As per my comedy of errors story below:
April 30th was 150 days, and one of the ewes, Beatrice was starting to
bag up around day 145 or 148 or so. Still no lambs. The other, Jules
is probably pregnant, but no where near as huge as Beatrice. Jules may
not lamb for another couple of weeks. Beatrice appears to be ready to
drop at any time. At least twins, I suspect.
is 150 days pretty accurate for ABs? The two rogue rams got to the
ewes 150 days before April 30th. I am hoping the girls might not have
been in full estrus and that when the two rogue rams got to them,
nothing happened. Since April 30 has came and gone, the more days we
get into May, the less chance the sire is one of the rogue rams.
On the same day back in December, the ewes were then with the ram I
DID want as sire for the next 30 days or so, I am hoping he is the
sire, and maybe got Beatrice pregnant a few days later.
-Michael, Perino Ranch Blackbellies.
On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 2:36 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
> So, I have 4 acres with many many separate pastures with gates and
> enclosures. I spent the morning first separating out the two ewes,
> pasture by pasture (I don't have a chute system yet). I wanted to pair
> these girls with Harpo an inexperienced but beautiful ram. They went
> into a pasture right next door to the rams, which were already
> fighting over them, and the girls were demonstrating the fact they
> appeared to be in heat.
>
> Mind you, I am doing this all by myself this morning.
>
> I have 5 intact rams, but they are actually not too difficult to
> separate out. There was a narrow 8' wide by about 30' long run between
> the ewe's pasture and the ram's pasture, and it had some fresh green
> grass in it that looked real good to eat. I set up the gate to allow
> all the rams into the run, through the gate, one at a time, and simply
> not allowing Harpo in. It worked-- since he's timid-- and was the last
> one trying to follow in. I then lazily threw a chain around a post,
> thinking the gate would stay closed juust long enough to chase
> Harpo in through a small shaded gate under a shed roof, and he'd go in
> with the girls. I forgot the famous findings of Temple Grandin and how
> herd animals don't like to enter shaded, scary looking places.
>
> Then things went wrong and I wish I had a camera, since it would have
> a good Darwin Award Video, with me starring as the Village Idiot.
>
> Harpo is being scared of where I am trying to force him to go, so he's
> running everywhere through a pasture but not through the dark opening
> to the girl's pasture. Meanwhile, the other rams start banging
> against the run gate, and two other rams bang the gate loose, they're
> no fools, and instantly run in through the shaded opening, in with the
> ewes. They start mounting away, as I have to secure the run gate to
> keep the rest of the rams from escaping... I am cussing my head off,
> realizing my selective breeding program has probably just been
> spoiled, if the girls are really fully in heat. It takes about a
> minute to really chain the gate well, and these guys are wasting no
> time.
>
> I manage to grab a more tame one, Ziggy, almost instantly, and drag
> him back with the rest of the guys, cussing all the while. The other,
> Verne, is working the girls over and staying with them as they run all
> over the place, mounting them every time they will stay still in
> between chases by me. I could only imagine he knew he was on borrowed
> time :-)
>
> I end up having to close everything, let the rams back out of the long
> run into their pasture, and re-set the gates to use the long run as a
> trap on my side instead, and run Verne and the girls into the long
> narrow run so I can separate them. It works fairly easily.
>
> At this point, I am glad I have experience with a crook. Since he
> little place to run, I crook him handily and end up picking him up and
> just dumping him over the fence into the ram pasture again. Good thing
> he's the smaller of the rams!
>
> Chase the girls out of the run, start the whole process over. Close
> off the gates to favor the ram side again. Rams still easily walk into
> the long run one by one, cut off Harpo again, but this time, I use
> BrainPower and bother to stop and chain everything up well.
>
> I guess if they lamb in 150 days to the day, I'll know there's no idea
> who the father is, but if they take a week or more than the normal
> period, it's a good chance Harpo is the father. The other two are
> plenty good sires, but they are not Harpo.
>
> The learning question here is: besides me being daft and
> underestimating Harpo's reluctance to go into a shaded, strange
> area--and not chaining things up safely, what sort of chute can one
> use for rams with large horn racks? I imagine if you measured Marley,
> the largest rack-ed ram, he's have 35-40 inches or so.
>
> -Michael, Perino Ranch Blackbellies
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