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I decided I wanted to test two of our rams for the scrapie resistance gene. Rams that are “RR” at codon 171 are valuable in that all of their offspring with either be “RR” or “QR,” both of which are considered resistant to scrapie. Hershey is our older ram, I am interested in his status. I did not castrate #900, who was born in January, thinking I may want to keep and breed him. He was sired by Jessica’s ram, #650, so is unrelated to all the sheep I have (except his mother, of course). And, #650 is “RR” and also is a very nice ram, so capturing his genetics may be desirable. So, I’m testing those two rams before deciding on my breeding plans for this fall.

The other two ram lambs born this year I castrated- they were born late enough that they’ll probably still be around when the ewes start going back into heat around August/September. I don’t want any accidental breedings, or the necessity of having to separate them; so they’ll be dedicated as butcher lambs. I figure that if I decide not to keep #900 for breeding, I’ll either sell or butcher him before that time frame, so it was safe to keep him intact. He is a lunker, a chubby boy, his mama is feeding him well!

I shopped around a bit on the web for DNA testing companies. I found three, but sadly, one appears to have gone out of business in the last week, I assume as a result of the tough economy. Of the remaining two, Biogenetic Services, offers customers the option of using blood “cards” instead of collecting blood in a vial/tube. I didn’t want to have to call a vet out, or haul the sheep to a vet just to collect a tiny bit of blood. I figured I could probably figure out how to draw blood on my own, but would still have to get a hold of the “purple top tubes” necessary to send blood in vial form. And then you have to pay for faster shipping, to keep the blood fresh.

By comparison, collecting a few drops of blood to put on a paper card is much easier to collect, and mail. Biogenetic Services sells the cards in batches of 15, for a dollar each, plus a few bucks S&H. I purchased a small box of lancets intended for diabetic use, so that I could be sure that each blood sample was clean. The instructions say you can also use the same piercing instrument and clean it with alcohol between animals, but there is risk of contamination. We are talking about such small quantities of blood here, that if you just get the tiniest bit of somebody else’s blood mixed in, it will invalidate the sample.

I spoke with the veterinarian on staff at Biogenetics, and he warned that even animals housed together in close quarters (like a feedlot) can often have each other’s blood on them. He recommended collecting from the ear, which I did. I found that piercing the tip of the ear produced the best blood drop, which I carefully squeezed from lower on the ear, to keep my hands away from the sample. I tried to make sure that I handled the card from the edges, and that the only thing that touched the target area of the card was the blood drop.

Then all that was left to do was label the cards, and send them off in the mail in a regular envelope! I’m anxious to learn the results!

Our last lambs were born today- two more ewe lambs, yeah! These belong to #801, who was a small yearling who did not look very big-in-the-belly, so she surprised us with twins! It’s a relief to have all the lambing over with, I plan to move all the sheep back down to the pasture on Saturday. The grass is growing, so the timing is good.

Our lamb crop statistics this year, for what they’re worth with a small lot of sheep:

• 200% lamb crop (6 ewes, 12 lambs born)
• 17% mortality (2 lambs died)
• 7 ewes, 3 rams 
• All but one ewe lambed during the day-very nice!

I’m not keen about tail docking on any animal, since it is a true amputation, and I have concerns about what it does to the animal’s physiology and whether they suffer from phantom limb syndrome. In sheep, short tail docking is definitely linked to greater incidence of rectal prolapse.

A couple of my Katahdins came with docked tails, and I don’t like them- it looks less clean to me, as “tail action” helps remove manure from their back ends. The ones that do have tails use them a lot, they are very expressive. I prefer the look of the natural tails, and am happy that I don’t have to dock any of my Katahdin lambs.

But, the single Jacob ewe was a different consideration. Lore has it that if you leave tails on wooled sheep, there is great danger of manure collection at the back end, which attracts fly eggs, then maggots, which will eventually eat flesh. So, when considering that, tail docking doesn’t seem so awful.

So, I docked this girl’s tail, using the banding method. I left the dock fairly long, maybe five joints, so hopefully she doesn’t have prolapse danger. I’m disappointed with the look though, as this thing atrophies and gets ready to fall off, I can see she’s not going to be nearly as cute as her long tail was! But it won’t show once she’s an adult and all wooley (like her filthy mama is in the background!).

Here are photos of the twin lambs born last Thursday night. The first one was a ewe lamb, she’s kind of a dilute colored brown.

The second lamb was a ram, he’s the came-out-backwards guy. He seemed a bit weak that night, but by morning was up and about and nursing fine. He is also dilute brown, and has white socks on  his rear legs.

#33 had triplets today, all ewes- nice! They were on the ground when I got home from work. All look strong and healthy, and are nursing. I’m going to let her try to raise them all, her bag is so big, and she’s in pretty good condition, I think she can do it.

#33 was worrying me a bit in the last day or so, as she looked like she might prolapse. But, she didn’t, thankfully. Her lambs are white, brown and a spotted one, one six and the other two seven pounders.

A few hours later, #107 had twins, a ewe and a ram, both nine pounders. I don’t have photos of those yet, it was after dark. The first one I pulled, holy cow, the ewe seemed to have trouble pushing that one. The lamb’s tongue was sticking out in the fashion of a badly formed or dead animal during the labor process, so I was relieved to see she was normal once out! The second one was a breeched presentation, but he came out easily enough. He seemed to have more trouble breathing and coming around,  I wonder if his bag and umbilical cord broke early, and he was without oxygen for a bit?

On Monday, #802 had one mondo-sized singleton ram lamb,  10.5 pounds, a brown one. He was so fully formed, he was literally galloping about minutes after being born, with the mother desperately trying to keep up with him!

And lastly, here is #33’s waistline, postpartum. I bet she is glad to have those things outta there!