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Many owners of private farmsteads today consider sheep as a way to provide their families with meat, and possibly wool, if women show a desire for needlework. In the European part of Russia, sheep are almost never used as a source of milk, although sheep’s milk is much better suited for making homemade cheeses than goat’s or cow’s milk.
Urban residents who have moved to the countryside have especially many questions about raising livestock, including sheep. Raising sheep at home for beginners often seems like something very difficult and unrealistic. Of course, in order to raise sheep, you need to know some of the features of their behavior, living conditions and feeding. And also the basics of veterinary medicine to be able to determine that 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 main rule: first they build a sheepfold, then they have sheep.
What you need to decide before buying sheep:
- How many heads will be purchased? The size of the sheepfold and feed reserves depend on this.
- Where will there be a place to store hay? One head needs at least 2 kg of hay per day.
- How will the walk be organized?
- What you need to have in your veterinarian's 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 housing
Sheep are social animals; they feel out of place outside the flock, so they need company. It's better to have at least a couple of sheep. More can be done if space allows. When purchasing ewes for breeding, you need to take into account that after lambing the number of sheep will increase significantly. Many ewes produce more than one lamb, and the popular Romanov breed in Russia usually produces 2 to 4 lambs per lambing. If the number of sheep is planned to be small, an ordinary animal shed will be enough to keep it. If the number of sheep in the flock is significant, it is better to build a special sheepfold, which will provide both a room for sheep and utility rooms.
This plan is not a dogma, but a guide to action.
A smaller area is extremely undesirable; the sheep will be cramped, and the animals will not be able to warm a larger area with their own heat. Normally, the temperature in a sheepfold if there are sheep in it should be 5 – 10°C. If the temperature drops lower in winter, sheep need insulated housing.
For lambing, it is necessary to equip a separate room where no one will disturb the ewe.The air temperature in the maternity room should not be below 10°C. The usual range is 10 – 18°C. On average they maintain 15°C. Therefore, during winter lambing, the maternity ward must be additionally heated. It is better to take these factors into account at the stage of building a sheepfold.
Feed storage and sheep diet
Sheep feeding standards include 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 specifics of livestock farming in Russia are such that the main reserves of hay are made once a year for the entire season. In other words, hay will need to be purchased in the summer before the next haymaking.
The duration of grazing on grass varies among regions of Russia. In some places you can graze animals for six months, in others only 3 months. Based on these data, hay reserves are calculated. Hay is supplied 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 to which the hay is compressed by the machine. The size of a standard hay bale is usually 1.2 x 0.6 x 0.4 m. Knowing the size of the hay bale and your ability to stack 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 paddock
Proper raising of sheep cannot exist without organizing walking for the animals. If you buy young animals in the spring to raise for meat and slaughter in the fall, then walking is not necessary, but if you want to breed animals yourself, you can’t do without walking.Sheep, as herbivores, need a lot of movement for normal maturation. Some owners even deliberately give their ewes walks 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 during lambing. Therefore, the availability of walking opportunities for ewes is mandatory. You can make a pen for the ewes, you can simply let them out to roam freely, if possible.
How to properly raise sheep on a farm
Vet kit
The veterinarian's kit should contain:
- chemical spray or aluminum spray for spraying external skin lesions;
- tar, cubatol or other drug that helps cope with hoof rot;
- syringes;
- big enema;
- antihistamines;
- tympanol;
- preferably a gastric tube;
- bandages;
- cotton wool;
- tourniquet
It is quite common for sheep to experience rumen swelling. 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 methods of breeding: natural and artificial insemination.
It is advisable to use AI on large farms with a large number of ewes. Or if you want to get offspring from a particularly valuable sire.
For a private owner, the use of this method is inappropriate. When raising sheep for meat at home, it is easier to either find a sheep in the neighborhood or buy your own. To prevent the ram from inseminating the ewes ahead of schedule, he is kept separately and released to the ewes at the scheduled time. After insemination, the ram can be safely kept with ewes almost until the very beginning of lambing.
Conditions for keeping sheep in winter
Winter care for sheep largely depends on the breed of animal. Sheep, adapted to cold weather, winter well in uninsulated sheds on deep bedding. Southern breeds need a warm sheepfold, sometimes with the use of heaters. Keeping sheep under sheds in winter is applicable only to the Buubey meat breed; the rest need insulated or non-insulated premises.
Caring for pregnant ewes requires the 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 married and single ewes
In summer, they try to keep sheep on green grass, adding only table salt and feed chalk to the diet.
A sudden change in diet leads to gastrointestinal upset.
The winter diet of pregnant ewes in the first half of pregnancy does not differ from the diet of single ewes, although efforts must be made to ensure that there are no single ewes in the flock. The diet of the ewe in the second half of pregnancy in winter is shown in the table.
But it is important not only to feed sheep in winter, but also to water them. Many owners mistakenly believe that animals do not need to be watered in winter; they can eat snow. In fact, animals need water no less in winter than in summer. Snow cannot provide all the necessary minerals, since it is essentially distilled water. Distilled water has the unpleasant property of washing out the minerals and trace elements present in the body.
A brief description of preparation for mating and caring for a pregnant and lambing ewe
Signs of heat in a ewe:
- the vulva turned red and swollen:
- mucus comes out of the loop, having 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 ewe should be sufficiently well-fed, but not fat. Both wasting and obesity have a very bad effect on the fertility of a sheep. Usually, they try to time the mating of ewes with rams so that lambing occurs at a time when 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 a ewe differs during different periods of pregnancy.
Lambing
Shortly before the expected lambing, the ewe is cut off the hair around the anus and genitals, on the tail, on the inside of the thighs and on the udder. This is done for better hygiene of the lambing ewe, and so that the born lamb does not suck dirty wool.
Immediately before lambing, the ewe is transferred to a clean room with a floor lined with fresh straw or hay.
Signs of beginning lambing in a ewe:
- prolapse of the abdomen;
- colostrum in the udder;
- the appearance of a groove between the ischial tuberosities and the tail;
- clear mucus from the loop;
- swelling of the vulva;
- nest building.
The ewe can lamb standing or lying down. It is for this reason that there should be a thick bedding of hay on the floor so that a lamb that falls from a standing ewe is not injured.
If several lambs are to be born, the interval between lambings can be from 10 to 45 minutes.
After lambing is complete, it is necessary to check the delivered placenta to make sure that it is intact and that there are no unnecessary pieces of the baby’s place left in the ewe.
After lambing, the ewe is given warm water to drink.
Caring for Newborn Lambs
The lambs are wiped with a straw rope and placed under the ewe's muzzle so that she licks the baby. It is necessary to ensure that 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. Excess lambs are either taken from under the ewe and fed with milk replacers, or left under the ewe, but in this case all the lambs are fed.
Keeping sheep only for meat is not as profitable as it could be if milk was added to the meat. But we must remember that a milking ewe is “started” just like a cow a couple of months before lambing. Otherwise, the lamb may be born with underdeveloped internal organs. The term "start" means to gradually stop milking the ewe.
Conclusion
Knowing how to keep sheep, you can ensure that your family is provided not only with meat, but also with delicious cheeses, as well as warm sheep fur coats.
