Tag Archives: Jacob rams

Ultrasounds and other veterinary observations

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The veterinarians from UC Davis VMTH were here on Monday. The VMTH sponsors the State Fair Nursery so they will come here to ultrasound ewes. I will be breeding 3 or 4  ewes at the same time as all the others are lambing. This fall, while I was breeding ewes to 6 different rams I also had a non-breeding group. Unfortunately, one of the rams got in with that group on the last day of my breeding season. I gave the 2 ewes he bred the sheep equivalent of the morning-after pill, so Monday was the day to see if it had worked.

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No! Shelby is pregnant with a single and Mary has triplets. I think this is the photo of triplets. (If you must know, I can’t always tell what I’m seeing in these.) By the way, a lamb at 42 days gestation is about the size of a gummy bear. That’s not something that you find in a veterinary text, but vet students have pointed out the relationship to their teachers.

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Here is one that I could see. There is a large (relatively) single lamb here in the middle just under that dark line. (It doesn’t show up in this photo as well as it did seeing it on the screen.)

While the vets were here I showed them a wool sample from the fleece of a ram lamb, Presley.

DSC_6733It isn’t all that obvious in this photo, but can you see that distinct change in color and texture at the bottom of the locks? It is not weak at that point, but the fleece definitely changes color. That is the cut end, so the change occurred a couple of months before shearing. I thought that maybe this related to selenium deficiency or some other mineral issue. We looked at the ram.

DSC_5119This is Presley, taken in mid-September. One observation of mine is that he won’t register as a lilac ram, but his fleece is the brown/gray of a lilac and definitely not black and white. (In this photo the dark wool just shows sun-bleaching, but when you look at the fleece sample you can see that is is not black.) However his facial markings look black. I think this is what some people are calling a chocolate lilac.DSC_7089 This is Presley now. Take a look at his horns.

DSC_7091I hadn’t noticed before, but all 4 horns have a ridge in the same place and the vets wondered if this related to the same conditions that caused the change in the fleece sample. When you look back at the first photo of Presley from September 17 you see that his horns are smooth. I posted a video of Presley taken September 24 that shows what I think is one of the many possible symptoms of bluetongue. The last two photos were taken 3 months after that. Did the illness result in the change in horn growth and the fleece observations? It is not any matter of earth-shaking importance, but I find it an interesting idea. My simple question about the fleece has led to a lot of other inquiries.

We looked at the rest of the rams while the vets were here.

DSC_7098 This is Larry, who was breeding a friend’s flock and just came home. The friend told me that she thought Larry had blue tongue also. Note the ridges on his horns.

The reason that I asked the vets about Presley’s fleece is that I had remembered seeing another fleece with the same discoloration. I had taken a photo of it at the time.

DSC_6663 Ginseng is also a lilac lamb and her fleece shows the color change at the same place as does Presley’s.

I have no answers yet (except that Mary and Shelby won’t be going to the fair), but I’m going to examine the rest of the fleeces as I sort through them and I think I’ll pay more attention to horn growth after this. I’ll report back if the vets give me any answers.

A Riot of Rams

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You’ve heard of a Flock of Sheep, a Herd of Horses, a Gaggle of Geese. How about a Riot of Rams as a subset of the Flock?

Larry came home yesterday. He is a ram born last February (still called a lamb up to his first birthday) and was with a nearby flock of ewes. Whenever rams that have reached sexual maturity (and that could be 5 to 6 months) are to be reunited there are apt to be fights until they have figured out the pecking order. The shepherd’s job is to prevent injury, death, and property damage. Most of the time that means putting all the rams together in a pen that is small enough that they can’t back up and put their whole body force into the inevitable ramming that occurs.

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This is Larry. He is a nice looking ram lamb. Since I was going to be moving all the rams I took the opportunity to trim all their feet.

12085This is one of the ram lambs born at the State Fair in July.

12085 wool He has nice wool, doesn’t he?

DSC_7009Here is Sullivan, a yearling ram. He was shorn along with the rest of the flock last month. Larry missed shearing so I’ll have to shear him by hand, and I didn’t shear those lambs that are going to be sold. Do you notice a swelling just under and behind the two spots on his shoulders?

DSC_7012 Here is what it is like close-up. I noticed it a few days ago and I think it is a hematoma, probably a result of rams tussling.

How do I put the rams in close quarters? I don’t want them near the ewes because that would be asking for trouble. I particularly don’t want any of these rams trying to get over or through the fence to get in with the ewes. So I use one of the stalls, but a 12′ x 12′ stall is way too big. I use panels to make a pen in the corner of a stall.

DSC_7024There is a feeder just out of this photo at the bottom of this photo. The two shorn rams at the feeder are the February lambs. The two rams with wool at the feeder and the one in the top corner are the July lambs. Sullivan is the 2-horn ram in the center and Larry is the 4-horn ram next to Sullivan. Small enough pen?

DSC_7035Evidently not. I tried to take video so I could share the real impact (pun intended) of this, but it was too dark in here. In this photo Larry goes for Sullivan.

DSC_7036Now it’s Sullivan’s turn. You can’t tell in these photos but there is real power behind these hits.

DSC_7039Larry’s turn again.

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DSC_7044Another view. They are still fighting.

 

DSC_7048I collapsed the pen a bit more and they gave it up. Or maybe it took the fun out of the fight when they couldn’t back up to bash each other.

This morning all the rams were behaving so I gave them more space. Tomorrow they will go out to the ram pen and live happily ever after…

You Can’t Always Count on Genetics

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This is Ebony, a black and white Jacob ewe.

This is Hudson, a lilac Jacob ram.

Here is one of their lambs at almost 2 months old. He is lilac like Dad.

This is the other lamb at about a month old…

… and here he is at just over 2 months. He has been marked with a cull tag because of a severe split eyelid, but also, do you see how his horns are growing?

Both lambs today, at 3 1/2 months old:

I love the horns, the color, and the fleece on this lilac ram, but (as in the discussion over on Facebook) I sure wish that I could combine these lambs into one and keep just the parts I like. Look at those pretty blue eyes on the black and white ram…

…and he has nicely marked feet also.

Speaking of rams, here are a few more photos:

The photo above is of Meridian Clapton at about 6 months…

and here he is as a yearling.  Look at the photo below for horn detail on his right side.

The first thing that is unusual is how his horns go behind his neck instead of under, but there is also a fifth horn there.

Meet Puddleduck Sullivan, a 2-horn yearling ram. But is he really a 2-horned ram? I see a seam in those horns that could mean that he is a fused 4-horn. And he also has another horn on this side. People talk about 6-horn Jacob sheep, but I haven’t seen any in which the 5th and 6th horns weren’t scurs or some how compromised by the larger horns. After all, where would you put another full set of horns?

This is Meridian Fogerty, a another 2-horn yearling ram. I had so many rams last year that I didn’t use him, but he will be in this fall’s ram line-up. His horns are closer to his face than I’d like, but still OK.

One more ram. Sweetgrass Clint is Clapton’s sire and here he is (above) at 6 months old.

This is Clint last fall as an adult.

Bottom line–you don’t necessarily get the perfect lamb by breeding two “perfect” parents and you can’t predict how the lamb will look as an adult when you buy it at 4 months old.

For more photos of how rams’ horns change see my website photo gallery . By the way, Ebony, who is at the beginning of this post, stars in her own video over on YouTube. Click here  and find her video to see her having those ram lambs.

Some favorite sheep

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I took a whole batch of photos yesterday morning before I went to two days of Nikon photography classes in Sacramento. I intended to write a blog post about ewes and their lambs and I took photos of family groups. After the class I’m looking at these photos and thinking…delete…delete…delete. I couldn’t bring myself to delete all of them, but I did delete most. And I’m tempted to go back through the last year i-photo and do a big cleansing.

 

So here are a few photos that I kept and some of them aren’t all that great but I like the sheep.

Summer and her triplets

Hot Lips and twins

Dazzle and twins

Lola and daughter

Faulkner

Ebony

Fogerty

 

 

Running with the Big Boys

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It was getting dark tonight when I took these photos with my i-phone so the quality isn’t great, but they are kind of amusing. Look at where this lamb ended up today.

I don’t think he was too happy about it.

But of course he wouldn’t let me catch him anymore than the big rams will let me catch them. They needed to be chased into a pen.

"Maybe it's not so bad being with these guys, especially with Dad here on my right."

"But Mom is still my favorite."

A plethora of rams

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It’s almost time to put the rams in with the ewes. I’ve been looking at my sheep list to match up ewes and rams. It makes the most sense for me to use only 2 or 3 rams. Keep the biggest group in the pasture and smaller groups where they will need to be fed hay. But I have an exciting stable of new rams to try. So I think that I’ll have more groups than is really smart.Faulkner is going to be used on some older ewes . This is an experiment to see how crossbred lambs will do for the meat market. My guess is that they will be ready for market sooner and at a higher weight. There may be some interesting pelts as well. Faulkner is a character. Dan says that he reminds him of the Grateful Dead. “truckin’, just keep truckin’ on”.”Hey, man, good grass.”

Mud Ranch’s Hudson is a lilac ram with spectacular horns. He will be bred to all my lilac ewes or those with lilac parents. It’s been several years since I’ve had lilac lambs and Hudson will give me plenty. (Most Jacobs are black and white. Lilac refers to a color other than black–usually a brownish-gray.)

This is the yearling, Sweetgrass Clint, ready for some ewes. He came from Michigan last year.

Clint’s son, Clapton, out of Meridian Jazz. He will be 6 months old the first week of October. I hope he’ll be ready to work soon. His horns and fleece look great. I would have shown him at State Fair but somehow he knocked out 3 teeth just prior to the show. You can’t take a sheep with a bloody mouth to the fair. Clapton is an “E” generation lamb and I’d like to breed my unrelated E ewes to him.

Here is one of the new ram lambs, #337 is from Ingrid Painter’s Puddleduck flock in Oregon. He needs a name.

 

Ruby Peak Linden is also from Oregon. These two rams lambs will be 6 months old in mid-October. I’m going to give them both some ewes and see what happens.

If I haven’t forgotten anyone that is already 6 rams, which is more than enough. So these ram lambs may have to wait until next year unless someone buys them this season. This is Meridian Siskiyou, sired by one of my favorite rams, Tioga.

 

This two horn ram has a great horn spread and I’ll probably keep him around to see how he turns out.

I like the horn spread on this ram also. I like his color, also, even though he is on the dark side and should not be used with ewes who are also very dark. His wool looks quilted in this photo but is is not when you see him in real life.

 

 

 

 

Ram horn growth

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I have been talking to people who want to buy sheep. I explain that it’s hard to predict at this age (2 months) how ram lambs will turn out when they are six months or a year old. I finally got around to finding photos of some of my rams as younger ages. I have posted several of these in the photo gallery on my website to illustrate how the horns can change as the rams mature.  Here are a few of the photos, but look for the rest on the website.

Look at that nice spread.

These horns are still OK although as they have grown they have moved closer to his jaw.

Diego’s horns looked OK at 4 months.

At 6 months I had my doubts about his longevity.

Here I can barely get my finger between his right horn and his jaw. Diego became the entree for a crowd the other night and he will also provide a great pelt.