Sheeps

Today was a good day.  It started with our first lecture in Veterinary Public Health. I can honestly say that this part of the field does not do much for me, as crucial as it is, but the lecturer was really good.  He was an Italian with a strong accent.  I got such a kick out of how he basically added a vowel to the end of each word.  Second lecture was a kicker - embryology again with a focus on cranial nerves.  I'm enjoying this part of the course; it's challenging and interesting.  It's so amazing to learn which type of cells each of our body parts are formed.

This afternoon, we got to play with sheep for our 3 hour practical out at Easter Bush farm.  How much fun was that??  The vet school's 'shepherd', was a fantastic teacher.   Sheep are flock animals, so once you get one going in a direction, they allllll follow.  They do not like to be isoloated at all.  We were taught how to catch them - get them bunched into a group in the corner of the pen preferably, pick out the one you want and get right up next to him.  He should be in a position where he doesn't have any room to run either with fencing or other sheep surrounding him.  Then, get your hand under his chin and lift up. Voila...you have control of a sheep.  You use your whole body to get him against the corral so he can't easily escape.  We were shown how to age a sheep up to about 2years, 9 months by looking at his teeth, how to sex him/her, how to condition score him (feeling lower back, and vertebral protubrances) to determine how his overall body condition is on a scale of 0-5.  Zero is basically dead and 5 is a fatty, fat, fat. We learned how to 'flip' them.  That's not really the correct term, but it's well known.  It means to put them on their butt and have their back leaning up against your body.  They really cannot move once you get them there and it's easy to look at their mouth, sex them and generally check out their underside.  We also learned how to judge their weight....this is harder than it sounds. Different breeds not only have different fleece (making them look bigger or smaller), but also are shorter, stockier, leggier, etc, making it all more difficult.  Plus, we have to do it in kilograms, which my mind does not easily think in yet. We also practiced 'worming' them orally with water.  It was a very productive practical and I feel like just a few hours with these animals, I gained so much confidence in handling them.  They can get quite skiddish if you don't do some techniques properly and can jump straight in the air out of nowhere. Lots of fun and informative. 

I'm now enjoying the most favorite part of my day...spending quality time with my boys and having a cocktail.  They must have been awake most of the day looking for me out the window because they are both now passed out on my desk while I type.  Really good thing I bought a desk with a large surface area.  They have no clue they are dogs sometimes. 

Time for a little bite to eat then a bit of studying.  I just cannot believe tomorrow is already Friday again!  The weeks are just flying by.

Over-N-Out

Baaaaaahh Baaaaaahh

I told y'all that I would write about the sheep portion of my Langhill/Easter Bush visit last week, so here it is.  The sheep farm is much, much smaller with only one shed/barn.  There is quite a bit of acreage, but we spent our time in the sheep shed at Easter Bush (5 minute drive from Langhill).  We have approximately 350 Scottish Mule ewes (females) and 20 Suffolk ewes.  The Scottish Mules are a crossbreed and look like this:

They are a cross between a Scottish Blackface Ewe and a Bluefaced Leicester Tup.  The Blackface looks like this: 

These are native to the hills of Scotland.  Extremely hardy and good mothers.  Medium sized with mixed wool.  We do not keep these as purebreds to breed directly from, as they live best in the hills. Therefore, we buy approximately 90 ewes a year from a certified and inspected farmer. They are kept and fed for a year on our farm.  They then are called 'Gimmers' and are bred.

A Bluefaced Leicester Tup (male, or ram) are these:

They are a very prolific breed, often exceeding 250% lambing. They are larger than the Blackface.

The Suffolk is the breed other than the Scottish Mule that we keep on the farm. This is one of ours here:

Suffolks are common where we are, very big, meaty and fast growing. But, they are high maintenance animals and that is one reason we do not breed them for purebreds.  Too dang persnickety.

The only purpose of our lambs is for lamb chops, basically.  They get bred at the end of October and after 147 days gestation period, give birth end of March, beginning of April  They put out 3 Tups (male studs) per 100 ewes in our fields to breed.  One way you can tell if your ewe has been bred is by using paint or crayons.  You mark the Tup's belly and it will rub off on the ewe if he has mounted her.  Sheep cycle every 17 days. If she doesn't take, try, try again. We buy one fresh Tup from elsewhere a year in order to bring some diversity to the flock.

In January, we bring in a technician to scan the sheep for pregnancy.  They should be able to tell us if they are pregnant with a single, twins, or triplets.  This is important to know, as a sheep only has enough teats for 2 babies.  If she is going to have 3, a foster mama will need to be available.  Ewes will kill babies that are not theirs, so you need to trick them into thinking they are.  Normally, rubbing the afterbirth of one of her own all over the foster baby will do the job. 

We sell our lambs for butcher at around 12 weeks if they are nice and fat and have a good body condition score.  They are not even put through the stress of getting weaned.  They should sell around 100 quid at that time.  Later in the season, the average is about 75 quid.  They need to be 40-45kg in order to go to butcher. 

We are required to do at least 2 weeks of lambing during our program.  Many students do more because it is usually a paid placement.  This is why the veterinary school gets 4 weeks of at Easter (one more week than the rest of the university)....we are all off lambing somewhere. 

So, now you know as much as I do about our sheep. In just over a week, I get to go do some sheep husbandry and learn how to actually handle them.  I am looking forward to that.

Here is a picture of some more of our flock.  You can see several different types, including all whit faces.  They apparently do some 'test crosses', so I am not sure what they are.

Time to finish up some work for tomorrow, which is a pretty long day.

Over-N-Out