Ruminations on Lambing Season

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THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED IN DECEMBER 2025, THE LATEST INFORMATION CAN BE FOUND IN RUMINATIONS ON LAMBINGS SEASON -  UPDATED 2025  Lambing season encompasses the last few weeks of gestation through lambing and early lactation. There are a lot of preventable problems that can arise during this season and derail 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…

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Recipes for Keeping Trough Water Running in Winter

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Previously published for The Daily Record through OSU Extension Wayne County I've gotten the question a few times – 'How can I prevent water troughs from freezing without electricity?' Well, what a very good question indeed. First, let's talk a little bit of chemistry. Adding salt to water when you're boiling noodles increases the boiling point of the water, meaning the water is hotter than 212 degrees. This is the same concept with salt water and freezing point; salt water will freeze at a lower temperature than 32 degrees. Soda bottle and salt or burying the trough are a couple…

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Small Farm Ram Management Options

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Breeding season is here and if you want to add lambs to your flock next year you are going to need a ram. Timing your lambing to suit your schedule requires you to keep a ram separate until you're ready to introduce him to your ewes. Keep in mind, rams of different ages have different feed requirements for maintenance and must be housed with companions as they too, need a 'flock' to keep stress low and maintain a calm disposition. Keeping rams and ewes separate requires maintaining two different groups most of the year. A little creativity may be necessary…

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Protecting Your Flock from Disease

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Disease is present in every flock and can reside in the animals, soil, air, and water. Producers don't often talk about illnesses affecting their sheep because they don't want the stigma of disease to reflect negatively on their flock. But producers shouldn't have to deal with the problem alone. Let's accept the fact that disease is inevitable, remove the stigma, and learn how we can prevent or mitigate disease transmission in our flocks. Disease is defined as "a condition of the living animal that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms." Unfortunately, sheep can't tell…

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Small Flock Pasture Management

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At weaning time, you will need your best pastures in tip top shape for your lambs to continue growing. Your free input resource must be managed throughout the late spring and summer. This can be challenging with limited equipment and modest grazing space. Rotational grazing techniques are helpful and can be complimented with proactive management. Early in the warmer seasons, cool season grasses and forbs are dominant and provide great forage. As the temperatures climb, the availability of palatable grasses and plants decline. Grasses can go to seed too quickly to graze your animals on them. Rain followed by hot daytime temperatures cause the grasses…

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Small Flock Weaning Considerations

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Weaning lambs on a small farm can be a challenging endeavor. Being limited on space and supplies, such as electric fencing, means careful planning must take place to manage the two groups separately. There are various ways to wean lambs off of their dams. The approach you choose may vary from year to year depending on the mix of ewe and ram lambs per dam, the ages of the lambs, changes in the size of the flock, available resources and even the weather.  Some folks choose to fence line wean by dividing the groups with fencing (preferably permanent) and moving…

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Scale Options for On-Farm Use

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A producer needs a way to weigh animals when they want to understand how well their lambs are growing, and when to take them to market. There are a variety of reasons to weigh animals, depending on what data you are collecting and what results you want to be able to achieve from it. Before we were involved in the National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP), we just wanted to know weights between 30 & 150 pounds, as we only cared about how our lambs were growing between one and 12 months of age. We didn't weigh newborns or adults, as…

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Small Flock Lambing Facilities

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The versatility of sheep offers a gateway into sustainable land management and food production, a low input meat source and an overall easy-care animal for a variety of individuals. As the number of small-flock EAPK members increases, the appeal for a befitting column has cropped up. Whether you are a new shepherd, small holder, homesteader, CSA farmer, or hobby farmer, there are some unique features to how small producers operate. As small producers, we typically fabricate almost every component of our sheep operation. This allows us to keep costs low and suit everything to our needs as small holders. One…

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Lamb Grafting Tips

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Grafting is a practice that may take a little extra effort on the front end, but can help to avoid problems in the long run. The grafting methods and tips below work best for us in our management system and may work for you. Reasons and Methods of Grafting Lambs There are several reasons to graft lambs. Ewes may have too many lambs, or there may be one lamb who is much smaller than its siblings to compete well. Mismothering events may create situations where lambs need to be grafted to their natural mother or to a foster ewe. Unfortunately,…

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