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| I definitely feel for you! I've had sheep for twenty years and have had a couple of years like that. This year is definitely one them. Between the extreme cold temps causing colder than normal sheds and some quick pneumonia that was running through the lambs it was a bad year here as well. When it's all said and done my lamb drop percentage will be better than herd of stock cows but I doubt by much. One old farmer once told me if you’re going to have livestock...you’re going to have losses. The best you can hope for is to minimize the train wrecks!
1-Genetics play a huge part in sheep mortality. My white and brockle faced commercial lambs had significantly less issues and mortality over this lambing season. I have seen this trend over and over since I added the commercial sheep to the operation. The white faced genetics are just hardier. However with that said I'll still always have some suffolks around. I showed sheep for too many years to not have a few black faced ewes around, but after this year the number will get smaller. Cheaper corn makes the negative Suffolk traits all the less desirable to have around. Also in my experience the more show ring influence in the sheep...the more the train wrecks increase. Again I'm not saying that "show" sheep are bad, but am saying you should not try and compare the performance to a flock of commercial white face sheep to them either. EVERYTHING has a place.
2-If you have an off farm job like I have...Get an internet camera(s) for the lambing barn. With the right router in your house you can watch the lambing barn from your remote office even. I have a cheap pan/tilt 720p IP camera in my lambing barn that cost $75 bucks off amazon. It cost me $120 for the wireless bridge to get high speed internet from my house to the barn. It's the best $200 you can spend.
Keep at it and try again next near. This year is just a learning tool to make a few tweaks for next year. I’m sure the commercial ewes will be a big help and confidence booster. Farmers are perpetual optimist and it's great that your teaching it to your kids yearly in life:-)
Edited by Seth_ia 2/26/2014 09:58
Attachments
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 Replacements waiting to lamb.pdf (136KB - 81 downloads)
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Lambing season - Full of heartache for children
