Breeding Season

Its hard to believe that October 2014 is here.  A month ago we did our sorting and matching up of rams and ewes - or at least thought we did. Our primary ram, Korinth, can be rather "rammy" and you have to watch your back ... as in, never turn yours to him. He is kept in a far-back paddock and has a wether with him, unless its breeding season. This year we only put one ewe with him because we're borrowing some new blood - Notch, a young handsome moorit ram, who is about 8 months old.  Probably a mistake on my part, but we had Notch with about 4 other ewes in a paddock adjacent to Korinth and his ewe.  Now I am talking cattle-panel fences with wooden concrete secured posts between the adjacent paddocks. To my surprise, after about a week of this arrangement, we discovered Korinth and his ewe, intermingled with Notch and his ewes. I was rather perturbed and not exactly sure how to re-separate the groups without having someone get hurt while trying to break-up the battling rams. Also, I was concerned that my whole "new blood" plan could be ruined by Korinth having bred someone we'd planned to have bred by Notch. I don't have a breeding harness on Korinth, since he was only with one ewe. Notch has a breeding harness, but no one had been marked yet, within that first week. I had a panic moment. Fortunately, because Korinth is so "rammy" most of the ewes don't particularily enjoy his company and did not object to being "secretly" let out of the "middle" paddock.  So, one by one, when Korinth has his back to us - we let the ewes and Notch out of that paddock.  The ewe with Korinth tried to get out too, but, she had to stay.

We ultimately figured out where he got through the fence, repaired that portion from the other side of the fence, and coaxed Korinth and his ewe back into the far-back paddock.  Now Notch and his ewes are in the way front paddock. Because I'm not sure if Korinth bred anyone in that 24 hour period that he was with everyone, I am having to monitor daily, keeping track of who and when Notch is marking and if no one is marked, deciding if I should try another ram - thinking Baggins, one of Korinth's offspring - to see if the "no-marking" is due to a lack of interest by Notch, or that the ewe was bred by Korinth. Because I am a document keeper, my lists of dates and ram exposures for this year could get a bit confusing.

For the uneducated in sheep breeding procedures, a "marking harness" is a colored block of oily chalk that is strapped to the chest of the ram so that when he mounts a ewe, the color is left on her back, showing the breeder that the ewe was bred, or at least attempts were made. I write down the dates the last marks are noticed and essentially count down 5 months from that date, to determine lamb delivery dates. At this point, I will be having lambs spread out between the middle of February through the middle of June. This will make travel plans for the spring season a bit limited.

That all being said, I love our sheep at Sunny Silver Maple Farm and can't believe I waited so long to become a sheep farmer.  I definitely think this is my calling and wouldn't trade them in the world, for any other farm species.