Nate's system works well for me, too. At weaning, I put the ram lambs in the ram pen with the adult rams. Usually they just sniff the lambs; rarely do they knock them around. When possible, I leave the ewe lambs with their mother to wean naturally. In the case of a ewe/ram set of twins, removing the ram lamb allows the mom to retain condition by not having to feed two lambs. Unless a mom has lost a lot of condition, I don't see a reason to force wean her ewe lamb. I try to reduce stress whenever possible.
For many years, I moved the ewe and ram lambs into a weaning pen for a month, but I learned the hard way that those little buggers are fertile at 4 months of age. Carol At 08:22 PM 1/31/2008, Nate wrote: >I always put my young rams and bucks in with the older bucks ( not >at breeding time ) and let the older ones knock them around and >teach them how to fall in line. Carol Elkins Critterhaven--Registered Barbados Blackbelly Hair Sheep (no shear, no dock, no fuss) Pueblo, Colorado http://www.critterhaven.biz T-shirts, mugs, caps, and more at the Barbados Blackbelly Online Store http://www.cafepress.com/blackbellysheep _______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
