem to have a lot of hay stored in their bellies from the day before and it takes about 24 hours to empty them out. Then on Saturday night, we took away their water.

The reason for doing this is not only to maintain the quality of the wool, but also to be humane to the sheep. Sheep are ruminants like cattle. Nature has designed them to eat a high roughage diet that is difficult to digest. When they first eat grass or hay, they quickly take in food which is stored in the first stomach called the rumen. Later it moves to the second stomach called the reticulum where acid and bacteria break it down to make "cud". These are the little wads of partially digested hay/grass that the sheep later bring up and rechew.

A long time shepherdess once told me that a sheep should either be eating or chewing their cuds most of the time. That is one sign of good health. (This is because one of the first signs of a sick sheep is poor appetite -- even if she still stand next to their flock with her head in the hay feeder, just staring at the hay.)

Once the cud is swallowed it moves on to the omasum and the abomasum for further digestion before entering the intestines.
Here is a link where you can read more about it, if I haven't already told you way more about sheep digestion than you ever wanted to know... the digestive system in sheep from Purdue University.

This storage of large amounts of hay/grass in the rumen is why a sheep looks so round (and IMO cute). They aren't fat, they are just full of grass/hay. And because of this round shape, they don't bend or fold very well. Imagine eating a huge Thanksgiving dinner and then being asked to do sit ups. It wouldn't feel good and probably wouldn't be very good for you either.

Sunday morning, as the shearer was unloading his equipment and setting up, we moved the small fence panels in to make the pen for the ewes/wethers/lambs a lot smaller. Being a flock animal, sheep are calmed by "togetherness". Plus there is not enough room for a nervous sheep to run. This makes it easier to catch them and they whole mood stays much more peaceful. We also took off all the jackets.

I also move very slowly and smoothly and talk to them the whole time. They are used to this and it seems to reassure them.

Here is our shearer, David Kier, shearing a sheep. I am fairly certain this sheep is Elias, a wether who is our oldest sheep at 8 years old. Elias is a "fading black". (A genetically black sheep that has turned grey over time.) We are so lucky to get David every year. He is professionally trained in New Zealand, is kind to the sheep and helps us produce beautiful fleeces. If you have gone to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in the past few years, David does their shearing demos and also teaches a workshop on using a modified technique to shear a standing sheep yourself.

Our friend Amy and her niece Becca (a pre-vet student enjoying a break from college) work on the first skirting of the fleece. This is to remove dung tags and serious filth.

Colored sheep done; white ones left to go...

All done! Time for hay and water. An Easter feast for sheep!

This is the same tight pen the sheep were in during the previous photos. We were still cleaning up and hadn't give them full access to the barn again yet. See how much extra space there is with no wool? This is why when planning for how many sheep will fit in a barn or around a hay feeder, you must take into account whether or not they have fleece. Amazing huh?

I was able to hire a friend's daughter to help me do the final skirting of the fleeces over her spring break. I still need to finish boxing them up, addressing and weighing them. I just need for other things to need my attention less and then I will be all done to ship them out!

Brother, Can You Spare a Spine? :)

2010-04-03T22:38:00Z

Some people have been asking me when the photos of the new 2010 lambs are going to start showing up. Well... unfortunately there aren't going to be any new lambs this year. (Though I have plenty of photos from past years left to show.) We are taking a year off from baby lambs.

Last May, just after lambing, I started having pain in my right shoulder. I assumed that I must have injured it somehow. On the farm, it is really easy to bang your body around in the course of everyday activities and often I don't even notice until a day or two later when I am sore, or a bruise shows up. But this was like real searing pain right down in the shoulder joint. I propped up my arm when I was resting, I iced it, I took Advil when I had to... all the usual stuff. I went to the chiropractor for low-force adjustments which helped for a while and then stopped helping. By summer, I was also having shooting pains down my right arm and tingling in my hand. I talked to a friend who is an MD who suggested that I go see an orthopedist that dealt with neck and shoulder problems.

After much paperwork, screenings to see if I was deserving of an appointment and pre-approval by my health insurance company, I finally got in to have an MRI in early August. If you ever have to have a neck MRI, my only advice to you is ask for lots of Valium and take it all! While I am not normally claustrophobic, apparently I am very "MRI phobic" and the tube they pack you into is about half the size of the ones they show on the TV show "House". And the nice, modern, open MRIs that they advertise at clinics on TV do not offer good enough resolution to look at the small vertebrae and discs in the neck. It does not help that you are already in pain and then have to lie totally still in a position that may not be too comfortable.

But the good thing to come out of my very-much-not-fun MRI experience was finally figuring out that I had 2 herniated discs in my neck and that was the cause for all of my problems. As most people know, between each of your vertebra there is a disc that pads them and keeps them from crunching together. As we get older, these discs get shorter (somewhat dry out) causing us to get shorter and also get kind of beat up from all the abuse our bodies take in day-to-day life.

What I had never realized before is that these discs aren't just a consistent, solid thing. They are sort of like a filled donut with a firm shell and a soft, center. (Not as soft and gooey as a jelly filled bismark, but I will forge on with the analogy, nonetheless.) What happens is that often through trauma or just ordinary wear and tear, this gooey center oozes into the donut part and sometimes even busts out of the firm shell. Because it isn't really jelly, it just sits there. Though since it has a high water content, it can potentially fix itself by being reabsorbed by the body or it can oozing back into the disc where it came from.

Now that people get MRIs for lots of reason, they realize that disc herniation is actually quite common. And it doesn't harm you unless it causes you pain. But if there is something already in that space to push on or get pinched -- like a nerve -- then it does so, which causes pain. And nerve pain is BAD. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. (Not that I have a lot of enemies but...)

So... it turned out that the disc between my 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae in my mid-neck was pushing on the nerve that goes to my right shoulder. The disc beween my 6th and 7th cervical vertebrae was putting pressure on the nerve that went down my arm and into my thumb and index finger. According to the orthopedist, most disc hernitations are just caused by wear and tear on the body and not any one accident. They are common in people in their 30's and 40's with physically active lifestyles. (Though lumbar disc herniations are much more common than cervical disc hernations.)

The only options that the orthopedist had for me was to do nothing and see if it got better on its own or to have surgery to remove both of those discs and fuse the 2 vertebrae on either side of the removed disc together . . (Though he didn't hold out high hopes for getting better on its own since that usually happens within 4 to 6 weeks and I was already about 10 to 12 weeks out at that time.)
I was not a candidate for disc replacement as in the U.S. the only FDA approved devices / procedures can only be used when one disc is removed. (Not 2.) I decided that surgery would be my last resort.

I had used acupuncture to help my dogs and cats before and decided that I would try it myself to help control the pain and inflammation. I found Dr. Chi at Chi's Acupuncture and Tuina Center who has a satellite office in Janesville I started going twice a week for Acupuncture and also Tuina which is Chinese medical massage. She was licensed in both western medicine and acupuncture in China, but is only licensed for acupuncture in the U.S. Still I think that her knowledge of both types of medicine was really useful. Both of these things really helped. I have fairly strong muscles from all the farm work, but in this case they were working against me. The muscles in my neck and shoulders were almost in a constant state of being cramped from my body trying to protect itself from the pain. And it had turned into a vicious cycle that cramping led to more pain which led to more cramping.

My husband's boss had herniated discs in his lumbar spine (lower back) years ago and had used Iyengar yoga to help heal his body. This is a type of very slow, gentle yoga that uses props to help you get into the positions more perfectly. It also really concentrates on alignment of the spine. Now I go to yoga class twice a week "come hell or high water" because I suffer when I do not go. It is a really good type of yoga for almost anyone, including older people and those with physical problems. (I just don't do any shoulder or head stands -- ever.) I am trying to get more diligent about practicing daily at home as I know it would help me heal faster.

At this point, I am still really careful about what activities I do since I am trying not to backslide on any of the improvement I have made so far. I would say that at this point, I am 85 to 90% better. I usually just have pain on damp rainy days and can do most things. The one thing I really miss is doing dog agility with my dogs. I am not brave enough to do much running (even for short bursts) yet because of the jarring to the neck.

I also got a couple of books on disc / back problems. The one I found the most helpful was Overcoming Back and Neck Pain: A Proven Program for Recovery and Prevention by Lisa Morrone PT. I also did cervical traction as recommended by my acupuncturist. I first had a cheapie over-the-door unit which helped my neck but caused jaw pain. Later I got a better (but more expensive) unit that I lie down in which puts no pressure on my jaw. I still use the traction some days and should probably do it more as I think it does help.

Overall, I think I made the right decision to let my body heal as much as possible before taking on the physical work and sleep deprivation of lambing season. (If I don't get enough rest, I start to have pain again.) But, I hope to continue getting better and I am really looking forward to setting up breeding groups in fall 2010 and seeing new lambs again in spring 2011!

Catching Up: More Cute Lamb Photos from May

2009-10-17T17:18:00Z

Here are more lamb photos all from the month of May. Danger: major sweetness alert -- diabetics look away!!

Rio (our Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog) with the mamas and babies.

The Micro-lamb became quite a snuggle bunny and was pretty sure that I was his mama. When we start letting the lambs out in the big pasture, I sit out in my lawn chair with them to keep them out of trouble. The Micro-lamb pretty much wanted to be in the barn or on my lap all the time. Otherwise he would scream at me...

Baa!

Uma and her ewe lambs -- the grey panda and the white one.

It is hard to see the colors in this small photo, but the grey panda's lighter wool is starting to come in. She has a solid body with only white on her head and the little stripe on the front of her throat. But if you look to the right of the white throat stripe, you can see lighter (grey) wool growing in. As a newborn you can often see if it you part the birth coat on the lambs flanks (butt and hips) and look at the roots of the hair shafts. The grey panda also has a bluish pink tongue. (It is like a pink tongue of a white lamb that had eaten a grape lollypop.)

Emmi and her white ewe lamb who I nicknamed "Lamb Friend". Because I spent so much time taking care of her as a weak baby lamb and also milked out her mama's too large left udder for a few weeks while the lamb climbed on me, she stuck to me like glue whenever I went outside. (More than most bottle lambs I have had.) It is also because she is Uma's granddaugher and the Uma's line is pretty fearless and almost obnoxiously friendly. This is both a blessing and a curse as they will come right up to you, but are always in the way and interfering with whatever you are trying to do!! She stayed this friendly as she has grown up.

Our friend Wendi from Louisiana was up in Rockford, IL, which is 30 to 45 minutes south of our farm, visiting her grandma. She brought her son Shepherd (his real name!), who loves animals, up to see the baby lambs. He lives with big dogs, so he wasn't as overwhelmed as you might think. Mostly we kept the bigger March-born lambs away from him because they were too pushy. (Front L>R: Emmi's white ewe lamb, Helmi's 1 brown ram and 2 black wether lambs, and Annika's brown ewe lamb. In back are 2 of Mara's bigger lambs.) It was all extremely cute. We guarded his tiny fingers from nibbling lambs and they did fine together otherwise.

One other bit of excitement for the month of May was that I bought a John Deere Gator. This is an ATV made for farming. I test drove 3 other brands before deciding on the Gator. None of them were cheap and the small amount of extra money for the Gator was well worth it in maneuverability and smooth ride. (One of the other models I drove lurched forward and practically took your head off every time you started forward from a stop!) We were able to get a discount on this one because although it was new, it was the 2008 model year so they wanted to move it out of the store.

It can be switched from 4WD (four wheel drive) for better traction to 2WD for better maneuverability and fuel efficiency. It also has a bed like a pickup truck so I can haul and dump brush with it. Ours has the motorized dump bed, though you have to open up the tailgate manually. It came with the roll bar, but we got the optional soft roof which attaches with velcro for protection from the sun and rain. (Ours runs off gas, but there is a diesel model also.) We have used it to haul water since we got it and now (in fall) are using it to haul hay also. Compared to my previous methods of hauling, a giant wagon and a utility sled -- depending on the season, this is a huge step up and frees more of my time to actually enjoy being with the sheep. I just love it!

Catching Up: The Rest of the Lambs

2009-10-16T14:20:00Z

Dear Blogospherians,

I am so sorry to neglect you all summer. But I have good excuses; really I do. Recently, I have received some sad emails from one of the three people on earth that read this blog and she is starting to sound desperate. Frankly, I just don't want to be responsible. (I have enough responsibility with taking care of the sheep, lambs, dogs, cats, ducks and bunny... and last but not least a husband.) I will try not to ignore you so much in the future.... and this time I really, really mean it!

Sincerely,
Tracy

So here we go...

When last we spoke, Emmi's survivng little lamb was starting to thrive. Emmi was a very good mama. The main difficulty was that something weird happened with her udder this year. For most of her pregnancy, her udder stayed really small. The day before Emmi had her lambs, her udder suddenly became huge. The surviving baby started to thrive and she was able to nurse off Emmi's right teat which returned to a normal size. The left udder and teat stayed really huge though she had no symptoms of mastitis (infection). I did a California mastitis test with negative (not infected) results more than once. On the advice of a vet, I kept that side milked out to keep her milk from drying up and prevent infection so that the lamb could nurse both sides once she got bigger. The conclusion here is that I never, ever want to do dairy or anything related to it. Emmi was enough sheep milking for me.

So here are the rest of the lambs I got this year:

On April 22nd, Annika had triplets: a black ewe lamb (lower right), a black ram lamb (lower left) and a brown ewe lamb (top). Wendall (brown) is their sire, so the black lambs are recessive for brown. Finally my first brown EWE!! Unfortunately when she was born, her neck was extremely floppy. I don't know if she was crammed in the womb some weird way or what. My vet thought that she was just weak. I have never had this happen in any lamb. Her legs were strong and she could stand and walk around, only her neck was weak. So I had to milk colostrum out of Annika and feed her, and then she was bottle fed for a few days since she could not hold her neck in the correct position to nurse. But pretty soon, her neck started to get stronger and she turned out to be totally normal. She ended up both nursing from Annika and getting supplemented from a bottle a few times per day. Annika had plenty of milk but the other two lambs were so much stronger from the beginning and learned they could just push her away if they wanted to. The ram lamb is really big and has a very proud look to him. He also has beautiful markings. The black ewe lamb is like a little elf and bounces around whenever she can.

Then on April 26th, Uma had quads. Unfortunately one lamb - a beautiful solid grey ram lamb - was stillborn. The 3 survivors were a white ewe lamb, a grey "panda" faced ewe lamb and a teeny, tiny black ram lamb (who we would later wether). The grey panda is my first panda-faced lamb that is not a piebald. The tiny lamb, who we called "the micro-lamb" was the smallest surviving lamb we have ever had born on the farm -- just 2 pounds 12 ounces. And the truly amazing thing was that he was strong and spunky! He was up walking around like a normal lamb really quickly and he didn't have a the scooped out face that some of the "premie" lambs have.

Here are all 3 lambs together at one day old. The grey panda girl is on the upper left and the Micro-lamb (boy) is on the upper right. The white girl is (obviously) at the bottom.

Unfortunately, he had a teeny, tiny mouth and his mother is my biggest ewe and has big teats which were about twice as large as his tiny mouth! And the little Prichard teats, that I use to bottle feed my newborn Finns when needed, were also way too huge. So for about 3 days I tube fed this tiny lamb with minute amounts of milk -- first with colostrum from Uma and then with Super Lamb (lamb formula) -- every 2 hours for the first day, and then every 3 hours after that. Did I sleep? Not much. When I had recovered just slightly from my sleep deprived delirium, I drove into town and got a couple of small animal nursing set (made for puppies, kittens etc) that each had a little 2 ounce bottle and a variety of teats. One was shaped like the Prichard teats but, slightly smaller and an even softer latex. So then I was able to bottle feed the little guy.

Here I am feeding the Micro-lamb his tiny bottles, while his sisters nibble on my t-shirt.

He also had a problem that even with weighing him and calculating what should be his milk intake each day, he still tended to scour (get diarrhea) every time we increased his daily quantity of milk. (I use the schedule and amounts in the blue Laura Lawson book "Managing Your Ewe and her Newborn Lambs".) I felt we were walking a fine line between starving him to death and killing him with diarrhea. But amazingly, he survived. Because of the diarrhea, many of his early photos show red lamb medicine on his mouth.

This is not a great photo, but it shows the relative heights of the grey panda (who is an average size Finn lamb) and the tiny microlamb who is totally normal, just very small. So... Reason #1 Why This Blog Is So Far Behind: The Micro-lamb!!

On April 27th, Helmi had triplet rams: one brown and two black -- all with gorgeous wool!! All three lambs were healthy and Helmi is a wonderful and experienced Mom -- so there was no drama with this litter -- thank God! I think this year was the most difficult lambing since my first year when I barely had a clue. Last year was extremely easy, so I guess I was due.

One weird thing about this group was that the brown ram was born with obviously nice birth wool. The two black ones were born with a very strange straight birth coat -- like a dog. It didn't look like bad birth wool. It didn't look like wool at all. This seemed bizarre to me since both parents have really good wool and Wendall's wool is quite fine. I called Sandy DeMaster aboutt his and Sandy said that she had had some of these lambs with straight hair born before and eventually it just fell out and they had good wool afterward. And that is exactly what happened!

In this photo, you can see the good wool starting to come in on the black lamb on the far right up by his shoulders and that the weird "dog hair" type coat is still on his butt area. The lambs are 6 days old in this photo. (This brown lamb is a lighter brown than the brown ewe lamb that I got this year and Kahvi, my brown ram born a few years ago.)

So that is all of the lambs we got this year. Fourteen healthy surviving lambs, 2 stillborn and one weak one that I could not save.
More lamb photos to come...

Lambs: Large and Small

2009-04-18T00:25:00Z

Eeva's lamb shows that she can eat real food like a big sheep now. The creep has been set up for several days and the lambs have been playing in there, going through the slatted gate. Today they suddenly discovered, "Hey! There's food in here!" Now that they are eating lamb creep, they will grow even better.

Emmi and her lamb. (The little survivor) She likes to go under her mom even though she isn't able to nurse yet. Emmi is really good about not stepping on her. She is naked here because I was changing her jacket.

I realize that a photo of a lamb pooping is not exactly picturesque, but it shows how tiny this lamb is next to her big mama. Emmi is the second largest ewe in my flock. She has been such an attentive mama. Usually my ewes just let their lambs poop wherever. Emmi is the first ewe I have had that will hardly let their poop fall to the ground. She has everything clean: the lamb and the pen.

The baby hadn't had her dinner yet in this photo, so her belly does get a little rounder once she is fed. Unless it is the rare single lamb (born as a single), Finn lambs don't get that Hallmark Card lamb look until they are about a week old.

Settling in under the heat lamp for a nap. Since today was a warm day, I decided to leave the door and windows open until 9:00 tonight but turn on the lamps for the lambs. That way they can have more fresh air and decide if they are cold or not. Lambs do not very good control of their body temperature until they are about 72 hours old. (I can't remember where I learned that, but that number sticks in my mind, so I think it is right.)

Being a baby lamb is very hard work! It must be the stress of looking cute all the time!!

Hope, Disappointment and Peace

2009-04-17T19:44:00Z

The past two days have been quite an emotional roller-coaster.

Wednesday night, I got up every 2 hours and went out to the barn to tube 1 oz of milk into each of the surviving baby lambs. I milked Emmi and used her own colostrum thinned with a little splash of warmed milk replacer. The colostrum is thick and yellow like Squeeze Parkay (liquid margarine), so it doesn't like to run through the tube.

Yesterday (Thursday) morning, I reweighed each of Emmi's surviving lambs and discovered that the weaker lamb (#3 in birth order who was the smallest of the two survivors) was actually a ewe-lamb and not a ram-lamb. When she was born she was a little prune-y looking and I had mistaken a roll of wrinkled skin on her abdomen for a scrotum. After being unsuccessful at reviving the stillborn lamb, I was in a hurry trying to keep the 2 lambs alive. So I really just made a quick glance. I was pleased to see that the lambs had each gained 3-4 oz of weight in their first 15 hours of life. Both had pooped out their black fetal poop, so I could tell they were digesting and moving milk through their systems. The smaller, weaker lamb also seemed to be gaining more control of her head movement. And when I took her in an adjacent pen to tube feed her (so Emmi couldn't "help"), she responded to her mother by baa-ing back.

But by 2:00 in the afternoon, it was clear that the smaller lamb was becoming weaker and more lethargic. The larger lamb had started pooping the yellow poop of baby lambs (from drinking milk) but had a slight case of diarrhea. Diarrhea isn't all that rare when a lamb is being fed "artificially" because while we may try duplicate nature's schedule (frequent feedings of small amounts of milk), we are not as good as nature. I started her on Specto-guard Scour-check which has given me very good results before. It is actually a baby pig medicine that is used off-label for baby lambs. (Because sheep are considered a "minor species" in the U.S. almost no medicines or de-wormers are actually labeled for them. You can use them but should have a working relationship with a vet, so you are using them with his/her approval.)

I have been milking Emmi and using her milk for the lambs. (I just milk her out by hand which always makes me feel a bit Amish.) I have also been milking out extra and just keeping it in the refrigerator for now in case her production declines. Sometimes ewes get a drop in milk production when they are switching from colostrum to milk. But so far that hasn't happened. Emmi has a ton of milk this year -- Plenty for the 3 lambs that she was carrying. I don't want to risk her getting mastitis and I want Emmi to continue to produce milk.

By evening, the larger lamb's stools were firming up, but the smaller lamb had lapsed into a coma. At least she was in no distress or pain. Overnight, she was just permanently asleep under the warmth of the heat lamp. My vet is out of town until Monday night, so I didn't have any way to get her euthanized in the evening. While I could have driven her out to my friend Cindy's house (her husband is a vet), that is 2 hours each way. I didn't dare leave the more viable lamb for 4 hours (when I am still tube feeding her every 3 hours) to end the life of the other lamb who was not suffering. I also noticed that the smaller lamb was no longer peeing or pooping even when Emmi would try to clean her. It seemed her digestion was shutting down. The milk that I had put in her belly was still there (you could feel it from the outside).

I continued to tube feed the larger lamb switching to an every-3-hour schedule since she was now on her second day of life. I follow the schedule that Laura Lawson gives in her book "Managing Your Ewe and her Newborn Lambs". It tells you to figure out the lamb's weight in ounces, multiply by 20% (or .2) then divide that amount by the number of feedings per day on a schedule according to the lamb's age.

By this morning, the smaller lamb had died. I had decided that if it was still alive today, I would try find another vet to put it to sleep. I was grateful that God had made that decision for me. Rest in peace little lamb. You were beautiful and I'm sorry we didn't get to spend more time with you.

I weighted the remaining lamb and she was up to 5 lbs 2 oz. Emmi is very protective of her one remaining lamb and is being a very good mama. After the other lamb was dead, she seemed to know and no longer seemed concerned about it.

The national average for lamb mortality is 14%. Even with the 2 deaths this year the lamb mortality on our farm has been 5% over 5 years of lambing. (We didn't have lambs in 2005.) Assuming that the next three ewes have no problems with their lambs, that percentage will fall further. (I am expecting about 9 more lambs this year.) My vet has always told me that I am lucky because nobody is that good -- He is a vet with spoiled show sheep and he isn't that good. I knew that one year my luck had to run out. I just hope that this isn't the year.

I will take a photo of Emmi's adorable lamb this evening and post here later...

The four older lambs from Eeva and Mara seem so big and strong now. It is like they are already professionals at being a lamb.

A Microcosm of Life

2009-04-16T02:56:00Z

I spent most of today walking out to the barn every 2 hours to see that Emmi was still not in labor, but was standing around rubbing her sides on the walls of the barn for a good scratch. Finally at 2 PM when I went outside, her water bag was hanging from her, but it hadn't broken yet and she wasn't really pushing either. More standing around. After about half an hour of this she started pushing intermittently.

But after half an hour of pushing with no real progress, I decided to intervene and used a sanitized scissors to puncture her water bag. Then I put on an OB glove (thin plastic, goes to the shoulder) and a ton of Super-lube (antiseptic lube for sheep) and checked inside her. There was a lamb right there and I helped him be born. Emmi pushed as I pulled (always toward the ewe's heels) and the lamb came out quite easily. Unfortunately he was dead and there was no reviving him.

It was a little white ram lamb and while he didn't look that small, when I weighed him, he was just over 3 pounds. So that is pretty small even for a Finn lamb. (My smallest survivor, Sparky, was 3 1/2 pounds and he needed a lot of help for a long time. Emmi was very good about licking the dead lamb and trying to stimulate him as I tried to get him going. I left him in the jug (pen) with her for a while just because I didn't want to freak her out by taking her lamb.

My vet's machine said he was away for the day, but I called my long time sheep mentor, Sandy, and she agreed that I should go in and get any other lambs out now, just in case they were still alive. I was not overly optimistic. (It always feels good to have someone agree with your plan of action when things aren't going so well.) I got out a white ewe lamb that was weak and a white ram lamb (breach presentation) that was even weaker. Both have beautiful pigment around their eyes like eyeliner. There is a 50% chance they carry for grey and a 50% chance they carry for black.

I helped Emmi get them dried off - tongue on her part, towel and hairdryer on mine. Then I snipped and dipped their umbilical cords in strong iodine. I weighed them -- ewe: 4 lbs 10 oz; ram: 4 lbs 1 oz -- I think. It is written down out in the barn. I put on their little coats and and set them under the heat lamps. Fortunately it was a nice and sunny day so the barn was fairly warm anyway.

The little ewe lamb tried to stand and tried to nurse, but I wasn't sure now much milk she was really getting. And the little ram lamb was too weak to stand, let alone nurse. So I milked colostrum out of Emmi, thinned it with a tiny bit of warmed milk replacer as straight colostrum is think and hard to get through the tube, and tube fed both lambs. (Thank you Randy Gottfredson for teaching me that. It has saved several lambs.) I got Emmi a bucket of warm molasses water and some hay. She was glad to have a snack at that point.

With the lambs fed and under their heat lamp, I had a couple of hours so that I could go dig a grave for the little dead lamb and run back to the house to feed the inside dogs. At one point I had to come indoors to get some tape to seal up the little box that I found to bury the lamb. The radio in the house was playing Natalie Merchant's "These Are the Days".

these are days you'll remember...
...to be part of the miracles you see in every hour
you'll know it's true, that you are blessed and lucky...

The poignancy was overwhelming.

I have a lot of friends who say they could never do what I do. But as in all things, you just do the best that you can and the rest is up to God. When I first got my sheep, my mentor, Sandy DeMaster, told me that sheep were going to teach me a lot of things. Nothing has ever been more true. (And no one asks you which lessons you think you might like to learn.) Life on the farm is just like life anywhere. It is just that the miracles of birth, the sadness of death and the life in between are much more "in your face" on a daily basis.

I have fed the lambs 3 times now and they are still alive. I will feed them about every 2 hours all night. The little girl is still trying to stand and I helped her onto Emmi's teat a bit, but then still fed her just to be safe. When I went out to the barn at 9:00 PM she had walked across the jug on her little "Bambi legs" and gotten tangled up in another corner. But fortunately she wasn't too chilled. So I fed her and put her back under the heat lamp. The little boy does fight a bit when I try to feed him but that is about all. He can lift up his head and flop around a bit. There are no attempts at standing yet. But as long as he is still alive, he can get better. Their fight to survive is incredible.

Upper left: ewe lamb looking spunky. Lower right: little guy still a bit floppy.

Watching Emmi

2009-04-15T13:23:00Z

We have been in a holding pattern for the past day. Yesterday (Tuesday) morning I went out to the barn to notice that Emmi had gotten much more pregnant looking overnight. More of the largeness seemed to be on the left side. But it was solid, not a big, gassy balloon so it wasn't bloat. I just wondered if maybe the lambs were sitting more to her left side all of a sudden. She also suddenly had a big, full udder. The udder-thing is great. I was actually really concerned that she had the smallest udder of the group of 4 ewes left to lamb and she was due first. She was still eating fine yesterday morning.

Photos cannot adequately show her sudden hugeness.

Then by last night, she was eating less and standing around looking "odd". I kept checking the barn every 2 hours, but then at 11 PM went to bed and then went out again at 6 AM. The theory is that most ewes do not have their lambs at night especially if you don't keep bothering them and waking them up. So at 6 AM, no lambs. And at 8 AM still no lambs. I have the feeling it will be today and may be later this morning. The ultrasound tech said she had "at least 2 lambs" and I am guessing three given her size, shape and past history. (She had triplets when she had lambs before.) I think that the "odd" look is because the ewe is starting to have some small contractions. This can start about 24 hours before real labor begins. I have the feeling I will get a lot of exercise walking back and forth to the barn today!

Yesterday, I also put Eeva, Mara and their 4 lambs in a little nursery pen with an attached creep. The creep is an area where you put special lamb food. The lambs are starting to taste their mothers' grain when they eat and most of them have gone in and out of the creep gate a few times. But I haven't seen them show interest in the creep feed so far. Usually one lamb will figure it out and then they will all start. We will watch and see who the smart lamb turns out to be. I have a feeling it will be one of Mara's little black lambs.

The gate to the creep is the blue thing toward the right/rear that has adjustable bars so you can set
the size to allow lambs to fit through but not their mothers.

Finn and BFL: You Learn Something Everyday

2009-04-09T12:29:00Z

I am going to be getting a new batch of roving in from Wooly Knob Fiber Mill soon. It is supposed to be natural white Finn with a bit of pastel bamboo fiber blended into it. I will post it on the roving page on my website when it is available for sale.

Note for the non-fibrous among us: Roving is wool that has already been washed and carded and is ready to sit down and spin into yarn or use for needle-felting or wet-felting. Roving looks like this:

This roving is a blend of natural white and black. I am sold out of this color but it is easier to see the texture in the photo than it is with the solid color roving.

When you take it out of the bag, it looks a bit like a long, woolen caterpillar. You break off sections and stretch it out a bit to make it thinner (called pre-drafting) and then spin it into yarn. The advantage of roving is that it is clean, smells good and doesn't mess up your house. Also it is instant gratification. You just sit down and spin!

Back to our story... Last year I drove a whole bunch of fiber to Wooly Knob Fiber Mill in Indiana. I posted the story about going here. It was a lot more than I usually take at one time because it was a whole set of complete fleeces from two years ago, when my dog Frolic had her knee rebuilt and I didn't get my jackets repaired and on the sheep, as well as the neck wool and other misc. wool from last year. (BTW, there was a HUGE amount of dirty wasted wool the year I didn't jacket my fleeces. It was really a shame. I'll never let that happen again.)

About a month ago, I called the guys at Wooly Knob to ask them a question about making roving for machine spun yarn for my friend who knits but doesn't spin. They mentioned that they had found one bag of my wool in their storeroom that had somehow gotten separated from the rest of my order. (Which wouldn't be hard since I took them about a million bags... ok, maybe 2 million. It seemed like it anyway.) The wool was white and they knew I already had a ton of white roving. So they asked if i would like this carded with flecks of some new bamboo they had just gotten that was all pastels. (It is soft, sort of like flax which is used to make linen; not hard like the stuff pandas chew on.) I said sure!

So this week, I called and asked them if it was almost ready to ship because I have sold out of several colors of roving this spring. They said that they had sent it back to the washing side for a second washing because it hadn't gotten clean the first time. I was really surprised by that because the wool was not very dirty and Finn wool does not have a lot of lanolin in it compared to other types of wool. (When it is washed you lose about 30-35% weight from removal of the grease, not 40-50% like Merino, for example.) They said that it is due to the lock structure of the wool. It does not allow the water and soap to penetrate into the fibers and get it clean. He said that in Finn and Blue Faced Leicester, they send it back (to their washing side) to be re-washed about 90% of the time. It is because these two breeds have almost identical lock structure. Who knew? You learn something everyday!

A Visit to the Moderately Big World

2009-04-08T13:09:00Z

Tasting some hay with Mom. (They aren't actually eating hay yet.) But nibbling on food introduces
bacteria into their gut and gets their rumens started. This is a very good thing.

The lambs are growing really well. Yesterday we let the lambs and moms all out into "the lamb pen", a small paddock attached to our barn, where they could have a little time running around together. The nice thing about this pen is we can give them some freedom but still keep them under close supervision in case a lamb tries to get into trouble. Also, the babies can't get too far away from the mom. They still panic at first, but it is quickly resolved and mom and babies get some practice in finding each other again.

At first Eeva was a little concerned about Mara's lambs getting too close to her lamb, but she started to settle down after a while. Mara is an experienced mother. So while she did a good job of keeping track of her lambs, she wasn't so overly dramatic about anything.

Eeva's white lamb is 3 weeks old today and Mara's black triplets are 2 weeks old today. Eeva's lamb is big and fat, so she has already outgrown my larger size lamb coats.

Some Finn breeders seem to make a big deal out of the fact that a single grows faster since it has all of the space in the womb and gets all of the milk. (It is like they think a breeder is going to cheat buyers by selling them a single lamb which is going to look bigger than the others.) I have found that while the lamb might grow larger and faster at first, in the end, its genetic potential can be best predicted by looking at the size of the parents. If the parents are large, the lamb will grow up to be large. (This is assuming that all of your sheep are fed well and you start your lambs started eating 20% lamb creep as soon as they are able, along with eating very good quality hay or grass with their mothers.) So if you are looking to buy sheep look at the parents, and if possible the grandparents, for your clues on what the lamb will grow up to be.

Singles are not typical in Finnsheep. I have only had singles in a ewe lamb mother (1), lambs conceived with AI (2), and in a ewe who was chased and possibly aborted and reabsorbed the others (1). But a single is always an easy lamb for the shepherd and I always have a least one litter of quads that needs my help. And I have more than enough genetics for prolificacy in my flock. So I don't mind the single. If you keep good records, then you can track traits (such as prolificacy and mothering ability) in whole lines across several years and not base decisions on one litter of one ewe in one year.

Here are a few photos of the lambs from Sunday and yesterday (Monday). Be prepared for overwhelming cuteness!

Yes, the lambs are the left are airborne!

Mara's Black Triplets - More Love Lambs

2009-04-07T13:28:00Z

After Eeva had her lamb so early -- 138 days gestation which was a new farm record -- you can bet I was on the lookout for Mara's lambs. By that time, the ewes were all in the barn and the adjoining pen and I had a "jug" (small pen for mom and lambs) all set up and waiting for her. If Mara had her babies between 143 and 145 days gestation, as is normal for Finnsheep, then they were to be born between March 23 and 25th. Because these are "love lambs" I know exactly when they were conceived. See: Love Lambs and Regular Lambs

A lot of times it is harder than you think to tell if a ewe is going to have her babies anytime soon. Supposedly her belly drops and her hip bones become more prominent along her back about 24 hours before she gives birth. Supposedly it is from the ligaments in her rear end relaxing. But honestly I don't think it is very obvious with any of my ewes. Sometimes it seems like their hip bones become more prominent a few days before they give birth. And frankly when a ewe's belly is that big, their body has to look different all over. I have also been told they lose their appetite on the day they give birth. My ewes lose their appetite about 1 hour before they give birth. My ewes aren't going to walk away from a good meal, no matter what!

With Mara, I did have a lot of clues this year. On the afternoon of Tuesday, March 24th, Mara started look at her rear end occasionally as if aliens might fly out of it at any moment. (Well, there was some truth to that... but not aliens exactly.) So I knew she was having some small contractions. Then she started walking around the barn and calling to her lambs, like she was looking for them. (Pssst! Mara! They're still inside you.) Sometimes the ewes do call to their lambs while they're in labor. I've never had one actually search for them before. And Mara has had lambs twice before, so she knows what it is all about.

Unfortunately, we don't have a barn cam and our barn is too far from the house to use a baby monitor. So normally, I walk out and check the barn every 2 to 3 hours (on the days I am expecting lambs) and then if it looks like something is happening, I will either shorten it up to every hour or else just take a thermos of coffee to the barn and sit in a lawn chair. Mara is a more nervous, aloof ewe who does not like human company all that much. She is also an experienced and excellent mother. So I just left her alone in hopes that I would stress her less, but quietly peeped in the door every hour.

After many hikes out to the barn, cursing the former owners of this farm for building the barn so far from the house with each step, I went out at about 5:30 to do the evening feeding. When I went into the barn, a little black lamb had just been born and Mara was cleaning it off. I used the nasal syringe, a.k.a. "the booger sucker", to clean out its nose and mouth (which is supposed to decrease the chance of pneumonia by 50%) and helped Mara dry it off while still letting her lick it off. Then I walked backwards carrying the lamb into the jug (maternity pen) and so Mara would follow me in there. I stuck the lamb under the heat lamp as it was becoming clear that lamb #2 was on the way.

In the end, there were 3 lambs born in less than 1 hour. The main concern is making sure that they all get dried off and get colostrum in their bellies. It is really good if you can get something in their stomach within the first 30 minutes and definitely within an hour. When I have been able to do this, I have had NO cases of lambs getting hypothermia and needing to be rewarmed. Usually I can help them get on the teat to nurse that first time. Some time during all of this hubbub, I weigh the lamb, strip the waxy pugs from the ewe's udder, snip the umbillical cord down to about 1 1/2 inches in length and dip it in strong iodine. The rhyme is strip-snip-dip-sip. (Sip means making sure the lambs nurse.)

Here are Mara's beautiful triplets shortly after birth:

Top the bottom, they are ram, ram, and ewe. I have since wethered (neutered) the two boys since I didn't have any orders for black ram lambs this year. I hope a handspinner will buy the middle one with the big white blaze as a fiber pet. He has nice wool and a lot of personality.

Note: the vet just came today to take blood so I can do DNA testing and find out who the sires of these lambs are for sure. I am 99% certain that the white lamb is sired by Martti and these black lambs are sired by Usko. We'll see if I win that bet!

If the white ewe lamb is out of Martti, then I will keep her for my own flock. I had not planned to keep any white lambs this year, as I already have too many white sheep. But... I only have 2 other daughters out of Martti and he is getting old and very arthritic so he will be leaving our farm soon. He seems to be in discomfort all of the time and as much as I will be sad to see him go, I will not keep an animal suffering that way. Sometimes this farm stuff can be really hard when you know what must be done.

The Early Bird... uh Lamb

2009-04-06T19:10:00Z

I am going to be posting photos of our sheep and lambs on a regular basis now, so don't forget to check back here. Or just subscribe to the blog so you don't miss a single day of lamby fun!

When last we spoke...

I knew that Mara and Eeva (pronounced Ava) were expecting "love lambs" (see: Love Lambs and Regular Lambs)

conceived early in the morning on October 31st. My ewes normally have their lambs from between 143 to 145 days gestation. This is typical of Finn ewes. So I had planned to bring the ewes into the barn and start watching for lambs around March 21st, which would be 142 days gestation. We were having beautiful warm weather and the ewes were enjoying being outside.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the pasture on March 17th and saw a white lamb just sitting just inside the pasture fence! She was completely silent until she saw me and then let out a little bleat. You would think that on a sheep farm, one would not be all that shocked to see a lamb, but in fact I was... very! It was only 138 days of gestation! There couldn't be a lamb born yet!! (Up till this point my earliest lamb was Eeva who was born at 141 days gestation. But Eeva was a very large single born conceived through AI and born to an adult ewe (Helmi). So I attributed Eeva's early birth to the fact that she got all the nutrients in the womb and was fully developed and ready to be born.)

The new lamb was totally cleaned off and perfect looking and just sitting out in the pasture all alone. Rio (our Great Pyrenees livestock guardian dog) had not even noticed her yet and was napping in an adjacent paddock with another group of sheep. I grabbed an old, but clean, towel out of the garage to wrap the lamb in and took her up to the barn.

The 6 pregnant ewes were all up at the barn and I could see by Eeva's messy rear end that it was her lamb. I quickly set up a jug (maternity pen for mom and lamb(s).) I dumped a tiny bit of grain in the trough and caught Eeva (who was pretty freaked out) and put her in the jug with her lamb. Once she was contained with her lamb, she worked to clean her off a bit more. I got out the hairdryer to help the mom dry her and to keep her from getting chilled (since she had been sitting outside). Eeva was really nervous but fortunately liked her baby. I held Eeva still, stripped the waxy plugs from her teats and helped the lamb get a drink of colostrum.

Around this time Upal got home from a business trip in Virginia. So he was just in time to throw on barn clothes and help! He helped me get a heat lamp set up and also run up to the house for supplies. I snipped the lamb's umbilical cord and dipped it in strong iodine. (This is antibacterial and helps it to dry up really fast.) Then I put a litle jacket on her and set her under the lamp.

Here is the lamb at just a few hours old. The yellow stuff on the lamb's mouth in the
photo on the right is "Baby Lamb Strength" which is a baby lamb vitamin in a vegetable
oil base. You put one squirt in the back of the lamb's mouth at birth, but sometimes they drool a bit.

I searched the pasture and the barn to make sure there were no more lambs to be found. (There weren't.) Finn ewes typically have only 1 or 2 babies if they are bred as ewe-lambs (to have babies when they are 1 year old). The baby seemed to be a really smart little lamb and caught onto things fast.