The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Tamsjute on July 28, 2015, 06:34:16 pm
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Please tell me what kit you have found essential for sheep keeping (on a very small scale maybe 3 sheep to start with).
Also any extras that may be handy at times.
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So far:
- Tim Tyne's book on sheep keeping (absolutely essential :thumbsup:)
- Half a dozen sheep hurdles
- Blue 'cyclo' spray
- Foot shears
- Drenching Gun
- Dagging shears
- Rattly yellow bucket
- sheep nuts to put in rattly bucket
- Flock management plan (from vet)
- phone number of vet (for when something happens that's not mentioned in the flock management plan)
- selection of syringes and hypodermic needles
- Surgical gloves
- Swarfega
- Large bottle of whisky
- Little bottle of valium
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Rattly BLUE bucket ;D
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Nope definately Yellow :)
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White bucket. Halter and foot rot/wound spray.
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Blue and white buckets cost money. Yellow ones grow in ditches around here and can be harvested freely by passing Wombles ;D.
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all the above PLUS:
- phone numbers of all neighbours so you can immediately apologise for herding your sheep from their land
- shepherd's crook or long stick for prodding the little blighters darlings
- 4 pairs of hands
....and most important of all.....digestive biscuits, as that's all they will eat (other than your neighbour's grass)
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Patience , fast legs and a strong back;0)
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and baler twine. Lots of baler twine ::)
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Real sheep keepers have a sense of humour, don't worry you will learn to develop one very quickly :D :D
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and baler twine. Lots of baler twine ::)
One of my first questions to my mentor, when we were mending some fences with his baler twine, was "I guess I should buy some baler twine?" He looked at me funny and said "no, one does not buy baler twine, there will be plenty of it around soon enough!"
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Blue and white buckets cost money. Yellow ones grow in ditches around here and can be harvested freely by passing Wombles ;D.
I have a selection of hot pink buckets because Travis Perkins was selling them for £1 for breast cancer charity. And they are easy to spot in the pasture ;D
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green or blue or red or yellow or black - anything works here - in fact my late very-tame shetland Elfie once cornered the parceforce delivery guy until she'd inspected the brown cardboard box and decided it wasn't edible.
womble's list is good but if it's just a few and your starting you can manage with less - at least I did:
you can improvise hurdles - eg pallets/ boards - though proper ones are good,
I used (good) scissors for dagging and hoof trimming for a couple of years (depending on what sheep you get dagging may not be an issue anyway - I never had to dag the shetlands)
you can drench with a syringe (if your getting a few doses from your vet they'll often put it in a big syringe for you anyway).
pre-lambing I managed without surgical gloves too - but I don't know if that's advisable or not.
also it does depend on if you're breeding or just keeping as pets/lawnmowers - if breeding then you'll be well advised to get a few lambing essentials too.
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Real sheep keepers have a sense of humour, don't worry you will learn to develop one very quickly :D :D
Its that or crying but have you seen the price of Kleenex these days?
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Good points Mab - perhaps my essentials aren't as essential as I thought. I notice nobody's argued with the whisky or valium yet though? :innocent:
I'll grudgingly admit that bucket colour doesn't matter, you can definitely improvise sheep hurdles (or might not need them for three very tame sheep), and can use scissors instead of dagging shears.
I did try drenching with a standard syringe to begin with, but I couldn't get it right over the back of the sheep's tongues, and one then bit down on it and cracked it, so that was the end of that!
I then swapped it for a re-usable drenching syringe:
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRKDAohay_KYLiuUXOyZloNK_dt1faXi-7T_MSgT1s7N4BY5gsz)
It's not as good as a proper gun as you have to keep re-filling it, and it's harder to be accurate. However, it's fine if you only have a few sheep
I should say, the surgical gloves aren't for biological protection - they're for keeping the blue spray off your hands. The Swarfega is for when the surgical gloves tear and you cover your hands in blue spray anyway ;D .
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Definitely re-usable drenching syringe - you can use for all sorts from wormer to flukicide, to bloat remedy etc etc. With an added needle set-up also good for injecting Calciject... but I digress, you may not want to breed.
Orange buckets here for rattling food.
some sturdy water buckets (larger than average size, the ones you get in building merchants are better) for water troughs in field, unless you have already a setup in-situ.
A halter rope, so you can securely tie a sheep up when needing to dag/clip on your own.
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The worming gun and vaccination guns I got are by far the best things ever in terms of benefit to sheep vs cost, that was with 22 to do though...
Oh and baler twine is a rare commodity if hay turns up in round bales, the net just isn't as useful...
Mine are bribed with oatcakes... But this is reasonable in Scotland :-D
I don't drink but occasionally my sheep have left me questioning that decision...
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I must admit the injecting gun I got this year is so much easier than injecting with syringes, and now I have 21 sheep I was thinking of getting a drench gun when I next drench, but I tend to start things with basic equipment and upgrade as I go along - makes for a less intimidating startup bill.
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Hurdles... plenty.. no matter how many you have you will always need one or two more :innocent: . They can be used for pens, raceways, cornering the little so and so's. Mending the hole in the fence that wasn't there yesterday and the one that will appear tomorrow.
We have many colours of buckets here... yellow does appear to bring them running quicker.
Big pockets to put the digestives/nuts/apples etc.
The ability to catch in mid-air jumping sheep.
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You all forgot the essential: a Wynn. He's one of the sheep farmers that's a weekend regular down t'pub... a couple of years ago I put my hands in my pocket for a round and asked if they knew a shearer. They asked how many hundred i had. Once they'd stopped laughing about my 6 sheep Wynn offered to pop round and do them and wouldn't take money.. and brought his lad to help catch them (I herd them between gates on the bridge over the stream). He's let me pick up frozen colostrum from him early one Sunday morning and he was happy to shear them again this year. This year he let me give him a bottle of whisky. And he's on a promise for next year.
Everyone needs a Wynn
Oh, and you can't have enough buckets. I go to B&Q about 2-3 times a year and always get another three of their bright orange ones - you can always drill holes in the bottom and use them as flower pots..
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Definitely re-usable drenching syringe - you can use for all sorts from wormer to flukicide, to bloat remedy etc etc. With an added needle set-up also good for injecting Calciject... but I digress, you may not want to breed.
Orange buckets here for rattling food.
some sturdy water buckets (larger than average size, the ones you get in building merchants are better) for water troughs in field, unless you have already a setup in-situ.
A halter rope, so you can securely tie a sheep up when needing to dag/clip on your own.
I have a reusable drencher syringe too. I think its great and not too expensive.
As for the halter, we use bailer twine (yes it really is essential stuff ;D ). Get 3 bits of twine and plait it. Then you have a sturdy 'rope' usable for most things. We put ours round a post and put the girls heads in it (Tim Tyne suggests using a car fan belt but we didn't have one of those so improvised)
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A hookover hayrack if you get deep snow. A good set of waterproofs and one of those stylish waterproof trapper hats with earflaps and a peak, and warm, waterproof boots - Muck Boots, Bekina Pur, etc.
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warm, waterproof boots - Muck Boots, Bekina Pur, etc.
Or any boots with great grip (^) and some knitted woollen welly slippers (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/woolen-shoes):)
(^) I use use Dunlop Purofort - excellent grip, light as a feather and last really well.
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And a cuddly toy
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First thing...sturdy fencing (which I don't have!)
A good pair of binoculars for scanning the neighbours fields for runaway sheep.
As said, a large amount of digestive biscuits
A good pair of lungs to shout "Sheeeeep sheeeeeep"
And definitely a YELLOW bucket ;D
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BLUE buckets (the unbreakable sort - ideally these: http://www.bucketsltp.co.uk/LT_Range.html (http://www.bucketsltp.co.uk/LT_Range.html))
Patience. :)
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Oh dear- I have a pink scoop, no bucket (4 primitive sheep, feed is purely for politeness!). Best get shopping.
I also recommend a flock of about 10 teenagers to walk the sheep into the corner you want to pen them into- you can shout at them when you feel like shouting at the sheep! (I am kidding- my classes are very good little shepherds)
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Oh poor Tamsjute its a great thread of responses but whether it helps you prioritise I am not so sure. I got my first 5 sheep last year and found the first things I used were a few hurdles, feed trough, wheeled hay feeder, buckets, syringe for worming, foot shears that I also use for dagging. For lambing, Tim Tyne's book and a ' lambing kit'. Probably over the top on the lambing stuff but I was paranoid about not being prepared. And a scary book on Lambing Techniques on the basis the more you scare yourself the less likely it is to happen.
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Very useful :thumbsup:
Agree yellow buckets as then they will match my eglu/s (and maybe beehaus) :roflanim: :roflanim: I know you can get wood things cheaper but I luuurve me my yellow eglus :love:
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Plastic feed bag for rattling here. :)
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That's a good point pharnorth, I've found our wheeled hay rack invaluable and well worth the money to buy, much less wasted hay!
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Probably not for a small handful of sheep.. . . . but . . . . .
Trailer
Hurdles
Crook.
Dog.
Drenching gun
Auto injector gun
Flyspray gun.
Plastic gloves
Knife
Bailer Twine
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Sense of humour.
Thats whats in my essential kit though. The two most useful day to day being dog and crook!
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I find a crook essential for catching sheep, if lambing them then rubber rings are in order too, tail applicators for the rubber rings and applicators for ear tagging the lambs. A medicine book or flock book is essential, not only for writing down the dates on which the lambs were born, but also for what medicines they have been given and when and the name of it. Etc, etc. Keeping sheep is a joy and even better when you see them have their lambs.
All the best :thumbsup:
If you don't mind me asking what breed of sheep are they?
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Thanks for all the info guys and girls.
I think I'll be going for Jacobs to begin with - mainly because I know the past person who lived here had them and they lived to a ripe old age - and probably without much looking after, as she was always away on holiday. Ours however will have as much looking after as they need!
I'm not planning to be breeding any just yet - I'd just like to get the essential husbandry established before adding the complications of lambing, as I'm new to sheep. I can probably help out with some of my neighbours during lambing next year to get some experience there.
Just ONE more thing - do you all use dogs for your flocks - I know I'm only getting a couple, but was just curious really. I have a quad and a pony and a family who will be happy to help with rounding up (pony is used to larger quarry though - I used to use him on New Forest Pony drifts and cattle round ups in the New Forest, but I'm sure he'll be happy to lend his skills to sheep herding!).
I also have a collie who is able to round the geese up and put them away into their house of an evening - maybe she'll manage sheep, we'll see!
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I would think you have the ingredients for a good sheep-herding team there!
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Just ONE more thing - do you all use dogs for your flocks - I know I'm only getting a couple, but was just curious really. I have a quad and a pony and a family who will be happy to help with rounding up (pony is used to larger quarry though - I used to use him on New Forest Pony drifts and cattle round ups in the New Forest, but I'm sure he'll be happy to lend his skills to sheep herding!).
I also have a collie who is able to round the geese up and put them away into their house of an evening - maybe she'll manage sheep, we'll see!
I have 6 sheep and my dog is afraid of sheep so we don't use one. If you only have a few you should find the bucket (whatever colour) works once they get used to you.
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I have 4 children they are getting better at being used instead of sheep dogs...
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My one husband is doing a pretty good sheepdog impression too ;D
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Sixteen sheep and a bucket works a treat.
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I've used a sheepdog for the past 12 years, i have red welsh, now though ave got my beardie as well as my old welsh sheepdog. My reckoning is a dog is not only for rounding up sheep and cows, but its there for companionship and for keeping you sane when things go not according to plan. I have over 90 sheep, so a dog is essential. :) also it saves me running around like a mad idiot and embarrassing myself in front of the neighbours :roflanim:
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I have about 50 sheep at the moment (including weaned lambs) and don't have a dog or a quad. Shank's Pony and an electric net is all I use to round them up.
Whats all this feed bucket malarky? Don't your sheep eat grass? LOL! :roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim: