The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: 17AndCounting on August 04, 2013, 11:50:30 pm
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Grrr!
The shearer has been today, someone we know, keeps sheep himself. Incidentally he did a nice job, sheep and alpacas much happier now.
Anyway... earlier in the year we bought some 'shearlings' with lambs. It turns out they're almost certainly not shearlings! We didn't get a very close up look at them at the time (we bought them in lamb and didn't want to upset them catching them) and I know it's our fault for not checking them at the time... but I'm still very annoyed about it!
One of then is already losing it's teeth! The other is about 3. Grrr,
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Are you sure? Young sheep do lose their teeth so the full sized teeth can grow in. A photo of their mouths would help.
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Where are the missing teeth - if they are next to each other at the front then its probably a gimmer.
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I thought there was something wrong with my shearlings the first time I saw them dropping teeth - I KNEW how old they were because I'd bred them but just didn't register that to get adult teeth the baby teeth had to drop out :idea:
http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/livestock/sheep/sheeps-teeth/ (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/livestock/sheep/sheeps-teeth/)
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The man that sheared them is a very experienced sheep farmer so I'm guessing he knows sheeps teeth, but if I can catch one and take a photo I will post it up for comments.
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I agree with other replies, if they are the very front teeth, they do lose their baby ones. I was a bit horrified when I first saw it happen in my gimmers.