[blackbelly] New Tilting Sheep Squeeze and Selenium/Scours

[Barb Lee]

I answered a classified ad in the NW regional ag newspaper for a tilting 
sheep squeeze last week, thinking it was a used item.  Sheep equipment 
is nearly impossible to find around here!  It turns out the gentleman 
makes them.  The price was about half what I'd seen searching the 
internet, so I though, mmm hmm...  Well, the time has definitely come to 
find some sort of sheep restraining equipment, so I made the 1 1/2 hour 
trip to Ariel WA today.

What a pleasant surprise!  An absolutely professionally built little 
tilting sheep table!  Turns out the gentleman was in the business of 
building dairy equipment, and has all the tools of the trade to 
fabricate some really fine looking gear.  I was more than happy to load 
it up and bring it home!  It looks like adjusting it down to its 
smallest size and lowering one piece of wood about 3" will set it up for 
even the 6 month old lambs.  I will not need it until mid-October, so 
that gives me some time to design some chutes around it.  It appears to 
be just about exactly the unit depicted in the Midwest Plans book, but 
with a few of his own tweaks.  We'll set it up with some wheels on one 
end so we can easily move it around with the tractor.  I'm very happy to 
find such a nice quality piece of equipment for such a reasonable price.

On an entirely different subject, I know some list members have sheep 
that are plagued with a mysterious loose bowel problem, and I read the 
other day in the Stockman Grass Farmer that this can actually be caused 
by selenium deficiency.  I did some surfing around and I think it's 
Minnesota Sate University that advised feeding sheep mineral with up to 
90 ppm selenium added.  The NW is very selenium deficient.  I compared 
some labels at the feed store the other day.  Sweetlix adds 50 ppm 
selenium to their sheep mineral.  I bought a brand called Shamrock, 
which has 90 ppm.  The sheep really hove into it too, though they always 
have a selection of another brand of mineral, plain salt, and kelp meal. 
Kelp is only about .3 ppm selenium.

Anyway, if you've got one or two sheep in the flock with a mysteriously 
loose pooper, you might make sure their selenium intake is adequate. 
Next time I have the vet out, I'm going to have a blood sample drawn to 
see how we're doing.

Regards,
Barb Lee



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