Category: Sheep

I am seriously considering purchasing some software to manage my sheep flock’s breeding program. Though I only have six ewes, I’m thinking of buying more, and possibly unregistered ones that I would use in a grade-up program with the purebred ram.

And, I’ve realized that these Katahdin pedigrees are very hard to read– all numbers. They charge $100 extra if you want to assign a name to a “special” animal; which obviously discourages naming.

I have a pet peeve with any animal registry that doesn’t encourage easy-to-read, unique naming conventions. Though AKC dogs, race horses and the like can often have silly, superfluous names, it does allow for easy pedigree reading. You can always remember something like “that animal is out of Howdy Rowdy and Mrs. Slick.” MUCH easier to read and recall than “by 15064 out of 33870.” I can’t stand the Border Collie world’s convention of single-syllable dog names either, my head swims with trying to differentiate Jane Doe’s “Moss” from Billy Jones’ “Moss”. There can be a dozen different dogs all named Moss in the same pedigree! 🙁

So, back to my software choices, I’ve been searching the web for what options are out there. I respect software developers who know how to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to market their product, and am highly suspicious of software developed by anybody who cannot get their product on the first page of a google search. I’ve decided, too, that I don’t want to spend more than about $100 for the software, and preferably a lot less. I do like the idea of Palm Pilot extensions, because I’m already taking notes on my Palm phone when out in the field. So, here is what I found that is under consideration.

High relevancy in google searches:

FlockFiler is $50. I find their website to be a little cluttered and weird. I did read some good reviews on it on a discussion list. Free demo. The beta test “pro” version has some promising features for interesting genetic relations analysis; but it costs $296. More than I want to spend.

Sheep Breeders Notebook has two editions, “basic” for $39, “business edition” for $97. No support for Windows Vista, though that’s ok with me for now, I’m still running XP. Free demo. Nice website. I think I’m going to need the business edition, however, for full pedigree support.

ZooEasy is $79; they have a very professional-looking website. Free demo too.

Breeder’s Assistant: website made me lose interest before even finding the price. Looks like combined cattle/sheep/goat software-I’m not sure I like that. Maybe I’ll give them a second look.

Low relevancy (page 2 or me finding them through someone else mentioning them):

Lion Edge Technologies offers a Palm Pilot extension. It promises good pedigree analysis; as I know I’m going to be challenged to prevent inbreeding over time. $200 for the package.

TGM Software Solutions “Select Sheepware” also offers a Palm companion. Their prices are based on number of ewes, with <100 ewes being $100. No price listed for sheep PDA software.

Ewebite seems way too costly ($400) and their website seems Canada-centric. I’d go crazy if the units were all in the metric system!

Sheep Master Gold has a not-very-good website, and they keep highlighting the word milk, which leads me to believe they are a dairy sheep-centric business. $95. MDI Sheep Management Software is $239, too much.

Ewefarm has an attractive website, but I could not find pricing info on there and their product page just says “coming soon.” Elsewhere, it mentions that they only have a Canadian version right now.

Ovitec has a really cool website, and their marketers did a great job on their logos and product naming conventions (just not on their SEO). Additionally, they have a Freeware version of it that you can start with and use indefinitely, though it looks severely de-featured. But the cheapest upgraded version is $479, good for 1,000 ewes–probably too sophisticated for me! It sounds like this product was developed with Spanish as the primary language and later translated into English; one review I read said that they’ve missed quite a few translations here and there.

My next step is checking out the free demos: I have the top three downloaded, and have tinkered with two so far. I’ll report back soon.

So far, I have one book on sheep husbandry, “Raising Sheep the Modern Way” by Paula Simmons. The women who sold me sheep to me agreed it was a good book. It advises “flushing” ewes before breeding, which is a method of giving them ever-increasing amounts of grain the 17 days prior to when you expose them to the ram. Research has shown this makes them more likely to drop two eggs and give multiple births.

But, when I’ve asked around, I’ve learned a lot of people don’t bother with this and still get multiple births. And one lady I met who does do flushing often gets singleton lambs. So, I’ve waffled on whether or not to do it.

The nice lady at the feed store co-op had me talked out of it, as she’s one of the ones who has luck without it. But, then I started thinking it would be nice to grain-train the ewes, for moments when I don’t want to use a dog to get the sheep to follow me. And, poor Hershey the ram is stuck in his pen, eating hay, for another week and a half. So, I bought some grain.

It turns out Hershey is already grain-trained and will follow me anywhere for it and eat out of my hand. The ewes know what a shaking bucket sound means, but they won’t come. They wait until I’ve left the bucket and am long gone. So, though I think I’d like to flush them, I have no way to control how much each one of them gets.

So, I’ve settled for leaving a little bit of grain out in six small buckets by the ram pen. And, feeding Hershey out of my hand so that he stays acting like a good boy.

Today the sheep got dropped off. They all look very nice, except one who has hoof rot bad enough that she’s walking on her knees a lot. But, the seller did disclose that in advance, I decided to take her, since I’m pretty good at healing hoof problems and she was lower priced. It helps to have the dogs, who can hold the sheep I want to catch and treat. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to treat and handle sheep without dogs, I guess you just have to grain-train them and still do a lot of wrestling.

Here is the ram, he is six-year-old “Hershey.”

 

Here are the six ewes:

 

They are settled in well and enjoying the nice pasture. Heshey is locked up for 17 days in a mini-pen inside the pasture, the “magic number” of days to kick all of the girls back into heat. Three might already be bred, so I need to ensure that enough time passes before he covers them to be sure I know which sire goes with which lambs. The pre-bred ewes should lamb by Feb 19th, and the ones bred later won’t lamb until after March 1st.

I have yet to decide if I’m going to “flush” the ewes–grain them up until the ram is let out. Supposedly, that helps ensure twinning; but the sellers assure me these girls twin and triplet regularly just on grass. I’ll figure it out tomorrow!

I let Maggie work them just a tiny bit, just push them gently around. They were very calm, much less reactionary than I expected for non-dog-broke shep. Here she is, “meeting” the ram and doing her best to be brave and show him who’s boss! She was a little chicken, though, I’ll confess!

We went to see the Wensleydales yesterday. They are lovely sheep, the wool is luxurious for certain! The animals had sound temperaments, they looked healthy, and the one I was able to catch had good feet and teeth. They weren’t quite as big as I expected based on photos I’d seen, but when I caught one, it was still a substantial and tall sheep. They were mildly flighty, but not freaky; they’d be easy to work with.

I pressed a little for more details on how much, precisely, the owner makes on an average year from this flock; but she seemed reluctant to talk specifics, as many people are when it comes to disclosing income. But, in a roundabout way, she cited expenses, how much she gets for wool, how much others have been getting for lambs, etc. So, I think (I hope?) I have a pretty good picture. I think that this may be a good wave to catch–while this breed is early in development here, it’s in high and growing demand. That may change in another decade, but there is a certain fad phenomenon with new breeds, I think, that can be most profitable at the beginning.

The biggest snag is this: I was hoping the owners would be willing to part with one or both of their livestock guardian dogs. I was figuring that since they are liquidating their livestock, they might not mind throwing a dog into the package too. But, when I inquired, she indicated they are very attached to the dogs, and had already decided not to sell them.

This is a conundrum for me: if I’m going to buy really expensive sheep, I want the best insurance policy against coyotes I can get. I had originally planned on trying out a llama or donkey, and I’d still do that if I were buying $100 sheep, because I prefer those to dealing with a big dog. But I think it’s too much to risk with expensive animals. And, it doesn’t appear that you can just pick up an adult, trained, fully-functioning LGD just anywhere. I think you pretty much have to buy your own pup and raise it up (and thoughtfully too, so it doesn’t learn bad habits).

So, I think I may have to tell the seller that one dog is a required part of the deal for me. I don’t mean to drive a hard bargain, but it’s a lot of money for me to lay down knowing that coyotes or loose dogs could destroy a large part of the investment in a one-hour spree.

I have such a hard time making big decisions, I’ve been waffling back and forth on this, dreaming about it, boring other people with the details about it! 🙂 But, I think my mind is made up that I want to at least make an offer on them, so the only thing left to decide is how much.

As a side note, the town where the sheep owner lives is a very tiny, old Northwest town. We had a greasy, but tasty lunch in a hole-in-the-wall diner there where the waitress sat down with us at our table to take our order. I was highly amused to observe and overhear some locals talking loudly and with strong opinion about the presidential election. It made me smile– a real piece of Americana– very ordinary people talking about their main concerns over the candidates. They weren’t discussing foreign policy, health care reform, the national deficit or the war– they were mostly concerned with Obama’s former pastor, Palin’s five kids and past beauty pageant win, and to which church denomination each candidate belonged. I love it.