The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Womble on July 09, 2014, 09:42:05 am
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OK, I was warned (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=38732) about the Manx Loaghtans, so this is entirely on my head. However, we figured we owed it to our family connections to give the breed a go, and what a learning curve it's been so far! ;D
We have four gimmers who were fairly tame when we first got them at the start of May, and would come for a scoop of sheep nuts, albeit nervously - make any movement at all, and they'd scatter.
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/3.jpg)
However, since the grass started to grow, they won't come to a bucket, and now have a 'scare radius' of about 40 metres. This is without any chasing about - they'll bolt if you just walk up to them calmly. So, when they contracted eye infections from the neighbours flock a month ago, there wasn't much I could do except observe with binoculars! Thankfully they all cleared up within a week, but there wasn't much point in getting the vet out if he couldn't get near them!
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/4.jpg)
I've now spent a fortune on a 16'x16' catching pen and 5'x6' 'treating pen' (pics will follow once I've hung the final two gates), and managed to coax them into it last night with a mixture of bribery and downright lies so I could treat one with an infection around its ear tag and dose the others with clik. However, whilst I was doing this, they careered around the wee pen, clattering their heads off the gates and making me quite worried they were going to hurt themselves :( .
Their parent flock are nowhere as flighty as this, so I wonder if having four gimmers on their own has made them a bit wild - think teenagers on holiday camp? Our sheep farming neighbour says he's never seen anything like it, and has christened them "Mad Loaghtans"!
My question is, will they tame up in the winter when there's less food around, or once they've had lambs of their own? I don't need cuddles, but I've had quite enough of checking them through binoculars! To make matters worse, Mrs Womble fell in love with Zwartbles at the Highland Show, so we now have two of them following us round like Andrex Puppies, and I'm smarting at the contrast :roflanim: .
What do you think good people of TAS? What on earth should I do? ???
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Sell them and buy more Zwartbles!! :roflanim:
Ok so that's no help, but I just love my zwartbles and have no experience of your breed at all!
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If they ate out of your outstretched hand once, they will again.
But if you don't like them and prefer Zwartbles... sell or eat them.
I love my Manxes, and my Shetland Xs, but they are naughty; more trouble than a bagful of monkeys :D. But so much character, and such good mums, we forgive them :hugsheep:
Having ordered 2 black Wensleydale ewe lambs, a Shetland tup lamb and black girl, I have promised BH to try to not buy any more sheep this year... :innocent:
Mad Loaghtans
Love it! :D
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Ive not had much experience with sheep, however in our small flock of castlemilk's, we have some who will always come up and see us in the field whether we have a bucket of food or not, we have some who will only come when they see the bucket and we have some who just aren't interested no matter what tempting treats we have - so they do all have their own characters
Consequently I suppose, the decision can only come from you - do you stick with them and accept the fact that the ones you have are standoff-ish, do you sell them on and get some other ML's or sell them and get something different.
It all depends on how much you like the breed.
I hope this helps.
Regards
Mark
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Actually, I should say... in my experience, they are less tame once they have lambs, as they are busy protecting the lambs and you may be a threat. As the lambs get bigger, the ewes get more bold again, and the lure of the digestive biscuit again breaks down any reserve ;)
It might be different if you lamb them indoors, and keep them in for a few days before and after, so they get used to you bringing all their food, water and bedding. But mine lambing outdoors are very standoffish with young lambs at foot.
I do agree about the 'giddy teenager' thing though - we reared a largeish batch of heifers one year, and they absolutely were a bunch of rowdy, giggling teenage girls ::)
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Thanks All,
Weather dependent, we would be lambing outdoors. In all honesty, I've got very little chance of getting them into the shed as things stand!
My plan was to put them to a commercial tup this autumn and see what transpires. If they tame up a bit over the winter, give us some nice butchers lambs and raise them without hassle, they're earning their keep. If they continue to be wild and difficult, they'll go in the freezer at the same time as their lambs, and we'll start again.
The Zwartbles complicate things a little though. They're this year's lambs, born Feb/Mar so I wasn't planning to tup them until next year. However, they are actually bigger than the manxes, and my neighbour says he'd definitely tup them this year.
This gives me two options:
1) Get a Zwartble tup lamb to cover both the Z's and the Manxs (Might this give me problems with both their and my first time lambing?)
2) Put both the Z's and Manxs to a commercial tup. (Seems a bit of a waste to cross breed expensive pedigree Zwartbles, since if we bred pure we could keep the ewe lambs for breeding. I should say that a Manx tup is not an option - I can't take the risk on him jumping our fences and getting in with next door's RHS winning Beltex!).
What would you do?
P.S. Nobody's answered the poll yet! ;D
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Notwithstanding any associated complications ( first time lambings etc ), then I would get a Zwartble tup to cover both them and the ML's - as you say seems a waste to cross breed.
Regards
mark
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I've done the poll and I answer to my vote to get the marksman :D
I have experience of just two lots of manx. My brother had half a dozen bought for meat and they were wild. Mr F sheared them but it was a huge effort to catch the b*****$ and the actual shearing was not easy. Later we both rounded them up for the abattoir , with plenty of help (but not my brother who always managed to be 'busy' somewhere else) In the end they had to be caught by throwing electranet over them (not energised obviously) and jumping on them, then manhandling them into the trailer. Phew - exhausting. Never again. Could have done with the trident to go with the net :innocent:
The second lot were a wether and 3 shearling ewes we bought, as I thought they would complement our Hebs, having the same origins. Even the wether was a total pain, bossing around my non-breeding old ladies til we stuck him in with the tups who soon put him in his place. The females were horrible bullies, shoving my other breeds around, not letting them near the feed and always heading the breakaway when we tried to round them up. Serendipitously, someone came to buy a Heb tup and bought the Manx ewes as well and took them far far away to join another flock. And after all that, the fleece wasn't anything like as lovely as I'd expected.
Hence - get in a marksman :-J
Seriously I don't think they will calm down enough to be mild mannered and manageable, although it is worth persevering until they have raised lambs.
To tame them down a bit and make them more catchable, you need to get them into a much smaller pasture where they can at least become used to your presence. Chasing them around will never end up with them caught, so calmly driving them into the other pasture might work (if you have such a place). Sometimes it works just to leave the gate open into the other pasture then go out of sight (sheep read human body language with great skill, so they will know the instant you leave the house that you want to catch them). They might go in straight away or you might have to leave them for a couple of days until they feel confident to wander in. Don't let them see you go to close the gate, don't run to do it, and don't do it if they can reach the gate before you do :D You have to get a system for catching them, even if it's just to tag their lambs, but they will also need at least flystrike prevention (if the flies can catch them :D), possible worming depending on your land, and to be holdable for emergency treatments
Sorry, but although I love Manx on principle for their rarity, their history, their appearance, they are definitely not for me.
The only qualifier I would add, is that the fact that they did eat out of your hands once offers a tiny ray of hope. Was the flock they came from well handled and tame? If so, then perhaps they just need to get used to you and their new surroundings, then you can tell me how wrong I am :sheep:
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Food- the answer to all life's problems :-)
Feed them in your pen in winter and let them get used to you moving around them. They may never be tame, but at least you can get close enough for a good look at them.
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Don't know much about these naughty Manx sheep, but I find our ram lambs come weaning are far more forward than the ewe lambs, braver more inquisitive, the girls are far more scatty.
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Don't know much about these naughty Manx sheep, but I find our ram lambs come weaning are far more forward than the ewe lambs, braver more inquisitive, the girls are far more scatty.
We have Coloured Ryelands and I'd second that. Ours do settle down one they have lambed too. But most Ryelands are never that flighty.
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I thought they would complement our Hebs, having the same origins.
Are you saying that Manxs are inherently more wild than Hebs / CM / Shetland etc then? I had expected them all to be much of a wild muchness!?
And after all that, the fleece wasn't anything like as lovely as I'd expected.
That's interesting. To my untrained eye, the Manx fleeces look fantastic - lovely colour, and ever so soft. However I'm not a spinner, so don't really know what to look for. Also seeing as I'm not a spinner, I'm still at a loss as to what to do with them in any case! ;D
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Womble, I answered the poll within minutes, before my first Reply. Have you clicked 'View Results' ? ;)
My Manxes had the most incredibly soft fleeces last year, but so short! (They'd been clipped late the year I bought them, I think.) So I was really looking forward to getting their fleeces this year - and they are disappointing. :(
They are bossy girls, yes. Being horned they can dominate any other sheep, and they do make sure they get the best of the feed. So I am not sure it's a good idea to run Manxes and non-horned sheep together - although mine do all seem to manage okay now.
Pricket is a ringleader, yes. If there's an escape, she will be one of the escapees. 100% of the time.
But wild these are not. The pic was fairly early on with them - they will practically get in my pockets now ::)
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I thought they would complement our Hebs, having the same origins.
Are you saying that Manxs are inherently more wild than Hebs / CM / Shetland etc then? I had expected them all to be much of a wild muchness!?
And after all that, the fleece wasn't anything like as lovely as I'd expected.
That's interesting. To my untrained eye, the Manx fleeces look fantastic - lovely colour, and ever so soft. However I'm not a spinner, so don't really know what to look for. Also seeing as I'm not a spinner, I'm still at a loss as to what to do with them in any case! ;D
Shetlands are not usually wild, in fact they can be very sedate, unless they are not handled, for example within a large flock on the hill. I don't know about castlemilk moorits. With Hebs I would say it depends almost totally on how you handle them, plus a bit on how old they are. Maybe the Manxes I got were just mad and others of the same breed are not. They do get shown, so those individuals will be handleable. It's just my personal experience I'm quoting - I'm sure others have wonderful, tame, easy to handle Manx, I just haven't met them ;D
The Manx wether I bought had a lovely soft fleece at 4 months and as you say a beautiful colour. By shearing time however it was a bit brillo-pad-like. I had heard Manx had wonderful fleeces and mine did not. I didn't choose the ewes, which came from a long way away and were delivered. There is a lot of variation between fleece quality within a single breed, as well as between breeds, within the primitives. Fleece quality can also change within one single animal over time, so successive fleeces will not be identical. If your fleeces are good then there will be a good market for clean, well-presented fleeces amongst spinners and felters. Not all useable fleece has to be super soft and fine though - for someone making rugs or tough outerwear then a soft fleece is the last thing they want. If you are advertising them for sale then be honest about the quality - if they are coarse then say they are ideal for rug weaving and peg looming :thumbsup:
You have to decide if you want to support a British rare Breed, or an imported one. Zwartbles are much bigger than Manx but from a distance (ie I've not handled one) they look much more docile, and you will get a greater weight of meat from them. Manx meat however will be delicious, and yours will definitely be well exercised to grow good muscle :D
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I bought 8 Llanwenog ewe lambs last spring ... wild!! Added 8 older ewes used to the bucket about 4 months later and (most) of the originals are now easy to handle.... why does everyone suggest you start with gimmers?
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If you can put them in a pen ( with high sides) for a week feeding them from hand, putting them on halters and generally interfering with them they should improve
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try routine winter feeding and train them to follow a bucket into a small paddock - where you can put up a race. skittish ones do remember in the summer what a bucket is even if there arent hungry.
do manx herd with a dog, or do they split like borerays?
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Not sure if they are generally thought of as 'wilder' than Soay or not but our Soay have become quite tame. When we had our original girls they hadn't really had any human contact and they didn't even come near enough to know what was in the bucket. ::) We did wonder whether we had made a big mistake.
We spent time sitting in the field with them and found jobs to do in the paddock but didn't pay much direct attention to them and didn't try to approach them. We left the bucket in the field with them.
It took a few weeks but slowly they came round. Some jump up us like dogs and raid our pockets now .... if anything one or two are a little over-friendly. ::) ;D A couple are more 'reserved' but still come into the catching area and are not a problem.
If you like the breed, don't give up. Keep feeding in the catching area daily. I bet they'll get there in the end.
P.S. If they are like our Soay they will be quite intelligent ..... perhaps they've overheard the bbq plans. ;)
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Don't know manx, but my easycares were very wild on arrival last autumn(c.f. Eflie the very tame shetland), so I've kept going with the bucket - even now (though not much and not every day) so they'll still follow closely when I need them to.
As IntheHills says if you hang around with them they get more relaxed with you - I've been scything bracken in the field with them and they get fairly close now - guess they just think I'm 'grazing' and not 'hunting'.
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a handreared pet sheep comes in handy as they will usually follow the tame one.
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I can drive all my 'funny little sheep', including my Castlemilks and Manxes, with my dogs - but it takes patience and skill to manage the pressure so that the sheep choose to move away from the dogs in the direction you want, and not vertically! lol
The problem is, in part, that as Fleecewife says, they are highly intelligent and very expert at reading the body language of potential predators. As you would need to be to survive as a prey animal! ;) However, it means that although they may follow a bucket, the instant they realise you are planning to close that gate behind them, they're away. ::)
For me it kind of adds to the charm, but BH has a good saying that maybe applies here.
Buy livestock you like the look of. You need to want to see them on a wet cold morning, so it's best to have ones you like looking at. And don't buy anything you didn't like the look of when you first saw it. You'll never like it.
Which is another way of saying horses for courses. I love my Manxes and they would be in the running if I had to choose just one breed to keep. But they are wily, agile, opinionated little monkeys, so if they don't float your boat, don't keep 'em! :D
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i stupidly took on 5 SBF ewes a few years ago, they never integrated with the rest of my wee flock, they were a total nightmare!! They would jump fences, anything to not go where i wanted them to. All my nice tame ewes would come running at the sight of me in the hope of food and the 5 SBF's would leg it as fast as possible to the other end of the field. One had a problem at lambing and had just a head out, i spent 2 hours chasing the damn thing around at 2am, peeing with rain, in the middle of febuary, ended up getting all my sheep netting out of the barn, setting up a corner pen and race. Finally caught her when she tried to jump the netting to escape and got tangled up. Managed to turn her over (still tangled in netting!) and found a front leg and pulled the obviously now dead lamb out. She had been running around for a good 2 hours with this head bouncing around behind her. Once i had pulled the lamb out i set about untangling the ewe, still in the rain, pitch black and my head torch flickering! Once the ewe sensed freedom she was off, with her (obviously dead) lamb at her side!!!! I honestly couldnt believe it!! That autumn all the SBF lambs were slaughtered and I sold the 5 ewes to an unsuspecting friend who has never forgiven me!!! I will stick to my placid old tame ewes from now on!!
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I'm not a fan of Blackies either. I have no evidence that they can become friendly. Whereas Swaledales can become perfectly tame, even soppy. And these characteristics seem to be passed down into their offspring too, so that the Blackie Mule is headstrong and difficult, while the Swaley Mule is very happy to be your friend provided you treat her, and her lambs, right.
But it could just be the flocks that I've known ;)
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I have 2 thoughts;
1, I have an empty freezer if it helps :-D
2, Will a nice sedate Zwartlbe gent be able to catch the hell spawned hooligans you claim to own? (Personally they sound mor like cats and actually they own you!)
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How interesting!
I'm certainly not experienced in sheep keeping BUT have recently taken on a ewe and ewe lamb (soay) from what is effectively a wild highland herd. With consistent morning and evening feeds they have become quite tame and now baaaa through the window for attention. They particularly love digestive biscuits and oat heavy muesli (cheap). Despite no previous human contact, within eight weeks they have tamed to the point of eating out of our hands.
Lynn
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Well, ours were fairly tame until the grass started growing, but then they weren't interested in coming for nuts any more. They'll greedily eat them from a trough, but they're not hungry enough to overcome their fear of me and eat from a scoop or bucket. (For instance, they won't put their heads in a bucket when any 'predators' are within 40m, as it blocks their view of them).
I found tonight that they'll eat from a trough as long as I'm safely the other side of the fence, and don't move AT ALL, so that's progress.
"Horses for Courses" is exactly right, and yes I do rather like the Manxs really. They're lovely intelligent, graceful animals (rather like deer :innocent: ). I also like the Zwartbles, though you could hardly get two more different breeds - the Z's think they're a cross between a donkey and a Labrador puppy, and follow us round like cade lambs (which they're not). They're also going to be the size of Shetland Ponies once they've finished growing!
The question is, will the Manxs change their behaviour enough for me to let them stay, and will our Zwartbles suffer from the same troubles that others seem to be having with them (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=48395)?
Watch this space to find out! ;D
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I also like the Zwartbles, though you could hardly get two more different breeds - the Z's think they're a cross between a donkey and a Labrador puppy, and follow us round like cade lambs (which they're not). They're also going to be the size of Shetland Ponies once they've finished growing!
Look closely at the 'ponies' pulling the chariot at 1:08 in the video on this page (http://www.chariots.org.uk/displayteam.html) ;)
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Brilliant :thumbsup: I love the ponies too, so happy.
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Womble I must thank you for starting this post.... I have been sitting here with tears streaming down my face reading your post and the various replies regarding wild sheep...brilliant! I haven't laughed so much for ages....
On a more serious note I had a few Zwarbles a few years ago and they went to the ram as lambs with no problems. I recently used a Zwartbles ram lamb (who had no weight or foot problems btw) on some Badgerface ewes as shown in the photo... they were good lambs, but I sold them with their mothers at this stage due to my health problems.
I hope I don't soon post a similar report, as I have just started with Castlemilk Moorits (who I love!) and the shearling ewes will eat out of my hand in the field atm.
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Nimbusllama - if reading this thread made you laugh, you really ought to have seen me trying to catch them two nights ago! I ended up standing outside the catching pen on the other side of the fence, rattling a bucket to draw them in to a trough full of nuts. (I had the Zwartbles inside the adjacent wee pen as decoys and everything, though that was mainly to stop them from troughing all the nuts themselves!).
When they were safely eating, I pulled a cunningly concealed rope which knocked a spade out from in front of the entry gate, allowing it to swing shut. I'm telling you, Wallace and Gromit would have been proud!!
It's good to hear you had some nice cross-bred lambs from a Zwartbles tup. I'm going to stick with the Manxes for at least another year, so my big dilemma just now is what tup to put them with. I think my options are:
1) Zwartbles - makes life nice and easy, and allows me to breed the Z lambs pure and keep the girls. However, would using such a big boy on wee first-timer primitives give problems lambing?
2) Another commercial breed - I can easily borrow a Beltex, Texel or Blackface tup lamb, but would that be any better? My neighbour recommends Beltex for easy lambing (apparently the lambing problems with the breed are all on the maternal side?), and at least the lambs would be ugly enough to eat with a clear conscience :-J .
3) Another primitive tup lamb who we would then eat - easier lambing for my first timers, but slower growth and the potential of all hell breaking loose with the neighbours if he jumped the fence and got in with theirs!
I do like making life difficult for myself, don't I? ;D
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I really wouldn't use a meat tup for their first time, I really wouldn't. After that, ok - although I'd go something a bit larger than primitive and not as meaty as a Beltex for the 2nd time too. Zwarty would probably be fine for the 2nd time. Blackie would probably be fine too - although not such a useful lamb ;)
Issues include size. Although the primitives mostly do have good wide pelvises, a gimmer isn't as opened up as an experienced ewe ;). And it'll be your first time too!
And, possibly even more important than size, is liveliness of lamb. A Shetland x lamb will be up and around to the milk bar very quickly, and will persist even if Mum is fidgeting and skipping about wearing a started and slightly indignant expression. ::) A lot of Beltex breeders use a Shetland tup on their first-time Beltex ewes for this very reason ;)
If you can get a Manx or Shetland tup lamb to use then eat, I'd do that. (Oh, and Shetland x Manx can be a wonderful fleece! :spin: :excited:)
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if you cant catch them, id consider easy lambing as priority, as they last thing you want is a problem birth and the ewe is taking flight over the hill.
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Thanks all, Not what I was hoping to hear, but I'm very grateful for the straightforward advice. I'm off to have another look at the fencing to see what I need to do to make it Shetland tup-proof!
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May I ask have you thought about future lambings , not next year as both breeds need carefull feeding for the first lamb but then you will have large sheep that do well on good grass and maybe lots of feed inputs and small primitive that need mediocre grass and very little feed inputs
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Shep53, I think we'll end up only keeping one or the other breed in the end. The Manxs have been in my extended family for ages, so at the time at least they seemed like the natural breed to start with. The Zwartbles were just what Mrs Womble liked the look of, and provide a good contrast so we can eventually choose what to do in the long run.
Our holding is divided into several small fields, so we can keep them separate when required. We had thought we'd rotate the grazing with the Zwartbles getting first go, followed by the Manxs, but we'll have to see how things pan out.....
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Womble - I think you got your Manx from an aunt or similar. Is that right? I'd forgotten. Surely the obvious thing to do is to seek her advice on how to tame up your sheep? I think it puts a whole different light on your problem and I'd like to change my vote :) With the previous owner on hand to give advice, even from a distance, I think you have a good chance of learning about the breed and learning the correct techniques for handling them. All change :thumbsup: It's worth pursuing :sheep: :sheep: :sheep: :sheep:
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its amazing what a effect an empty belly in the winter will have on their view of you if you are carrying their food. it takes time to create a bond if they are skittish. hopefully you dont have a flighty ringleader who will teach them to run away - we solved this problem by using a tame sheep as they would follow him.
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OK, we might be getting somewhere, albeit slowly. The Manxs will now eat from a trough as long as I'm the other side of a fence and at least 10m away. In contrast, I had to stop strimming last night because the zwartbles thought I was noisily scattering dock leaves for them to eat and I didn't want one of them to lose a leg!
Fleecewife - I've now spoken to my Aunt (tricky just now as my Uncle is very unwell - that's why I tried the forum first). She couldn't suggest anything for taming them apart from patience and not chasing them about. She has used a Suffolk tup on first time Manxs before and can't recall any lambing problems. However, she couldn't really advise as apart from that she's always bred pure.
I'm still really nervous about having a horny Shetlander about the place in case he escapes and causes havoc. Sally - what tup do you use on your Manxs then? Do you think a Blackface would be a mistake for first time ewes? That would solve the neighbour problem since it would be his tup, but would hopefully lamb easier than a pure commercial?
Thanks!
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Hi Womble :wave:. Sounds like you are making progress :thumbsup:
My Manxes were bought as gimmers; one had lambed before, the other hadn't. I put them to a Shetland (sent them away to one) the first time, all fine, tiny lambs that grew well. This time they went to our homebred tup lamb; he was 1/2 Shetland, 1/4 Charollais, 1/8 Beltex, 1/16 Blue-faced Leicester, 1/16 Swaledale. So partway between a Shetland and a commercial. All absolutely fine, cracking lambs, no problems, growing well.
In your circs, if you can't find a primitive to send them to for tupping, or a primitive tup lamb to use then eat, then yes the Blackie would probably be a good compromise. Not too large a lamb for them, no problem with the neighbours.
You will have to eat all the offspring yourselves, and I doubt if the fleeces will be interesting. But your girls will know their job, and so will you ;), for next time.
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OK, time for a wee update :innocent: .
This is one rare breed that might be about to get a whole lot rarer very shortly!
It's time for fluke drenching, so I need to pen them up for that. Can I? Can I heck. After two days of patient but pointless bucket shaking, I rigged up a Wallace and Gromit contraption that enabled me to hide behind a woodpile 50m away from the pen and shut the door using a rope when they weren't looking.
Unfortunately I couldn't close the gate quick enough, and two escaped. They are now blowing raspberries at me from as far away as possible. Of the two I penned, one went so beserk that she cut her leg open on something in the pen and I've had to bandage her up.
So, hours of effort, two dosed and two who are now wise to the whole thing.
Fed up :( .
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Do you know anyone with a dog? Would that help?
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Hmmm, our neighbour has a collie, but having seen it in action I don't think that'll work. You know, "FOR F**K's SAKE FLOSS!" seems a strange name for a dog, but he keeps shouting it loudly enough..... ;)
Of course if you are in Stirlingshire and fancy a training challenge for your dog, do get in touch!! :roflanim:
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If it's a dog, it needs to be one that's wise to primitive sheep (and/or a handler that is, and a very obedient dog ;) ) - you can't push them the way you can a less flighty type, they won't take 1/10th the pressure a commercial sheep will. And frankly, if they want to be away, they'll be away.
They need to feel safe, David - and it's going to take a little time...
Can you feed them a little in a trough every day? Get them more used to you being near them? And then cake them in the pen, etc...
Once you have 'em penned, get 'em penned tight asap, so they don't have time and space to jump out. Drench them swiftly and confidently, do anything else you need, and let them out as soon as practicable.
It does get easier as they get more used to you, promise.
I mostly keep my new primitive-type sheep in a stable for a few days to a week, getting caked, hayed and watered twice a day, so they get used to me being a friendly provider. They don't get to be outside until they are relaxed about me being in the stable with them. Then, if poss, they go in the home paddock with some tame sheep, getting caked and witnessing the occasional random digestive biscuitting ;)
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Hmmm, I think that's maybe where I went wrong.
We let our biggest field to our neighbour's tups for the past couple of months, but that meant my "feeding the Manxs in the pen" regime had to stop, and they swiftly became wild again.
He moved his tups out on Saturday, so I've been trying since then to get them in the pen to drench them. The problem is, having used my one shot and failed, I think it's going to be a while before they trust me again.
I'll keep at it, but this is really difficult, not to mention time consuming!
BTW I managed to dose all the Zwartbles out in the field in five minutes. I Just walked up to them, put one hand under their chin and said 'open wide'. It's the contrast between them and the Manxs that smarts somewhat - I now know just how easy it could be if they would just cooperate and stop seeing me as a prey animal!
Happy to share my trials and tribulations if that helps others further along the line of course.
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I am in the same sort of boat as you my hebs want nothing to do with me and my Zwartbles come to say hi they they see anything, one even followed me into the house when I was moving them. The closest I have got to my hebs is 10m but when I started it used to be more like 40m. The way forward for me was digestive biscuits once they eventually resized what is for offer they came running but no closer than 10m where I then had to hide behind the gate for them to eat. I have not found any bulling from the hebs be caused they are horned but that is because a hebs tried to have a go at them but soon resized that they where out numbered at that time 7:1 where they no wait until the Zwartbles are done or I use two troughs as they are scared of the zeds. Hope this helps and remember the way forwards is digestives.
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I have no advice...
I just want to see the contraption for shutting the gate at 50 yards...
Good luck...
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Sorry, but think you would be best to forget about treating for a while and go back to feeding in the penning area daily. Hopefully they will get keener and bolder as they get a bit hungry when the grass stops growing.
If something spooks our Soay we forget about any treatments for a few days to give them time to settle back down(unless an emergency of course).
Are they used to moving between two gated fields? We did have to set a temporary pen up between two fields that they were used to moving between on one occasion when we had some awkward lambs. They just assumed they were swapping fields .... haha ... outwitted. ;D
Oh, and we never carry equipment down to the penning area until they are all caught up because if they so much as see a bottle, crook or bucket being carried they know what is going on.
Are all sheep so smart? :thinking:
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Result! :thumbsup: After a weekend feeding them in the pen, and constructing more and more complicated chicane type entrances to it (thanks for the hint in the hills!), I finally managed to catch them all this morning :) . Basically I waited until they were busy eating, then closed the gate. They did try to bolt for it when they saw me, but I made sure I could reach the door faster than them this time, thanks to the chicanes :idea: .
So that's the remaining two drenched, the bandage off the third, and the tup in. He's covered about twenty miles already, chasing them round and round. It seems he went to the "if you stop for breath I'll have you" school of romance, but at least it will get them all fit :roflanim: .
Hopefully now I'm not actually trying to catch them any more, I'll have more luck with the Digestive Biscuit Diplomacy!
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Well done Womble :thumbsup:
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Congratulations! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
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:thumbsup: It's just a matter of outwitting the little devils.
See it as a challenge. ;D
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Go Calvin Go!!!
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Oh he's going alright Bloomer.
He hasn't actually caught any of them yet, but full marks for effort from the wee fella! :roflanim:
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Time to update this thread methinks:
A mixed report really. Over the winter the Manxs gradually tamed up to the point where I could reliably feed them in the pen and shut the door on them without them bolting.
All four of them lambed twins in April, and despite the consensus in the poll above, this tamed them up considerably since the ewes were hungry due to their increased energy needs. This got to the stage where they could all reliably be penned, and two would happily eat out of my hand.
HOWEVER, it's now July, they've all but weaned their lambs and the grass is lovely and lush. Will any of them come to a bucket? Er, no! As wild as the wind, the lot of them, along with their mad little carbon copies! ;D
What I will say is that since none of them ever seem to need my attention, it's not really an issue. It still leaves me with a dilemma in the long term though.
My gut feel at the moment is to keep the tamest two and run them with our Zwartbles tup this year to produce butcher's lambs, whilst sending the other two for mutton this autumn. All of this year's lambs will be going for meat next Spring I think.
Any comments on that folks? :thumbsup:
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They clearly don't suit you, Womble, and you shouldn't feel bad about that. I wish I could take some off your hands, but my two Manxes are enough for me; my wee fleece flock overall is getting to be not so wee! Any that I bring in mean I have to select someone to leave... and I want all my girls, so that's that, I'm afraid.
It will be interesting to see how the Zwartbles x Manx lambs do - and if they end up staying long enough to get clipped, I know plenty of us would be interested in their fleeces, because that's a really unusual cross!
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Zwanx labs? Ace ;D
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Zwanx labs? Ace ;D
Manbles ;D
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Zanx Loaghwarts I think you'll find (Dr Seuss would have been proud! ;D )
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My Jacobs wouldn't come near me until near lambing, when we were feeding them, then even better after lambing. They lambed outdoors in a small paddock then I picked up the lambs and penned them overnight. Once I'd been in and out a few times checking udders and spraying navels, and spending time with them in the small paddock they tamed up loads. And lambs are quite tame too.
Good luck x
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How old are your lambs now Princesslayer? We were doing fine until a few weeks ago, but evidently the grass is now good enough, and the lambs now weaned enough that the ewes don't want hard feed.
Suddenly my only 'carrot' is ineffective, and I have neither stick nor dog to help the situation!! :innocent:
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Womble - What is the crucial bit of advice that we always give anyone who is new to keeping sheep... its pick a breed that you like but im getting the impression that you've fallen out of love with them so its probably time to say enough is enough and move them on either to another breeder or to the freezer.
Time to rethink methinks....
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Marka,
No, I love them to bits, that's why I'm desperate to keep the tamer two if I can.
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/manx1.jpg)
They're just so perfectly suited to life as basically wild sheep, I have the utmost respect for them. They need no extra feed, I've never needed to lay a hand on them and they each lambed twins unaided, first time. What's not to love? Oh yeah, the fact that I now need binoculars to go check on them! :roflanim:
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/manx2.jpg)
Isn't it always the women you love most who drive you crazy though?! ;D
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How old are your lambs now Princesslayer? We were doing fine until a few weeks ago, but evidently the grass is now good enough, and the lambs now weaned enough that the ewes don't want hard feed.
Suddenly my only 'carrot' is ineffective, and I have neither stick nor dog to help the situation!! :innocent:
They're 16 weeks now. A few will eat out of my hand, and they'll hang round my feet even without food. In fact, I think the lambs are tamer than their mothers but I've deliberately handled them frequently to try and de-sensitise them a bit (and to practice on a smaller animal, as someone suggested to me on here!). Their mothers didn't have much handling before they came to us, but they definitely sheared more quietly this year than last, so they're mellowing.
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Ive got a good spare pair of binoculars if you need em !! ;D
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I've been reading this thread with a sense of having been there....!
Anyway, just thought I'd share this with you. Today we did some shearing and the first sheep that ambled into the pen and stood obligingly to be sheared was one of our original Jacobs that we could never catch! We had six and we usually managed to pen 5, but one would always evade us. Whilst this might give you the idea that there is light at the end of the tunnel I should just mention that its now six years later!
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When this poll originally went out I think I opted for the bribe 'em with ewe nuts option; but this years lambing does seem to have made a difference, particularly to Fatty, who is one of my original 4 easycare ewes who came from a big farm and she was particularly wary and mistrustful. Last year she didn't produce anything but this year she had triplets - and now she's the one who comes right up and sticks her nose in my hand or anything I'm carrying.
Mind you, I still suspect it was getting her own personal bucket of nuts in the pen at regular intervals that tamed her.
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I had manx, they are highly intelligent and will def tame down! you just need patience and bribery haha I love the breed personally! Don't give up on them. Mine loved bread and biscuits etc... thats how i tamed them down. They eventually enjoyed a scratch behind the ears and didnt need to be bribed anymore! Give it a few weeks! Good luck
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Don't know much about these naughty Manx sheep, but I find our ram lambs come weaning are far more forward than the ewe lambs, braver more inquisitive, the girls are far more scatty.
That's very interesting as I've always found it the other way around! When I first got my Zwartbles, the girls took a lot less time to tame and the tup lambs were never entirely tame. We've had two lots of our own lambs now and I've found it exactly the same. The boys are much more wary and the girls not at all!
My sheep are handled daily by me and the kids and the four ewes are more like dogs than sheep - one of them even jumps up for a scratch!
I was wondering if the Zwartbles tup might create lambs that are a bit too big for your Manxes? They really are quite big and leggy sheep!
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Well, I'm sorry to say it gets worse :-[ .
I found one of the lambs in the field on Sunday afternoon looking very bedraggled and weak, and right over the other end of the field from all the others. I did my best for it, but it gradually got worse and was dead by Monday afternoon.
It wasn't scouring particularly, but I had an FEC done yesterday just to check, which came back with a high count for Nematodirus. So, I've now caught and wormed half of the lambs, but try as I might with the others......
Once it becomes a welfare issue, it's just not funny any more I'm afraid :'( .
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Oh dear. So sorry about the lamb you've lost, and I feel for you about dosing the others. For a while, the vets' advice was to not dose the fittest 10% of the flock, so don't feel too bad if you can't catch and dose all of the lambs. :hug:
I can't get hold of my lambs separately - they just jump straight over the walls - but the mothers are all now fairly relaxed about coming through our pens, so I just run them all through together, and walk through them dosing whoever needs something. The lambs seem happy enough to stay in the race if they're with their mums. I do have to be careful to be slow and gentle, so that none of the mums get agitated, or they all bunch up and then it's only a matter of time before a lamb jumps onto a back and over the wall... ::)
I've had a frustrating time this evening myself, actually - a Mule x Shetland tup lamb is being lame in each foot in turn and tonight was not with the others, and reticent to walk about, so I wanted to treat him. But of course as soon as you look like you want to catch him, he can get about perfectly, thank you very much. He gave both dogs a real runaround; in the end I had to call them off as he was clearly plotting an escape across the river...
After tonight's shenanigans he did go back to Mum and the others, had some milk and was then grazing, so at least he's with them and feeding now. Tomorrow I shall have to try a different tactic, getting him to group up with his Mum and sister, and trying to get the three of them into a makeshift pen. I'm not at all sure I'll be successful, though. I don't really want to bring the whole lot back to the farmstead to treat one lamb's scald, but I don't like him lying under cover on his own, away from the rest of the flock and without their protection. Where they are is idyllic - except when I need to catch one...
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Womble,
Sorry to hear about your lamb - it does bring it home at times likes these how fragile life can be, despite all of our best efforts.
Perhaps the compromise is to keep the ones that behave and either introduce others with a similar disposition or build your flock back up by breeding from the ones that are tame ( r! ).
We ended up with a sub-flock of 4 ewes that comprised mum ewe, 2 of her lambs from last year and 1 of her lambs from the year before and whilst the main flock would come to the bucket and generally go in the direction we wanted, the sub-flock would always hang back and do their own thing - we've subsequently sold them to our neighbour but as they are their own flock they now behave quite well. Consequently any time we need to move our lot, its a lot less time consuming and stressing for us and the sheep.
So the morale is perhaps that it is not that you have got the wrong breed, just that you have currently got the wrong sheep
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Feeling smug yesterday I walked up to a zwartbles ewe as she laid cudding, slipped a halter on, led her to a gatepost and clipped her whilst standing still cudding. Only three more to do now...
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Womble,
any news on your Nematode problem? Im hoping you haven't lost any more :fc:
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In the winter they should be OK, I hope :innocent: I Feed my ewe lambs over the winter and I always stick some pet ewe lambs in with them, so they get to know who I am and learn to come when I call em. It might help to put some older ewes in with them, or simply to put them in a smaller field, so that they can get used to you. Maybe give em a routine as well? Some of my ewe lambs were very flighty, I put some pet ewe lambs in with em and because the pet lambs know my voice they brought the flock with them to food, now when I shake the bucket the ewe lambs, or rather shearlings now, get there before the older sheep. :)
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Hi All,
I'm sorry if I caused confusion by trying to update an old thread, but I wanted to keep everything together as the overall story is quite interesting. So for those that may have missed the first few chapters, here it is, warts n' all.....
Last year, we bought some Manx Loaghtan hoggs from my Aunt. She's kept Manxs for years, and we wanted to keep this going in the family if we could. However, right from the start, we found them really skittish (My Aunt was very ill for much of last year, so they weren't used to people; something they never really got over).
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/1.jpg)
A few months later we bought some Zwartbles. I'd love to say this was part of some great a master plan, but really it was because one of them nibbled Mrs Womble's sleeve at the Royal Highland Show and she was utterly smitten! :love:
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/BiscuitandBonnie2.jpg)
They're much bigger sheep than the Manxs, not to mention ten times the price :innocent: . However, we found them so easy to deal with that we bought a Zwartbles tup, Ace to go with them.
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/willtheytame/ace2.jpg)
He is super friendly, may or may not look like Jeremy Clarkson (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=57500), and really doesn't see the point in Selfies).
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/willtheytame/ace3.jpg)
So Ace ran with the Zwartbles ewe lambs last year, whilst Bloomer provided a Shetland tup lamb who ran with the Manxs before he turned into a grumpy old man and subsequently a very tasty Shepherds Pie. This means we now have a flock of six Zwartbles ewes plus Ace, four Manx Loaghtan ewes and an assortment of this year's lambs who will all be going in the freezer sooner or later.
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/willtheytame/lambs.jpg)
The lamb that died this week is a wierd one. I don't know if it was due to nematodirus or not - it just sort of faded away over a couple of days (it was scouring a little, but nothing like other lambs I've seen with nematodirus). So far, the other lambs seem fine, although three of them still remain un-caught and un-dosed, which is playing on my mind a little :-\ .
The Zwartbles definitely get to stay, since they're easy to live with, commercial and as somebody else said on another thread, easy to find in both mud and snow :D .
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/willtheytame/zwartbles.jpg)
The only problems we've had with them so far are that the lambs are very prone to scald, whilst a couple of the ewes have had shelly hoof, where the side wall of the hoof detaches from the base. If we could find a solution to both of these, life would be perfect!! :innocent:
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/hoof2.jpg)
The wildest Manx Loaghtans are definitely going for mutton now - this is as close as I could get to them this afternoon: they have a 'scare radius' of about 30 metres! Basically, I've admitted defeat with the Manx Loaghtans - they just weren't the right sheep for us :'( .
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/willtheytame/manx.jpg)
Perhaps we'll keep Alice, who is the tamest. She can run with Ace this year and we'll see how that goes. Both are easy lambing breeds, and I reckon she'll be fine. Also it's her only hope frankly, since otherwise she's going in the freezer with her pals!!
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/manx2.jpg)
Obviously I'd be keen to hear other people's opinions on this, particularly from folks who've done similar. I hope you like the photos though. Putting them all together made me realise how far we've come over the past 18 months. Watch this space for the next chapter! :thumbsup:
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Ok...I understand. Thanks for the pictorial update: it really does help.
Only thing is....... which one is Ace and which is Womble? ;)
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to be serious for a moment.....
If Manx are a family tradition it would be an awful shame to lose that tradition, don't you think? Could Alice and maybe a ewe lamb from her not stay?
I know next-to-nothing about sheep but I do think that people with historical connections feel happier if they can keep them going if its at all possible. it wont make commercial sense but this is a smallholders' forum and if we took any notice of the bank manager most of us would pack it in
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Womble,
Re-home your existing ones and get some new ones - that way you can carry on the tradition but hopefully with a flock that is biddable.
Regards
Mark
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Lovely pictures, hard decisions to make. If it helps, I left a well grown ryland/hebridean ewe lamb in with my ewes last autumn with a zwartble tup and she lambed a lovely big single ewe lamb completely unaided :)
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I'm a little dubious about keeping only Alice. IME, sheep tend to flock with their own kind, and if she's the only Manx remaining in a flock full of Zwarties I think she'll be miserable. Could you keep a couple of the tamest lambs on with her?
Re: the Zwarties' feet, the two negatives I hear over and over again about the breed is feet and needing cake. Might be worth trying mineral drenches or free access powder. There's some complex biochemistry about zinc, magnesium (or was that manganese?) (and other things) and feet...
Which said, crossing a breed you really love but has terrible feet with a breed you also love but find a challenge, but which has good feet, just might produce some sheep that really suit you and your spot! (And of course also some sheep that combine all the bad points of the two parents...)
Re: using Ace on Alice... when Zwarty lambs are born, how big are they?
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I dont think my lamb was over-big, just a good solid single, although incidentally she was born with her feet knuckled under needing splinting ?maybe due to being squashed inside mum?
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There are so many beautiful sheep breeds available and if you keep a breed for its looks you tend to be blind to its practical short comings. I love anything that makes my life easier which means I have always chosen my breeds of livestock that are calm and easy to handle.
I like to keep them fit and well and for me being able to handle them and care for them when they need it is a really important part of owning them. So my stray semi feral farm cats were tamed and tended until they became house cats that are wormed, flead, vaccinated and cared for. And my Dexter herd that were skittish were sold on.
The Ryelands that I chose ( other laid back breeds are available ) where picked solely for their confident, biddable and friendly natures. They have their downsides I suppose but I'm not aware of any as I love them so much. I agree that with some breeds winter feeding, lambing etc can make them more relaxed around you (it does with ryelands ) but I also think that some breeds are still very wild at heart and will only become more stressed and agitated in these situations.
I run my smallholding on my own most of the time as OH is out at work all day so I really do need my sheep to trust me and to develop a relationship where they happily go along with my requests and make routine tasks as easy as possible for the sake of their health and my safety.
I would defiantly let them go to someone who appreciates them and focus on a breed that you enjoy. I also think that it is a waste to put a commercial tup on a Pure breed ewe.
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I also think that it is a waste to put a commercial tup on a Pure breed ewe.
I'm going to express another viewpoint on that one.
If all keepers of rare breed sheep only ever put them to the same breed tup, there would be less of that breed around, not more.
The more that people can use the ewes of these breeds with other tups to create more commercial lambs, the more people there are that will be willing to buy the ewes and keep the breed.
We all know we won't make money out of most of the rare breeds, but at least if we can produce some half-way decent fat lambs then we can cover our costs more nearly, enabling us to keep that breed at all.
Of course if all Manx (or Heb or Castlemilk or whatever) ewes all went to homes where they were never bred pure, then yes there'd be a problem. But if more people kept a few 'funny little sheep' alongside some more commercial types, there'd be a bigger market for females of the rare breed, enabling those who can breed them pure to do so more often / in larger numbers.
And there's nothing at all wrong, in my view, in having some rare breed sheep and only breeding the better of the ewes pure, and not necessarily every year. If that were a more accepted practise, and not frowned upon (or worse), there may be more people willing to keep a small flock of such breeds, and breed a few pure for replacements and a few for sale, the rest to a more commercial type tup for a fat lamb crop that will make a contribution to the running costs of the flock.
It's not a very popular viewpoint with most of the Breed Societies, I know - but there are some who think the same amongst the RBST field officers ;)
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I think thats an interesting idea Sal but in this particular case I feel that it is a waste for same reason that Womble does. In the case of Zwartbles as the registered pure breeds cost more to buy then their offspring should therefore fetch a higher price as pure breed registered breedingstock ( with all the usual caveats about quality) but a cross breed which only has a meat value would not make the same return.
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The male purebred lambs will only have meat value also.
And not all the girls will be good enough to breed from.
The Manx ewe will be a lot cheaper to run than a Zwartbles ewe. And he wants to keep her. It's not like she's stealing a space from a Zwartbles ewe.
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YES!! Finally managed to catch the rest of the lambs to worm them! :yippee:
Lots of interesting and helpful discussion - thanks folks!
To address the points in turn, yes it's a shame if we decide not to keep a rare breed, especially one that's been in the family for ages. Our hope had been that we might take on my Aunt's flock when she finally gives up, and given that there aren't any other keepers on Scotland (or so the breed society tell me), it did seem like a good move to have a wee population up here as a safeguard in case the worst happened down south.
However, I can only stretch that so far TBH, and since I wouldn't sell ours except to somebody who knew what they were taking on, mutton looks like the kindest (and tastiest) option.
in this particular case I feel that {cross breeding} is a waste for same reason that Womble does.
Actually I don't have any qualms about cross breeding.
I wouldn't cross breed the Z ewes, but that's because the pure bred lambs are a good size anyway, and good pure ewes will have value as breeding stock. Also, we couldn't source another Manx tup this year, so put the Manx ewes to a Shetland tup lamb with no regrets. Likewise next year I'll happily run Alice with Ace, provided nobody convinces me that that's physically a bad idea (The Zwartbles lambs are born all legs and with narrow shoulders, so I do think it'll be ok).
Alice is not stealing space from a Z for another year or two, and if she gives us some good butcher's lambs in the meantime, as Sally says, she's earning her keep.
And not all the girls will be good enough to breed from.
That's a good point too, that I haven't really resolved wrt the Z's: What do people do with perfectly good, but mis-marked Z ewes? Do they have any value outside pedigree flocks, or are they best sent for meat? Again, I have no qualms about eating them, but I do wonder if that's the only answer?
Good discussion folks - keep it coming! :thumbsup:
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I know of a flock of Manxes near Castle Douglas - but they perhaps aren't registered.
Breed Societies get very sniffy about 'only helping the breed if they're registered' but, although I do understand where they are coming from, I don't wholly agree with them. It's still that type of sheep, exactly the same sheep as they'd be if they were registered. If a breed hit a real problem, the unregistered flocks would also be useful in saving / re-establishing the breed. (Except in so far as the Breed Soc block the use of the wider gene pool because their ancestry isn't in their database ::).) And in terms of why we should keep the rare breeds in the first place, this is met possibly even better by flocks that are there because they work in that situation ;)
I could even argue a case that Breed Soc's sometimes are responsible for narrowing a gene pool - look at the situation where all registered Hebrideans have to be black. How much genetic diversity has been lost? (I got this example from Fleecewife's website, so she'll correct me if I've misunderstood.)
Anyway, this was to reassure you, Womble, that there are other Manxes in Scotland, whatever the Breed Soc tells you.
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OK folks, time for an update methinks!
The "lay a trail of pellets and tie a long rope to the gate" trick stopped working eventually of course, and three of our four Manx ewes, plus their lambs became uncatchable via all means at our disposal. So, it was time to call in the heavies! ;D
We started off with three people and one collie, but after fifteen minutes had to go and get another one to help! :roflanim:
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/Z11.jpg)
So that's the lambs caught, checked and fluked, and three of our original four ewes securely penned awaiting their trip to the (ahem) seaside on Wednesday morning. Alice, our one friendly Manx nearly went the same way when we discovered she has foot-rot in one of her back hooves (can still run like :innocent: though!), but she got a reprieve by default as I'd dosed her with flukicide before I turned her over, and it has a 4 day withdrawal :-[. So,if she's sound by tupping time, she can stay. If not, she won't be tupped, and will go for slaughter in the spring along with her lambs, and there will end our Manx Loaghtan experiment.
(http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j216/Blutack/TAS2011/Sheep/manx2.jpg)
I'll send these girls on their way with a heavy heart. Maybe we let them down, but it's time to admit defeat - they just weren't the right sheep for us :'(.
Still, I'm looking forward some beautifully tasty mutton in a week's time! :thumbsup:
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You've done the right thing I am sure. Very unlucky to have such wild Manx. Mine were always very tame, but I got them young and fed them treats initially. After that they would come up for scratches etc. I would not keep sheep I could not catch on my own, so again you're def doing the right thing! I am sure the mutton will be very delicious!
Let us know :)
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I always keep back an old ewe I won't put to the tup again and let her run with the ewe lambs after they're split from the ram lambs. She'll automatically become the head of the new little flock and, since she's a bucket trained Southdown, immediately respond to my call or the sight of a bucket and the youngsters learn from her. I also always put down a handful or so of feed when I call them, until they're thoroughly trained.
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I always keep back an old ewe I won't put to the tup again and let her run with the ewe lambs after they're split from the ram lambs. She'll automatically become the head of the new little flock and, since she's a bucket trained Southdown, immediately respond to my call or the sight of a bucket and the youngsters learn from her. I also always put down a handful or so of feed when I call them, until they're thoroughly trained.
Can I ask ( if you don't mind) why she is left empty? Is it because she would have to train her own lambs, or is it because you don't want to breed from her?
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Well that was a bit of a nightmare! I forgot to put the propstand down on the trailer, so whilst they all filed in there quite the thing, it then tipped up and they ran straight back out again...... and then refused to go in a second time ::).
They then spent the whole journey bouncing about and probably getting bruised (should probably have taken two trips instead of transporting the ewes along with the tup lambs :innocent:. Then of course when I got to the other end, they wouldn't come out of the trailer, which was a bit embarrassing!
Still, it's done now, and the next time I see them, they'll be chops. Definitely the right decision, but I'm still going to miss them :'(.
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Well done, Womble. No-one could say you didn't try. And they'll taste wonderful :yum:
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Reporting back as promised:
- The ewes had to be halved at the abbatoir, and the spinal cord removed due to their age. This cost us £20 a head. They hung in the cold store for a week, then the butcher charged us £22 a head for butchery and freezing.
- We had one of the ewes cut as joints (not tried any yet), and the other two entirely minced. The jointed ewe weighed 14kg (for comparison, one of this year's Manx cross Shetland tup lambs who went at the same time (managed to miss him with the rubber band!) weighed 12kg jointed). The others yielded 11kg of mince each.
- So, for the minced ones, only taking into account slaughter and butchery costs, that's (20+22)/11 = £3.80 per kg vs Tesco's current price of £6.67 per kg. I'm not making any judgement on this - just for interest.
- The mince looks far fattier than I'd expected from looking at the carcasses, and we drained about 20% fat off it during cooking. Perhaps the Manxes carried more fat internally, or maybe the butcher put the trimmings of the Z's into the mince. We'll use it ourselves, but I'd be embarrassed to ask top whack for it if we were selling.
And the verdict? It tastes like mince!! ;D Ever so slightly chewier than supermarket mince, but the flavour isn't greatly different. Still, all's well that ends tastily! :yum:
P.S. Alice, the remaining tame one still has footrot and has now lost almost all of one hoof, which we're treating as best we can (she's separated from the rest to avoid cross infection). This is causing her to limp a little bit, whereas it would have completely floored a Zwartbles. Are primitives less prone to foot rot, or can they just cope with it better due to their lower weight and better agility? - Discuss! :)
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I'm glad you've got some good meat for your troubles. You paid a lot for kill and cut, though - when we get ours done, we book them in at the abattoir for our butcher; he pays the abattoir and charges us for both kill and cut. Last time it was £24 for an adult Shetland ewe.
The ewe meat is generally more fatty, yes, and needs longer slower cooking - but should be absolutely delicious. Discerning customers with good taste buds should be very happy to buy it off you! If it's very fatty, I often cook, cool, skim, reheat - so cook today to eat tomorrow. The dogs love the skimmings;) :yum: :dog:
Poor Alice. I hope she makes a full recovery. I had some neighbour's sheep come and bring loads of footy germs onto the land where my fleece sheep are ::); the limpies have been through the flock one by one. Most of them have gone lame for two to three days, then recovered. I generally do let them try to shake it off themselves, so they develop immunity; I only treat if they are struggling to overcome it. So far I haven't needed to intervene at all. :fc:
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Hi Sally, Yes I knew that was a bit steep from having read other threads, but went with it this time because I knew the quality would be good. Thanks for your comment though, and I'll investigate other alternatives for next time :thumbsup:.
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Been following this with keen interest Womble - we have some Herdwicks that I thought were going to follow the same foot steps as yours to the abattoir! Well they were if I could catch the blighters!
Then this weekend I managed to bring them all in together in less than 15 minutes - they must have heard me! :roflanim: Decided to tup them, and give them another chance... but will be bearing in mind your food feedback for if/when they start misbehaving again!
Out of interest - what did you make with the mince?
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Hi Sally, Yes I knew that was a bit steep from having read other threads, but went with it this time because I knew the quality would be good. Thanks for your comment though, and I'll investigate other alternatives for next time :thumbsup: .
Maybe it's a Scottish thing but we pay £25 for slaughter for splitters and £25 for butchery. I always read with envy when I see what you southerners pay
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Hi Sally, Yes I knew that was a bit steep from having read other threads, but went with it this time because I knew the quality would be good. Thanks for your comment though, and I'll investigate other alternatives for next time :thumbsup: .
Maybe it's a Scottish thing but we pay £25 for slaughter for splitters and £25 for butchery. I always read with envy when I see what you southerners pay
Amazing. The abattoir we're using is less than 15 miles from the Scottish Border ::) Probably about 10 as the crow flies.