Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fuggin critters*, part deux

Well, looks like my dang livestock guardian dogs did it again. I woke up to them yesterday almost going at each other. And yet again, it was because my first lambs of the year had dropped overnight. And with all the lamb mothering and arguing those big dumb basterds are doing, it looks like it put the ewe off the lambs. Those silly dogs have lived their entire lives with each other, but throw a baby grass eater in with them, and they both perceive each other as threats or competitors.

So bottle fed lambs yet again…

PS there are sheep men like Jim C, then hobby farmers, and down lower on the spectrum you’d find me: idiot sheep dilettante.

God bless you. Sheep are the dumbest critters I have ever been around. I remember as a kid putting lambs into the barn. We put a heat lamp on one wall. On the opposite wall there was a metal pole. The lambs huddled around the metal pole and froze to it.

Lol, maybe you should have put the heat lamp on the metal pole.........

Just channeling my Jim Conrad impression except I'm fully clothed.

It can be a schit show once in a while!

Well....all the while.

Hilarious

Send them dogs to gov. Noem.

She may kill them as fast as she killed her career.

BMT

My brother raised some sheep back in the day and said he thought their main ambition in life was to die.

I’ve always heard that said about horses…..

Throwing this out there - anyone ever make a milking stanchion to hold ewes or does so their rejected lambs/kids can suckle?

I’m thinking keeping it low and not meant for a person to actually do the milking.

Allegedly.....


You can make one from a farrowing crate.

Often times with cows and calves. Never with a sheep or goat. Never kept sheep except for raising bummer lambs to butcher weight. Never saw a nanny orphan a baby. We did have a stanchion for milking a nanny, then my two kids in jr High School mixed the goat milk with milk replacer 1/2 and 1/2 to raise two calves.

We got many a neglectful momma cow to take a calf once she had fed him in the stall for two or three days.

I had one old white face cow which had a holstein dam. She produced two gallons every night and morning. Each spring when she calved, I would purchase three (day old holstein) bulls to graft on.

I had to pen her calf with the three orphans until feeding time. Stick the cow in a stanchion and she would feed all four. She never really adopted the bummer calves, but she would tolerate them as long as her calf was suckling. After a couple weeks, the holsteins knew to watch that hereford calf. When he headed for momma, all three of the others came running.

At that point, I could turn them loose in the pasture for the rest of the year.

She raised a litter like that five years in a row, and then I sold her.

Just had our first lambing season in Feb/March. First lamb born, LGD dogs started cleaning it up while ewe was dropping the second lamb. After dogs cleaned the first one, ewe would not claim it. Jugged the ewe and the two lambs. Ewe about beat the snot out of the lamb the dogs cleaned. Fortunately, another ewe lambed a single that night. We were able to graft the reject lamb onto the second ewe.

Had to pen the LGD's separate from the expecting ewes for the next 3 weeks to ensure no issues with the dogs interfering. Managed to jug most of the ewes when they got close, or were in process of lambing. Overnight temps 0*F to 20*F during lambing. Had heat lamps in the back of the jugs. Most lambs stayed under the lamps at night while jugged.