big brown horse
Hoof In Mouth
I just assumed he would taste better.patandchickens said:
More sheep coming next week! (was: need encouragement)
- Thread starter patandchickens
- Start date
Blackbird
Goat Whisperer
Logistics? Never heard of such a thing. If there's a will, there's a way! If you wanted a ram, that is.
Henrietta23
Yard Farmer
Has she shared this with the baby sheep????patandchickens said:
rebecca100
Almost Self-Reliant
Okay everyone, I kinda agree on not keeping a ram. I had a Jacob ram acouple of years ago and two ewes. He had been raised on a bottle and was a pet until breeding time. He became aggressive toward everything and even rammed the ewes when he could find nothing else to torture. I lived in fear that he would get loose and get one of the kids or me. He hit HARD and repeatedly. he actually killed one of my baby goats when he got it penned in a corner of the fence and it was too scared to try to pass him to get away so it huddled up and he hit it repeatedly until I beat him back into a stall. The goat died that night. He stayed in the stall all the time after that and then he would repeatedly ram the stall doors. We had him a total of 3 months. I am sure that most rams are not that bad, I really think he was just a exception, but needless to say, I wouldn't keep one again unless it had its own pen that it couldn't get out of and was away from anything else. Especially if space was limited for the ewes to be able to escape his abuses.
miss_thenorth
Frugal Homesteader
No, I have Romanovs. About 6 cups per ewe per day. This is enough for us, but I know you woudl get alot more from an actual milking breed or a goat.
Also as a side note, we may be getting so small an amount b/c of my and my dd;s inexperience. we had a heck of a time figuring out whether her udder was empty, and that may have inhibited her production. That was the other reason we got the udderly easy milker. for me that was the hardest part about milking--trying to figure out if she was empty or not.
lupinfarm
Almost Self-Reliant
FarmGirl, let us know when you eventually move permanently to the gorgeous county! We've spoken on BYC I believe before about the county. Its a fantastic area and I'm slowly uncovering all the breeders around here lol. I just visited an amazing goat farm today.FarmGirl said:
freemotion
Food Guru
Pat, I know nothing about sheep and rams, but here is what I discovered this week....yesterday, to be exact.
Intact, mature rams and bucks took the highest prices at the local auctions this week because certain ethnic groups prefer them for their holiday meals. The person who bought my buck yesterday made room in their barn for my purebred, registerable La Mancha by selling their La Mancha cross who was MUCH SMALLER than my teensy-tiny guy...theirs brought $120 at the auction, and they were happy to pay $100 for my buck! I would've been talked down to $50. I paid $100 for him so all I paid for breeding my two does was the cost of hay and grain for 5 months. Not much for a teensy-tiny buck.
I bought a youngster so he would be cheaper and more managable. He was. My only requirements for him was that he have a wiener and nuggets. I only took my beatin' stick to him twice, and that was recently, and it was a minor deal....he experimentally bumped me from behind when I was catching "his" doe and I whacked him on the shoulder hard and fast and he smartened up right quick! Tried it again a week later, got another smack, and then I just had to stick out my chest at him (if you only knew how pathetic that really is....
) and he would scamper away.
I plan on repeating that plan this coming fall. I know now that I can sell my next buck at auction for a decent price if I wait until mid-March.
Yup, I heard all the stories, too. I asked my dad, and we had no trouble with bucks when we bred our does when I was a kid. In fact, I remember switching the does in his pen (we borrowed.)
The issue for me now is that no one wants to risk disease by letting their buck come into contact with strange does. Plus there is the transportation issue. Plus they wanted veterinary certificates of health and vaccinations....some that I don't give. It would've cost me at least $2-300 per doe just for the vet stuff. Sheesh!
If you are really wanting milk, I still vote for a couple of goats. But I am decidedly biased, I do admit that!
Intact, mature rams and bucks took the highest prices at the local auctions this week because certain ethnic groups prefer them for their holiday meals. The person who bought my buck yesterday made room in their barn for my purebred, registerable La Mancha by selling their La Mancha cross who was MUCH SMALLER than my teensy-tiny guy...theirs brought $120 at the auction, and they were happy to pay $100 for my buck! I would've been talked down to $50. I paid $100 for him so all I paid for breeding my two does was the cost of hay and grain for 5 months. Not much for a teensy-tiny buck.
I bought a youngster so he would be cheaper and more managable. He was. My only requirements for him was that he have a wiener and nuggets. I only took my beatin' stick to him twice, and that was recently, and it was a minor deal....he experimentally bumped me from behind when I was catching "his" doe and I whacked him on the shoulder hard and fast and he smartened up right quick! Tried it again a week later, got another smack, and then I just had to stick out my chest at him (if you only knew how pathetic that really is....
) and he would scamper away.I plan on repeating that plan this coming fall. I know now that I can sell my next buck at auction for a decent price if I wait until mid-March.
Yup, I heard all the stories, too. I asked my dad, and we had no trouble with bucks when we bred our does when I was a kid. In fact, I remember switching the does in his pen (we borrowed.)
The issue for me now is that no one wants to risk disease by letting their buck come into contact with strange does. Plus there is the transportation issue. Plus they wanted veterinary certificates of health and vaccinations....some that I don't give. It would've cost me at least $2-300 per doe just for the vet stuff. Sheesh!
If you are really wanting milk, I still vote for a couple of goats. But I am decidedly biased, I do admit that!
big brown horse
Hoof In Mouth
Y'all FREE JUST SAID WIENER AND NUGGETS!!!!!!!!!!!
O.K that just made my night!!!!!! Where is Occam and OFG!
FREE YOU ARE TOO FUNNY!!!!
O.K that just made my night!!!!!! Where is Occam and OFG!
FREE
YOU ARE TOO FUNNY!!!!
freemotion
Food Guru
I take no responsibility for anything I type after 10 PM!!! 
Beekissed
Mountain Sage
This is a key phrase I've heard repeatedly when referring to aggressive rams. I've read numerous articles that advise against making a pet bottle lamb into your herd ram. They have lost all fear of humans as a predatory species by that time and treat you like a competing ram.
I would guess that this is sort of like the roos that folks talk about being their pets and gentle as a dove until they get the notion they are top roo of the flock and start attacking humans.
I think it all comes down to treating animals like you are the herd/flock/pack master and not as a petting zoo pal. Particularly the males.
I would say that a certain amount of testosterone driven behavior was desirable but outright aggression for no reason would be a reason to cull...as with any male animal. A ram lamb that has not been treated as a pet could be judged on his own sheepy merits and either kept or culled for the traits of being an aggressive breeder but with a measure of workable docility.
Just like with any male breeding age and intact animal, they should all be treated with vigilance and respect for their ability to inflict harm.
Maybe if you start with a ram lamb you could train him to recognize you as flock master?
