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Many owners of private farmsteads today consider sheep as a way to provide a family with meat, and possibly wool, if women show a desire for needlework. Sheep is almost never used as a source of milk in the European part of Our Country, although sheep’s milk is much better suited for making homemade cheeses than goat’s or cow’s.
Urban residents who have moved to the countryside have especially many questions about raising livestock, including sheep. Breeding sheep at home for beginners often seems to be something very difficult and unrealistic. Of course, in order to breed sheep, you need to know some of the features of their behavior, conditions of keeping and feeding. As well as the basics of veterinary medicine, to be able to determine that a sheep is not feeling well. But learning this is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance.
Basic rules for keeping sheep for beginners
The first and main rule: first they build a sheepfold, then they start sheep.
What you need to decide before buying sheep:
- How many heads will be bought. The size of the sheepfold and the supply of feed depend on this.
- Where will there be a place to store hay. One head needs at least 2 kg of hay per day.
- How will the outing be organized?
- What to have in a first aid kit.
- Where to store animal waste.
Without answers to these questions, it will be very difficult not to ruin the purchased animals.
Sheep shed
Sheep are social animals, they feel out of place outside the flock, so they need company. It is better to have at least a couple of sheep. More if space permits. When buying ewes for breeding, it must be taken into account that after lambing, the number of sheep will increase significantly. Many ewes produce more than one lamb, and the popular Romanov breed in Our Country usually produces 2 to 4 lambs per lamb. If the number of sheep is planned to be small, an ordinary animal shed will suffice for its maintenance. If the number of sheep in the flock is significant, it is better to build a special shepherd, which provides both a room for sheep and utility rooms.
This layout is not a dogma, but a guide to action.
A smaller area is extremely undesirable, the sheep will be cramped, and the animals will not be able to heat the larger area with their own heat. Normally, the temperature in the sheepfold in the presence of sheep in it should be 5 – 10 ° C. If the temperature drops lower in winter, the sheep need a warm room.
For lambing, it is necessary to equip a separate room where no one will disturb the ewe. The air temperature in the delivery room should not be below 10°C. The usual range is 10 – 18°C. On average, maintain 15°C. Therefore, during winter lambing, the maternity ward should be heated additionally. These factors are best taken into account at the stage of construction of the sheepfold.
Feed storage and sheep diet
Feeding standards for sheep include daily feeding of 2 kg of hay, 200-400 g of concentrates, 10-15 g of table salt, as well as fodder chalk and vitamin premixes. The main place will be occupied by hay, and the specifics of animal husbandry in Our Country is such that the main stocks of hay are made once a year for the entire season. In other words, hay will have to be purchased in the summer before the next haymaking.
The duration of grazing on grass varies by region of Our Country. Somewhere animals can be grazed for half a year, somewhere only 3 months. Based on these data, they calculate the stocks of hay. Hay is delivered in rolls from 250 kg or in bales. The average weight of a bale of quality hay is 10-15 kg, but much depends on the degree of hay pressing by the machine. The size of a standard hay bale is usually 1,2 x 0,6 x 0,4 m. Knowing the size of the hay bale and your ability to stack the bales into a pyramid, you can calculate the space required for hay.
The denser the hay is compressed, the less moisture will penetrate into the bales.
Walking for sheep
Competent sheep breeding cannot exist without the organization of walking for animals. If you buy young animals in the spring for growing for meat and slaughtering in the fall, then walking is optional, but if you want to breed animals on your own, you can’t do without walking. Sheep, as herbivores, need a lot of movement for the normal course of pregnancy. Some owners even deliberately walk the ewes for at least an hour a day to get the animals to walk rather than stand or lie in a paddock. Without such walks, the abdominal muscles weaken and the sheep may have problems with lambing. Therefore, the possibility of walking for ewes is mandatory. You can make a paddock for the ewes, you can just let them roam freely, if possible.
How to properly raise sheep on a farm
Vetpack
The veterinary kit should contain:
- chemical spray or aluminum spray for splashing external skin lesions;
- tar, kubatol or another drug that helps to cope with foot rot;
- syringes;
- big enema;
- antihistamines;
- tympanol;
- preferably a gastric tube;
- bandages;
- cotton wool;
- tourniquet
In sheep, swelling of the scar is quite common. You can remove gases from the stomach by injecting tympanol or using a gastric tube.
Sheep breeding methods and their characteristics
There are actually two breeding methods: natural and artificial insemination.
AI is advisable to use in large farms with a large number of ewes. Or if you want to get offspring from a particularly valuable producer.
For a private trader, the use of this method is impractical. When breeding sheep for meat at home, it is easier to either find a ram in the neighborhood or buy your own. So that the ram does not inseminate the ewes ahead of schedule, it is kept separately, running to the ewes at the scheduled time. After insemination, a ram can be safely kept with ewes almost until the very beginning of lambing.
Conditions for keeping sheep in winter
Winter care for sheep largely depends on the breed of animals. Sheep, adapted to the cold, winter well in uninsulated sheds on deep litter. Southern breeds need a warm sheepfold, sometimes with the use of heaters. Keeping sheep in winter under sheds is applicable only to the Buubei meat breed, the rest need an insulated or not insulated room.
Caring for pregnant ewes provides for the mandatory presence of a warm room in the winter. Such a room is necessary even for Romanov sheep. Moreover, ewes of this breed can lamb in winter.
Winter and summer diets of pregnant and single ewes
In summer, they try to keep sheep on green grass, adding only table salt and fodder chalk to the diet.
An abrupt change in diet leads to an upset of the gastrointestinal tract.
The winter diet of pregnant ewes in the first half of pregnancy does not differ from the diet of single ewes, although care must be taken to ensure that there are no ewes in the flock. The diet of the ewe in the second half of pregnancy in winter will be shown in the table.
But it is important not only to feed the sheep in winter, but also to water them. Many owners mistakenly believe that animals do not need to be watered in winter, they can eat snow. In fact, animals need water in winter no less than in summer. Snow cannot provide all the necessary minerals, as it is essentially distilled water. Distilled water, on the other hand, has an unpleasant feature of washing out the minerals and trace elements present in it from the body.
Brief description of preparation for mating and care of pregnant and lambing ewes
Signs of hunting in a ewe:
- the vulva turned red and swollen:
- mucus comes out of the loop, having a different consistency, depending on the period of estrus: at the beginning it is transparent, in the middle it is cloudy and at the end it resembles sour cream.
By the time of mating, the ewe should be fairly well-fed, but not fat. Both malnutrition and obesity have a very bad effect on the fertility of a sheep. Usually, they try to guess the mating of ewes with rams so that the lambing occurs at a time when green grass has already appeared. For this reason, usually the second half of pregnancy occurs in winter, and ewes at this time need enhanced nutrition. The diet of the ewe in different periods of pregnancy is different.
Lambing
Shortly before the expected lambing, the ewe is sheared the hair around the anus and genitals, on the tail, on the inside of the thighs and on the udder. This is done for better hygiene of the lambing ewe, and so that the born lamb does not suck on dirty wool.
Immediately before lambing, the ewes are transferred to a clean room with a floor lined with fresh straw or hay.
Signs of the beginning of lambing in a ewe:
- prolapse of the abdomen;
- colostrum in the udder;
- the appearance of a groove between the ischial tubercles and the tail;
- clear mucus from the loop;
- swelling of the vulva;
- nest building.
The ewe can lamb standing up or lying down. It is for this reason that there should be a thick bedding of hay on the floor so that a lamb that has fallen out of a standing ewe is not injured.
If several lambs are to be born, then the break between lambs can be from 10 to 45 minutes.
After the end of lambing, it is necessary to check the released placenta to make sure that it is intact and that there are no unnecessary pieces of the baby’s place left in the ewe.
After lambing, the ewe is given warm water to drink.
Caring for newborn lambs
The lambs are wiped with a straw bundle and slipped under the muzzle of the ewe so that she licks the cub. It is necessary to ensure that the lamb drinks colostrum as soon as possible. This will protect the lamb from possible diseases.
If more are born, the lambs will need to be fed. Extra lambs are either taken from under the ewes and fed with milk replacers, or left under the ewes, but in this case all the lambs are already fed.
Keeping sheep only for meat is not as profitable as it could be if milk is also added to the meat. But we must remember that a dairy ewe is “launched” in the same way as a cow a couple of months before lambing. Otherwise, the lamb may be born with underdeveloped internal organs. The term “start” means the gradual cessation of the milking of the ewe.
Conclusion
Knowing how to keep sheep, you can ensure that the family is provided not only with meat, but also with delicious cheeses, as well as warm sheep’s coats.