Survey Results

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A big THANK YOU! to everyone who participated in our survey. Thank you for taking the time and effort to share your thoughts and ideas. We cannot improve, if we do not know what you want. The survey was sent to our email list, and also available on Facebook. The summary does not include free form responses, as I feel that I cannot do them justice by trying to summarize them. Rest assured, the Board and Communication Committee are looking at all your responses and taking them into consideration. We have already reduced the membership fee for Associate members, and…

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Creep Feeding: Is it the Right Choice for your Operation?

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Creep feeding is a means of providing supplemental nutrition to lambs before weaning. Not all producers creep feed their lambs since most can easily thrive on mother’s milk and good quality hay or forage. For those that lamb in winter, under drought conditions, or have poor quality hay/forage, creep feeding allows producers to market their lambs sooner by meeting the nutritional needs of their lambs while improving body condition and growth. Advantages: Accelerates growth and helps smaller triplets or struggling lambs to thrive. Helps lambs reach ideal weight earlier for specific markets Acts as a nutritional supplement for lambs on…

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Preventing Lamb Losses: 30 Days Through Weaning

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For the purposes of this article, we assume that lambs will be weaned around 60-90 days of age. At 30 days old, lambs’ rumens are still developing, and they are not able to survive on just forage. They still need milk and/or adequate amounts of creep feed to thrive. Lambs that are fed only milk and forage should ideally not be weaned until 90-100 days of age, when their rumens are fully functional. Creep fed lambs can be weaned earlier, as long as you continue grain supplementation after weaning.  Making sure that your lambs receive adequate nutrition during this time…

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Not all sheep ailments are common ones

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In August we euthanized a Katahdin yearling ewe that was later diagnosed with large cell lymphoma (LCL), a cancer of the blood that leads to leukemia and tumors in lymph nodes, heart, lungs and other organs. LCL and other neoplastic (tumor-producing) disorders are thought to be rare in sheep according to surveys conducted at animal slaughterhouses, with an overall tumor incidence of around .002 percent, compared to .23 percent in cattle (ref. 1). Symptoms We first noticed the ewe’s lack of appetite. She would rush to the hay feeder with the others, but eat very little.  Since the poor appetite…

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Getting Started with Sheep: Part I – Things to Consider

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So, you’ve decided that sheep might be a nice addition to your existing farm, or a good place to start your farming adventures. You may have decided that Katahdins would be the best breed for your situation. After all, they’re hardy, easy care with their shedding hair coat and parasite resistance, and they’re wonderful mothers. Everything sounds great so far, but what now? Where do you go from here? And how do you actually get started? Part 1 of this two-part series will offer questions for you to consider on lots of important topics with links to other EAPK blogs…

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Preventing Lamb Losses: The first 30 days

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Lambing is an exciting time of year, especially when everything goes well. It’s also an economically important time; after all, you can’t sell lambs that don’t make it to weaning. Getting your lambs off to a good start goes a long way to ensuring an enjoyable and profitable lamb crop. The old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is good advice for shepherds since it’s easier and more effective to prevent illnesses than it is to treat sick lambs. Part I of this two-part series will discuss management tasks to prevent illness, critical times to…

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Sheep Vaccines

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There are multiple vaccines licensed for sheep in the USA, and it might be difficult to decide which ones to use on your farm. We will discuss how vaccines work, as well as best practices for handling and administering vaccines. Finally, we will look at the different types of vaccines that are available as well as how to decide if a particular vaccine is indicated for your flock. How do Vaccines Work The general idea with a vaccine is to expose an animal to a specific pathogen (or combinations of pathogens) in a way that is not likely to make…

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Reproductive Technologies for Genetic Improvement

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Adoption of reproductive technologies (artificial insemination and embryo transfer) is commonplace in the dairy cattle industry, significant in the beef cattle industry, and is becoming more common in the show sheep industry. However, utilization of this technology has been limited in the production-oriented sheep sector. That said, potential exists for rapid genetic improvement and production of elite breeding stock may aid in offsetting added costs. These tools allow breeders to intensify selection for elite genetics and increase genetic turnover. Artificial insemination provides the opportunity for one ram to breed significantly more ewes than he could by natural service and breed…

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Ruminations on Lambing Season – Updated 2025

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There are a lot of preventable problems that can arise during lambing season, derailing the health and productivity of your ewes and lamb crop. Below is a compilation of management tips to help keep your pregnant ewes healthy, get your lambs off to a good start and decrease the stress and workload for tired shepherds. These tips are compiled from EAPK blogs and newsletters published during 2021-2025. Preparation for lambing Nutrition and exercise Make sure that you are providing adequate nutrition and exercise for your ewe flock to ensure healthy ewes and lambs. Nutritional requirements Ewes have much higher nutritional…

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Genotype Sampling Strategies: Why Pedigree Still Matters in the Genomic Era

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Sheep GEMS News Brief 18 – September 2025 In last month’s news brief, we explored how genotyping strategies influence the accuracy of genomic predictions. That article emphasized the value of randomly genotyping animals within a flock to supportmore reliable genomically-enhanced estimated breeding values (GEBV), especially in the early stages of developing a reference population. As a reminder, a reference population is a large group of animals that have both performance and genotype information that is established in the early stages of genotyping in breed. In this follow-up article we focus on another critical factor that influences the success of genomic…

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