blueberryfarm
Sun, 16 Dec 2007 05:21:18 -0800
Stephanie, I use a relative count for eggs. I use one cover slip to count from a solution made with 3 grams of droppings (fiascofarm.com). I count only that one cover slip portion and usually find 8 - 15 eggs of various types. I look for diarrhea and listen for coughing and general appearance and behavior. Not a serious examination, but I just look at them several times a day as I go about my business on the farm (we farm blueberries). We do rotate pasture and we try to keep the grass rather high (about 3 inches) but we cannot always do that when we have periods of drought. We will occasionally put a cow in the vacant pasture, but only to get the cow (we have one longhorn) out of a pasture we are working on. We have only had our blackbellies for two and one half years and been through three lambings. There have been no problems with the sheep. We currently have 14 sheep on about 3 acres of pasture. After another round of lambing we will open up another 4 acres of pasture for them. Being inexperienced with sheep, I really don't know what are proper animal/pasture ratios with our crude type of pasture management (not at all scientific...just a what does it look like? type of analysis). My plan is to increase the flock to a size where either (1) we can easily just keep the grass up or (2) we can just sell enough lambs to maintain the flock size, whichever comes first. Aside from the winter rye, our pasture grass is what came up naturally after we cut and dug out the pines. Maybe we are having just dumb luck so far. Jerry Picayune, MS ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephanie Parrish" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info> Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 10:06 PM Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium > Jerry, > > To what do you attribute your sheeps' low fecal egg counts? Are the > sheep grazed with other species? Do you rotate their pastures? Are > there just a few animals on a lot of pasture? I'd love to know how > you > manage this, as most people in the SE tend to have more problems with > parasites in their sheep. I know that we have had a few more problems > with parasites here in SC than we did further north in MD. > > Stephanie Parrish > Westminster, SC > > On Dec 15, 2007, at 8:34 PM, blueberryfarm wrote: > >> I have enjoyed reading all these posts on nutrition, but they make me >> feel very inadequate. Am I not treating my blackbellies well? I >> simply >> put them out to pasture, fertilize once in the summer and again in >> the >> late fall when I put out my winter rye. They get granulated mineral >> ad >> lib and nothing else. I monitor their droppings for eggs and their >> load >> is light so I do not worm them and they lamb every 7 or 8 months, but >> I >> have not yet had any twins. I have trained them to a feed bucket >> and >> a >> vocal call, but they get a taste of the feed bucket only maybe once a >> month. They are a joy to have and to watch but require very little >> maintenance in my part of the country, if one is satisfied with >> single >> births. >> >> Jerry >> Picayune, Mississippi >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Barb Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> To: <blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info> >> Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 7:05 PM >> Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium >> >> >>> Thanks Shel! >>> >>> This sounds like a keen interest for you too! >>> >>> Our sulphur levels in the feed are averaging around 0.11 mg. I am >>> going >>> to be adding a horse product called "Gen-A-Horse" to the sheeps' >>> feed >>> which is biotin, another sulphur bearing compound, and zinc >>> methionine. >>> I may have the sulphur dilemma nailed! >>> >>> Reading more, I guess that sulphur isn't a common supplement because >>> a >>> lot of drinking water contains sulphates and some byproduct type >>> feeds >>> are also high in sulphur, so apparently excess is more of a problem >>> than >>> deficiency. >>> >>> Barb >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "Asylum Farm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> To: <blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info> >>> Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 4:08 PM >>> Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Selenium >>> >>> >>>> Barb- if I remember correctly, to supplement sulfur you should >>>> ideally >>>> add methionine. And the requirements were that 0.4mg was an >>>> acceptable level. >>>> >>>> Shel >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> _____________________________________________________________________ >>>> _______________ >>>> Looking for last minute shopping deals? >>>> Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. >>>> http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php? >>>> category=shopping >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list >>>> Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list >>> Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list >> Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info >> > > _______________________________________________ > This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list > Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info > _______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info