Content
Many owners of private farms today see sheep as a way to provide their families with meat, and, possibly, wool, if women show a desire for needlework. Sheep is almost never used as a source of milk in the European part of Russia, although sheep's milk is much better suited for making homemade cheeses than goat's or cow's.
Urban residents who have moved to the village have a lot of questions about raising livestock, including sheep. Breeding sheep at home for beginners often seems like something very difficult and unrealistic. Of course, in order to breed sheep, you need to know some features of their behavior, conditions of keeping and feeding. And also the basics of veterinary medicine, to be able to determine if a sheep is not feeling well. But learning this is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance.
Basic rules for keeping sheep for beginners
The first and most important rule: first they build a sheepfold, then they have sheep.
What you need to decide before buying sheep:
- How many heads will be bought. The size of the sheepfold and the stock of feed depends on this.
- Where there will be a place to store hay. One head needs at least 2 kg of hay per day.
- How the walk will be organized.
- What you need to have in your first aid kit.
- Where to store animal waste.
Without answers to these questions, it will be very difficult not to ruin the purchased animals.
Sheep room
Sheep are social animals, outside the flock they feel uncomfortable, so they need company. Better to have at least a couple of sheep. You can do more if the area allows. When buying ewes for breeding, you need to take into account that after lambing, the number of sheep will increase significantly. Many ewes bring more than one lamb, and the popular Romanov breed in Russia usually yields 2 to 4 lambs per lambing. If the number of sheep is planned to be small, an ordinary barn for animals will be enough for its maintenance. If the number of sheep in the flock is significant, it is better to build a special sheepfold, where both a room for sheep and auxiliary rooms are provided.
This layout is not a dogma, but a guide to action.
A smaller area is highly undesirable, the sheep will be cramped, and the larger animals will not be able to warm them with their own heat. Normally, the temperature in the sheepfold, if there are sheep in it, should be 5 - 10 ° C. If the temperature drops lower in winter, the sheep need an insulated room.
For lambing, it is necessary to equip a separate room where no one will disturb the ewes. The air temperature in the delivery room should not be lower than 10 ° C. Typical range is 10 - 18 ° C. On average, maintain 15 ° C. Therefore, during winter lambings, the maternity ward must be additionally heated. It is better to take these factors into account even at the stage of building a sheepfold.
Sheep feed storage and diet
Sheep feeding norms provide for daily feeding of 2 kg of hay, 200 - 400 g of concentrates, 10 - 15 g of table salt, as well as feed chalk and vitamin premixes.The main place will be occupied by hay, and the specificity of animal husbandry in Russia is such that the main stocks of hay are made once a year for the entire season. In other words, hay will have to be purchased in the summer before the next haymaking.
The duration of grazing on the grass varies by region of Russia. Somewhere animals can be grazed for six months, somewhere only 3 months. Based on these data, the calculation of hay stocks is made. Hay is delivered in rolls from 250 kg or in bales. The average weight of a bale of high-quality hay is 10 - 15 kg, but much depends on the degree of compaction of the hay by the machine. The size of a standard bale of hay is usually 1.2x0.6x0.4 m. Knowing the size of the bale of hay and your ability to fold the bales into a pyramid, you can calculate the space required for hay.
The denser the hay is compressed, the less moisture will penetrate into the bales.
Sheep walk
Competent sheep raising cannot exist without organizing animal walks. If you buy young animals in the spring for growing for meat and slaughter in the fall, then walking is not necessary, but if you want to breed animals yourself, you cannot do without walking. Sheep, as herbivores, need a lot of movement for the normal course of pregnancy. Some owners even specifically arrange for ewes to walk for at least an hour a day to get the animals to walk, rather than stand or lie in the pen. Without such walks, the abdominal muscles weaken and the sheep may have problems with lambing. Therefore, the presence of the possibility of walking for ewes is mandatory. You can make a corral for ewes, you can just let them walk freely, if possible.
How to properly raise sheep in a subsidiary farm
First aid kit
The first aid kit should contain:
- chemi spray or aluminum spray for splashing external skin lesions;
- tar, cubatol or another drug that helps to cope with hoof rot;
- syringes;
- large enema;
- antihistamines;
- tympanol;
- preferably a gastric tube;
- bandages;
- cotton wool;
- harness.
Swelling of the rumen is quite common in sheep. You can remove gases from the stomach by injecting tympanol or using a gastric tube.
Sheep breeding methods and their characteristics
There are actually two breeding methods: naturally and artificial insemination.
AI is advisable to use in large farms on a large number of ewes. Or, if you want to get offspring from a particularly valuable producer.
For a private trader, the use of this method is impractical. When raising sheep for meat at home, it is easier to either find a sheep in the neighborhood, or buy your own. So that the ram does not inseminate the ewes before the scheduled time, it is kept separately, launching to the ewes at the scheduled time. After insemination, the ram can be safely kept with the ewes almost until the very beginning of lambing.
Conditions for keeping sheep in winter
Winter care for sheep is highly dependent on the breed of animal. Sheep, adapted to cold weather, winter well in non-insulated sheds on deep bedding. Southern breeds need a warm sheepfold, sometimes with heaters. Keeping sheep in winter under sheds is applicable only to the buubei beef breed, the rest need an insulated or not insulated room.
Caring for pregnant ewes provides for the mandatory presence of a warm room in the winter. Such a room is necessary even Romanov sheep... Moreover, ewes of this breed can lamb in winter.
Winter and summer rations of pregnant and single ewes
In summer, they try to keep the sheep on green grass, adding only table salt and feed chalk to the diet.
A sudden change in diet leads to upset gastrointestinal tract.
The winter diet of pregnant ewes in the first half of pregnancy does not differ from the diet of unmarried ewes, although care should be taken to ensure that there are no loose ewes in the flock. The diet of ewes in the second half of the winter season will be shown in the table.
But it is not only the feeding of the sheep in winter that is important, but also their watering. Many owners mistakenly believe that animals do not need to be watered in winter, they can eat snow. In fact, animals need water in winter no less than in summer. Snow cannot provide all the necessary minerals, as it is essentially distilled water. Distilled water, on the other hand, has an unpleasant tendency to flush out the minerals and trace elements it contains from the body.
A brief description of preparation for mating and caring for a pregnant and lambing ewes
Signs of hunting in ewes:
- the vulva turned red and swollen:
- from the loop comes mucus, which has a different consistency, depending on the period of estrus: at the beginning it is transparent, in the middle it is cloudy and at the end it resembles sour cream.
By the time of mating, the ewes should be sufficiently plump, but not fat. Both emaciation and obesity have a very bad effect on the fertility of the sheep. Usually, the mating of ewes with rams is tried to be matched so that lambing occurs at a time when the green grass has already appeared. For this reason, usually the second half of pregnancy occurs in winter, and ewes at this time need increased nutrition. The diet of ewes in different periods of pregnancy is different.
Lambing
Shortly before the intended lambing, the ewes are trimmed with hair around the anus and genitals, on the tail, on the inner thighs and on the udder. This is done for better hygiene of the lambing ewes, and so that the born lamb does not suck on dirty wool.
Immediately before lambing, the ewes are transferred to a clean room with a floor lined with fresh straw or hay.
Signs of incipient lambing in ewes:
- prolapse of the abdomen;
- colostrum in the udder;
- the appearance of a groove between the ischial tubercles and the tail;
- transparent mucus from the loop;
- swelling of the vulva;
- nest construction.
Ewes can lamb while standing or lying down. It is for this reason that there should be a thick bed of hay on the floor so that a lamb that falls out of a standing ewe is not injured.
If several lambs are to be born, then the break between lambs can be from 10 to 45 minutes.
After the end of lambing, it is necessary to check the released placenta to make sure that it is whole and there are no unnecessary pieces of the child's place left in the ewes.
After lambing, the ewes are allowed to drink warm water.
Caring for newborn lambs
The lambs are wiped with a straw tourniquet and slipped under the muzzle of the ewes so that she licks the cub. Make sure the lamb drinks colostrum as soon as possible. This will protect the lamb from possible diseases.
If more are born, the lambs will need to be fed. The excess lambs are either taken from under the ewes and fed with milk replacers, or left under the ewes, but in this case all the lambs are already fed.
Keeping sheep only for meat is not as beneficial as it could be if milk is also added to the meat. But we must remember that the milking ewes are "run" in the same way as a cow a couple of months before lambing. Otherwise, the lamb may be born with underdeveloped internal organs. The term "start" means the gradual end of milking of the ewes.
Conclusion
Knowing how to keep sheep, you can achieve the provision of a family not only with meat, but also with delicious cheeses, as well as warm sheep's coats.
