First Year Reflections or What Not To Do
With the conclusion of our second breeding season, I thought perhaps I should take a few
moments to look back on our first year as an Icelandic sheep farm, and think about where we're
going from here. It has certainly been a grand series of ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade this
adventure for anything! Never a dull moment, that's for sure! Here's how our first year went:
We got all our foundation stock to the farm. THEN we had a visit from the USDA Scrapie
people, because they found discrepancies in our Health Certificates. We had a total of three visits
from them, and some hints about possible fines and/or "other" disciplinary actions - what we ended
up with was a warning letter, and threats of really bad stuff if we ever violate The Codes again. SO
all you would-be "across-State-lines" purchasers, be sure your Health Certificate identifies your
animals properly, and that the critter you have on your truck matches the description! What a pain!
Our next challenge was finding a shearer for the Fall clip. This may be easier to do in other
parts of the country, but in the Midwest shearers are in short supply. We finally located someone
who was willing to clip a small number of sheep, and we got the job done. We left fleece on the
ram lambs and most of the weanling ewes - our usable fiber from this clip was small due to the "burr
coats" that most of the girls had developed in our pastures. This is how we discovered that if you
cut burdock off, it will send out spindly side-shoots near the ground, and grow wonderful burrs on
those. Never a dull moment!
After shearing, we started putting together our breeding groups, including the weanling ewes.
We chose to expose our younger girls to a ram because not doing so would skew our prolificacy
stats. What I mean by that is that many of our foundation gals who were bred as weanlings
produced offspring - it would not be fair to compare the prolificacy of an un-exposed ewe lamb to
these gals, nor did we think it fair to deny our young girls the chance to shine. This choice was
made after reading about all the pros and cons connected with one-winter ewe birthing; at this time,
we made a management decision to supplement the ewe lambs with grain, instead of relying totally
on hay for their development. We fed one cup of a shell corn/lamb pellet mix per head per day.
We continued feeding grain while the girls were in breeding groups, but discontinued the practice
once the ewes were all back together. The only hay we were able to locate last winter was 100%
alfalfa, so we didn't think the girls would be short on protein.
As it turned out, this hay caused us problems at lambing - the hay was very dry due to the 2005
drought, so the leaves would fall off, leaving a mat of inedible stems. The girls would lick up all the
leaf fragments, but still be hungry SO we would feed them some more bales. The last three months
of their pregnancies, the girls had an almost straight protein diet, with hardly any roughage. As a
result, we had 2/3 of our lamb crop weighing more than 9 pounds at birth, when the desirable weight
is between 6 and 6.5 pounds. More on that later.
We kept the breeding groups together from the first of November to the 15th of December,
and hoped that The Boys had done their jobs. I think Icelandics are rather reserved about courtship,
for although we saw a lot of chasing and heard a lot of "growling", we never saw a single ewe get
bred. So far, I haven't seen one this year, either! If you have a nervous stomach, or suffer from
tension headaches, this aspect of Icelandic sheep is not good. A marking harness would go a long
way toward building confidence that the ram is successfully wooing his gals, but they've always
seemed like a lot of trouble to me. Maybe I'm a closet masochist. In any case, by the 15th we were
getting pretty tired of hauling buckets of water and dragging bales of hay around, so we were ready
to disperse the groups. We didn't want lambs born after the first week of May, since they seem to
get a better start when the weather is cooler; also I could predict that after a month of getting up in
the wee hours to check the flock that I'd be ready for a break. So we put all of The Girls back in
the Big Barn, and wrestled The Boys down the hill to the "Horse Barn".
In order to re-unite the rams with the least amount of damage, we built a small holding pen in a
corner of the barn and put the three boys in there, along with two old tires. They had enough room
to turn around and lie down, but not enough room to back up and charge. The tires made for
unstable footing, too, so we had no scrapes or contusions on any of The Boys. We left them in the
pen for 24 hours without food or drink, and released them in the late afternoon. All they were
interested in by that time was getting to hay and water, so we had no fights that night at all. I don't
have any proof, but I think penning our Pygora buck, Matisse, in with The Boys also helped...he
really has a stench during the rut, and all The Boys could smell was GOAT! In any case, our first
week or so went very well in the ram pen - after that, Ilex and Ash started bullying Rubus and
keeping him from the hay. At this time, Rubus was still much smaller than the other two, and also
very laid-back, so as a consequence he started dropping weight. Our solution was to put him and
Matisse in a separate paddock and to give them both some grain. Within a week, Rubus was
rounding out again, and after that he began a growth spurt that made him the equal of Ash and Ilex
by the time he hit his May birthday. This was my first opportunity to see how rapidly Icelandics can
gain weight on elevated nutrition, and I was suitably impressed.
Meanwhile, back at The Barn...I was closely watching The Girls for any signs of impending
motherhood, but they looked the same to me. By February I had decided that all my rams must
have been either infertile or too short to mount the mature ewes, and that I was going to be a bust
my first year as an Icelandic breeder. In hindsight, I don't know what I expected to see under all the
fleece, but I had many moments of despair. Fortunately, Laurie B-G was (and continues to be) a
most excellent mentor, and tried to help me develop a "wait and see" attitude. We had the shearer
out the last weekend in February, and lo and behold, there were signs of small udders developing on
some of the older ewes! We were all really excited, and couldn't wait to have our first HolliBerri
lambs born. At this time, we gave CDT boosters, BoSe shots, wormed the flock with Ivomec
(which doesn't always work anymore) and trimmed feet. Never a dull moment. We spent the next
week building lambing jugs, and waited for the offspring to arrive.
Not understanding the nature of the beast, I thought that lambs would start dropping right
around the middle of March. We had twins born the last week of March, but the majority of our
mature ewes lambed the second and third weeks of April, with a few of the one-winter gals giving
birth into the first week of May. These sheep are VERY seasonal! Our first set of twins was born
with no problems, but after that, the over-abundance of protein in our flock diet came in to play, and
we started having some lambing challenges, most particularly with the one-winter ewes. We had
quite a few lambs that had to be pulled because they were just too big - this is how we lost Kalmia.
We also had several retained placentas in our gals that had a long, hard labor. It is possible that they
suffered from a lack of selenium (even though we gave them a BoSe booster), but its just as likely
that their poor little bodies got too tired for any more pushing after the lamb was born. We gave
each ewe with this condition one 4 cc shot of BoSe, and then 9 cc of CalMag paste, 5 cc of
ProBiotic, and 9 cc of penicillin every morning until the placenta dropped. Aralia gave us our only
set of triplets; the ram lamb was coming breach, so it was fortunate that I was out in the barn doing
my 3:00 AM checkup. We had two sets of one-winter twins out of Mt. Laurel and Inkberry - you
go girls! On the down side, both Jasmine and Briar gave birth prematurely (who knows why) on the
same day, at the same time, within a few feet of each other. Neither lamb could be saved. We
were sad about this, but thrilled with the fact that we had a 99% conception rate for 2005 - only
Willow failed to breed. I sure would have worried less had I known how great my young boys were!
As the ewes lambed, we brought each new family in to the barn, and gave them a lambing jug
for the first 24 hours (some longer if they had problems). This was when I discovered a major
management flaw. As the grass greened and the ewes went to pasture, I had started them out in the
paddocks closest to the barn, so every pasture rotation took them farther and farther from the
lambing jugs. By the time they were actually having lambs, their pasture was at the very end of our
10-acre plot. Wait 'til you try to carry two struggling, wet lambs at arms' length, walking backwards
really slowly 900+ feet, with no guarantee that the ewe will keep following you! Never a dull
moment! I finally devised a semi-successful system where I would strap one lamb into the weighing
sling that I got from Premier, hang it at arms' length in front of the ewe, and tuck the second lamb
(if there was one) under my other arm. This worked better since I didn't have to walk backwards,
but I still had some spooky gals who would get half-way to the barn, then spin around and return to
the birthing site looking for the lambs. I found it interesting to note my change in attitude: I started
out lambing season in a tizzy of anticipation, and by the time I hit the middle of it, I was longing for
it to be over! This year, we'll start from the back, and graze toward the front! Each lamb at birth
got 1 cc of BoSe, and we checked the inside of its mouth to be sure it was warm (which indicates
that it has nursed). We also stripped both of the ewes' teats to make sure that colostrum was
coming out both sides. Initially, after the 24-hour bonding period, we tried putting the new mom
and her lambs back out with the other ewes, but we found that the "aunties" were so curious that the
lambs would get separated from their dams and knocked down by the over-lookers. Fortunately we
have a smaller paddock just off the upper end of our barn, so that became the nursery, and we gave
each new family 3 or 4 days out there to get used to a more spacious environment. This system
seems to have worked very well, so we plan to do it again this year.
At approximately 6 weeks old, the first-born lambs got their initial CDT vaccination - two weeks
later, the rest of the lambs got their first shot and the older lambs got their last shot. Everybody got
a BoSe booster at this time, and we wormed with Valbazen, which I thought would work well on
our farm since I had never used it. Unfortunately, one of the gals that I purchased must have
carried parasites immune to this wormer, so even though I thought I was doing the right thing for my
flock, I didn't kill the parasites, and we paid for it a few weeks later when the heat of Summer hit.
Shortly after this, we discovered that we had a problem with our GEOTEK high-tensile
electric fencing system. Although we had followed manufacturers recommended construction for
sheep, it became apparent that 5 wires would keep out predators, but they couldn't keep in Icelandic
lambs( we owe our neighbor for some raw hay). We added two strands to the perimeter fence, and
found out that the post spacing for "normal" sheep might work fine, but it won't work for Icelandic
lambs. SO we ordered more posts. Before we could get them installed, we lost a leaderlamb to
rubber poisoning out on the road. He was very tasty. We also learned that, while your standard
electric fencer will keep in horses and cattle, it will not keep in sheep or goats. So we bought a
fencer that will knock you "ass over teakettle", and the sheep no longer challenge our system.
Meanwhile, Summer of 2006 proved to be the Year of the BBP (barberpole worm) - all
conditions were perfect for proliferation. We had really cool nights, which gave us really wet
pastures even into the afternoon, and we had really hot days which were a burden to the immune
systems of our flock. I know all of this in hindsight, and am better prepared for parasites this year.
The first sign that we had a problem didn't make an impact on me: Daphne and Summersweet
started laying around in the barn instead of going out to pasture. I thought this was due to the hot
weather, and failed to check their condition. A few days later, neither girl would get up when I
walked toward them, and when I grabbed them to check eye membranes (according to the
FAMACA scale), they didn't even struggle to get away. Neither girls had any milk left for their
young, and their skin EVERYWHERE was as white as snow. We wormed both girls with Valbazen
again, and when their condition didn't improve, we wormed again with Ivomec - it was all we had on
hand. I also gave both girls every vitamin I could think of, and dripped vinegar water down their
throats with a baster. Nothing seemed to bring about an improvement. I believe that we might have
pulled both girls through if it hadn't been so blessed hot, and if I had realized that we had a problem
sooner. I also didn't realize that it may take 4 or more days after worming for any color to appear in
the eye membranes, and that internal bleeding can be occurring even after the death of the parasites
through all the little puncture holes - it is possible that we compounded the problem by
over-worming. On day two, Daphne died, and on day three, Summersweet died. We lost
Andromeda's white gal a day after Summersweet passed, and then I called Laurie to find out what
was going wrong. It seems that the list of ineffective wormers is growing, but we knew Cydectin
pour-on for cattle at a 1.5cc per 20 lb. dosage given orally was working for many shepherds. We
wormed the whole the flock with this, checking eye membranes as we went, and found many gals in
the "pale pink to white" area. Two weeks later, we wormed again, and found to our delight that we
had no white membranes left, and only a few light pink gals. To this day, we haven't lost any more
sheep to parasites, but Summer is right around the corner! Never a dull moment!
Before going any farther, I want to mention that we salvaged the pelt from each animal that
died (even Kalmia), and had it processed through Bucks County Furs. It is not an easy thing to do
emotionally - let's face it, you're skinning your "friends" - but if you're in business, you're in
business, and your goal is to make money. What we discovered is that the lamb pelts are so
wonderful that my plan to shear before butchering has been scuttled, and we will process hides
instead.
This year, we will be worming with both Cydectin, and a wormer called Supaverm, which is
used extensively in Europe to combat barberpole worm, but is only used in koi ponds in the USA to
kill flukes. Go figure. For info in this go to:
www.noahcompendium.co.uk/Janssen_Animal_Health/Supaverm/-34009.html
Go to "next" at the top of the page for usage info. Dosage is 1 ml per 11 pounds - weigh sheep
before dosing, since this product can cause reactions if overdosed. We will also be using copper
boluses to give a more natural control to the flock. To read about copper, and what the lack of it
does, go to:
_http://www.saanendoah.com/copper1.html
Valley Vet supply sells both the Copasure calf boluses and the gel-caps. We gave all the sheep
boluses based on weight - 1 gram per 40 pounds (get a cheap pocket scale on-line through Topline
Digital Scales), and all our eye membranes are brilliant red now, plus some of our "silvering" ewes
are growing in darker wool under the faded strands.
To better understand the life processes of the parasites that will rob you of your profits, go to:
www.nationalsheep.org.uk/health/WormControl_BW.pdf
It will shock you how few parasite will cause a critical condition to develop! I look at my flock in a
whole new light, and can't believe how truly hardy these animals are given all the factors lined up
against them. Never a dull moment!
As I write this, the wind chill is -36, and even the sheep have hidden in the barn. Spring
(believe it or not) is right around the corner, bringing a new lambing season with new challenges and
surprises. We were fortunate this year to sell every lamb that we wanted to sell, and met some
fabulous people because of our sheep. Thanks goes to all our clients and other "brethren of the
flock" for making our first year as an active Icelandic sheep business a fulfilling one. I can't find the
words to express how valuable our relationships through our flock are to us.
Well, as usual I have rambled on way too long. I hope that sharing some of our tragedies can
help you avoid the same problems. Every day is a learning experience with these animals, and with
every challenge, we grow that much more capable. Remember that once an organism stops
growing, it starts dying, so embrace the process and stay young!!!
Never a dull moment!
Love and Hugs,
Hol
