Re: [Blackbelly] hoof trimming tutorial
Hi, Carol, I found this article video very helpful. I live in typically dry Southern California, my sheep pens are on a boulder-filled hilly area. In the 6 yrs. I've been raising American Blackbelly sheep, I've never had to trim any of my sheeps' hooves. I've attributed it to the hard, rocky ground they are on every day that must sand them down. Inside their shed, the dirt is much softer but they rarely go in there. (I do fill it with straw during lambing in case the ewes want to go in there, but they usually don't.) However after returning to SoCal after 1 1/2 yrs. in Virginia (we temporarily moved there for my husband's job but weren't sure how long we'd stay so I left my sheep here to be cared for by our foreman), I noticed an elderly ewe had noticeably overgrown hooves. I asked my vet to show me how to trim them. He said this breeds' hooves are typically very hard difficult to cut through, so he did it with a horse's hoof trimmer. The Shear Magic Hoof Trimmers suggested in this article look alot easier to handle so I'm tempted to buy them give them a try. My question to you is, have you found AB's hooves to be harder than most sheeps' hooves, or is this maybe just a SoCal phenomenon? Thanx, Kathleen Wallis Eagle Rock Farm On Fri, Mar 27, 2015 at 3:39 PM, Carol Elkins celk...@critterhaven.biz wrote: Erik, the video plays fine for me, so I'm not sure what the problem might be on your end. You can view the video directly at YouTube.com here: https://www.youtube.com/embed/6ffU_cBjlsk? When you have trouble viewing an embedded video, right-click the link and select Copy Embed Code. Paste it temporarily in a Word doc. It will look something like this: iframe width=640 height=360 src=https://www.youtube.com/ embed/6ffU_cBjlsk?feature=player_embedded frameborder=0 allowfullscreen/iframe Within that nonsense there is a URL to YouTube.com that contains the video ID. Copy and paste the URL in your browser to go directly to the video in YouTube. Hope that helps. Carol At 04:26 PM 3/27/2015, you wrote: Hi, Carol, Excellent hoof trimming article. Thank you very much for forwarding. For some reason, I can't get the video link at the bottom of the photo article to come up. If others are having a similar problem, might there be a separate link to it that could be sent our? ___ 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
Re: [Blackbelly] Hello! - American Blackbelly Sheep
Hi, Jim. Welcome to the fun world of AB sheep! I adore mine. I'm sure you will enjoy yours. I live in San Diego County, CA. Not sure if that's too far for you, but if you're interested I have 2 American Blackbelly ram lambs currently for sale for $175 each. Both are 6 mos. old ready to start breeding! They have beautiful color ideal markings. They are both in excellent health have good horn set growth. I'm attaching photos of them their sire, Dandy, for you to check out. Though their dams sire are registered, the ram lambs are not currently registered. I like to give my customers the option to name their sheep names they like, as once a sheep is registered, their registration name can never be altered. I will be happy to help you with the registration procedures. If interested, please feel free to call me at (760) 519-0498. Sincerely, Kathleen Wallis Eagle Rock Farm On Wed, Dec 10, 2014 at 9:28 AM, Jim Isbell uncarved_bl...@earthlink.net wrote: Hello! My wife and I are interested in starting a flock of American Blackbelly sheep here on our farm in NW Arkansas. Plenty of land, good grass, water sources, woven wire fence - pretty much everything we need for sheep (I think!). However, we have had a heck of a time finding breeders online that are still working this type of sheep. We do have a few contacts for getting some young sheep this spring, though. Basically, just wanted to introduce myself and make a general inquiry Thanks, Jim Isbell To sin is a human business, to justify sins is a devilish business. - Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy ___ 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
Re: [Blackbelly] Naming schemes for lambs
Carol, That's so funny how much we all thought to name lambs w/ the same 1st letter as their dam. I did that for awhile til Beth's lamb named Bethany her sister named Bonnie started also having female lambs. I've been working on growing my flock numbers for awhile now, breeding my ewes to 2 unrelated rams, selling the ram lambs, keeping all the ewe lambs breeding them with the opposite ram. (I switch out one of the rams every other year to keep the gene pool strong.) Continuing to name lambs after their ewes generation after generation got kind of monotonous after awhile. Its kind of fun to go with themes. So now I tend to go with theme names that strike my fancy at the time of each lambing season - like, for ewe lambs, one season I might pick names of flowers (ie., Daisy, Rose, Lily, etc.), another season names of goddesses (ie., Athena, Aphrodite, Calliope, etc.). For ram lambs, I like to go with more impressive sounding names keeping in mind how impressive those boys will look when full grown. I like naming them after cities (like Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Tucson, etc.) or maybe after Greek or Nordic gods (ie,. Apollo, Aries, Atlas, etc.). I've been feeling particularly appreciative of our military heroes of late will probably name this season's ram lambs after military positions (ie., Colonel, Sergeant, Captain, etc.). I don't always stick to themes though. Sometimes I just feel inspired to name a lamb something out of the blue. One year a lamb was born that sounded just like a kazoo each time he'd bleat (so adorable) ... so that's his name. Kazoo! Another was such a dandy little fellow the way he strutted around had very impressive horn growth from the start ... so that's the name I went with for him - Dandy! Just in case I need some inspiration though, I keep a running list of names I add to whenever I hear a name I really like from a book, a movie or even a commercial. :D Kathleen Wallis On Sun, Jun 30, 2013 at 9:08 PM, Elizabeth Radi lizr...@skybeam.com wrote: Carol, I do the same as you. The moms name is Lucy, her lambs will be named starting with an L. Example, Lacy. If you have trouble coming up with names, get a book for naming babies, they have lots of neat names listed alphabetically and what they stand for. I do this mostly so my husband can keep things straight, but he still can't remember the names. I think that theme names are neat also. Think of expensive vehicles. Lexus, Cadillac, Lamborghini,Porsche etc. When registering dairy goats with the ADGA they have a tattoo year letter. This years letter that must be used is D. So every kid could be named starting with a D and you would know that that kid was born in 2013. Next year it will be E, then F and so on. Liz Radi Nubian goats and Katahdin Hair Sheep Nunn, Colorado 970-716-7218 idaralpaca.blogspot.com --- celk...@awrittenword.com wrote: From: Carol J. Elkins celk...@awrittenword.com To: blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info Subject: [Blackbelly] Naming schemes for lambs Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 17:08:09 -0600 Hi everyone, It's been quiet for quite awhile. Everyone must be either flooded out or drying up in the drought! I was just wondering what kind of naming schemes you might use when naming lambs born in your flock. I generally name my lambs based on maternal bloodline. For example, if the ewe is named Betty, then I would name her lambs Beatrice, Beetlejuice, Bonanza, etc. That is good for 26 maternal lines. Another gal I know names all lambs born in a group by something common, for example flowers (Rose, Petunia, Lilly). That way she knows siblings and perhaps year of birth. What naming schemes can YOU think of? Do you use a scheme when naming lambs in your flock? Carol ___ 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
Re: [Blackbelly] Fall-born lambs with fat bellies
I rotate my American Blackbelly ewes to give birth every 8 mos. so I've had lambs born at different times of the year. Since we're in Southern California, we don't get much grass growth so my sheep are on orchard grass hay or orchard/mix hay year round. I give my ewes grain (w/ a selenium supplement) the last month of their pregnancy continue til 2 mos. post lambing so both the ewes their lambs (en utero through suckling) get the benefits of grain during that time. None of my sheep, including the lambs, have ever gotten hay belly. Kathleen Wallis On Thu, Apr 4, 2013 at 9:07 PM, Nancy Johnson imgr8a...@comcast.net wrote: In the horse world a hay belly is when a horse is eating too much hay and getting fat. We say they have a hay belly and they need to lose weight. It wasn't because they were getting poor quality hay. At the moment, my little mule has a little bit of a hay belly. He eats pretty fast and can put away a lot before it runs out. My sheep and lambs get a combination of hay and feed. I give them pretty much as much hay as they can eat and supplement with feed. None of my sheep have fat bellies. Nancy On Apr 4, 2013, at 5:21 PM, Mary Swindell wrote: Someone asked me if they should be worried that their November lambs have fat bellies. These lambs are healthy otherwise, and are not carrying a worm load, coccidiosis, or any other known problem. I had a similar experience this fall and winter with my adult ewes which had fat bellies. They were not pregnant at the time, just fat in the tummy. My vet (who deals with cattle as well as sheep), as well as a couple of friends who raise cattle, said my ewes looked like they had hay belly. They said that in cattle, this condition results from the animals being fed a poor quality forage. They said it is not serious, it is that they fill up on the poor quality bulk trying to get enough nutrition when better forage is not available. Usually, my ewes spend the entire summer and fall eating grass in the pasture. But due to the extreme drought this past summer, they had to eat hay (big round bales of grass hay) all summer and fall. In other words, they never came off hay the entire year. They all seem fine now. They were bred in October and they lambed in March, with no apparent problems. But my friend has lambs who are exhibiting the same signs of hay belly. They were born in November, and would have been weaned in about February. So they've spent their first two months of post-weaning growth eating grass hay, rather than spring pasture, as most spring-born lambs would eat. I got to thinking: We hair sheep breeders probably have more evidence of the difference between fall-born lambs and spring-born lambs, than breeders of wooly breeds because our sheep can breed and lamb year-round. So we would be better able to compare the growth of young fall lambs (fed mostly on hay after weaning), to the growth of young spring lambs (fed mostly on grass after weaning) than most breeders of wool sheep. Which brings me to my question: Have any of you who raise both spring-born lambs and fall born lambs noticed any difference in the growth patterns of your fall lambs, such as a fat belly? Do you think this might be what the cattle people call hay belly, and might be due to being weaned onto dry hay forage rather than grass pasture? What is your opinion of this -- are there long term effects of this condition, and have you observed that these fall fat-bellied lambs grow out of the condition? Your thoughts on this matter are really appreciated! Sincerely, Mary Swindell ___ 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
