This is the busiest time of year here at our little farm. We have collected fleece samples to be tested, vaccinated ewes and trimmed their hooves before lambing, started our yearly shearing, and now our lambs have all arrived. We look forward to lambing season with great excitement and a slight dread. We finally get to see all the wonderful colors and patterns of our new lambs, but we also worry about the many problems that can occur at lambing time.
Lambing season is usually a very joyous time, but it is usually also stressful and sometimes heart-wrenching. Sometimes, sheep need help birthing, lambs can be born with birth defects, ewes may develop mastitis and be unable to feed their lambs, some ewes may reject their lambs, lambs can inhale fluids from their amniotic sack and develop pneumonia, and the list goes on. So far this year, we have only had one vet trip for a lamb that developed a bacterial infection. We also had one ewe that is not producing enough milk to feed her twins, so we are having to supplement them. It is still early, but so far, it seems like a pretty good year for lambing.
Our lambing stats so far this year:
- lamb total: 23
- singles: 5
- sets of twins: 9
- ewe lambs: 13
- ram lambs: 10
- trips to vet: 1
We only shear our sheep once a year, so we look forward to getting fleeces sheared and seeing just how gorgeous the fleeces have turned out. Some Shetland sheep have double coats that are very long and generally not as soft as fine fleeced animals. We strive to produce fine, single coated fleeces, and often times the finer fleeces have a shorter staple length. This is also complicated by the fact that they tend to be more crimpy, so they are not very long when laid out flat, but they have a significant amount of stretch due to the crimp.
We consider lots of different information when trying to determine our best breeding matches. Of course, healthy animals with good mothering capability are at the top of our list of important qualities. It is also important to ensure that the sheep are not too closely related. We also want to ensure that we are producing fine fleeces, so any sheep with too coarse of a fleece will not make the cut for breeding. There are also other important qualities including the “Shetland tail” which is short and fluke shaped, general soundness of the body, and of course, horns are a consideration.
Shetland sheep can be horned or polled (polled means that they do not have horns). We do not have any horned ewes on our farm, but some Shetland ewes do have horns. We have mostly horned rams, but our sweet little Spot the ram lamb is polled. One of the major problems with horns is that some rams end up with horns that do not grow properly and that would grow into their face or head which can be deadly if there is no intervention. We generally choose to castrate rams that do not have good horns. An intact male sheep is a ram, and a castrated male sheep is known as a wether.
Of course, another breeding consideration is color. One of the things that drew me to Shetlands as a breed is their huge variation in natural colors! They can be black, white, brown, gray and just about anything in between. There is also a huge variety of markings and spots – one of the most common patterns that we have is called katmoget – this means that the belly and legs are darker than the rest of the body. Gulmoget is the opposite of katmoget, meaning that the body is darker than the belly.
