October 18, 2024

When moving sheep from Waimea to Kona or vice versa, those individuals eventually form new bonds. In August I took four lambs to Waimea from Kona. They were raised on a bottle, and even those tame ones started bleating when their friends disappeared among the 100 other sheep. Among those four, you could see their personalities; some were more independent, and some clearly took longer to adapt.

I don’t know for sure if this was an actual cause, but the most independent one was the first one to get sick. It might be a stretch to see this as an example, but God has said he places the lonely in families. Every time I went to Waimea, he was by himself. I wonder if this is a reason why he didn’t thrive.

(Photo of other lambs, not the bottle lambs)

The post But why is he always alone… appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

Willful and stubborn sheep polluting their land

200 hungry sheep and no sheepdog makes it crazy difficult to push them into their prepared paddock.  To safeguard their health and also from getting out onto the road they have to obey my voice.  But their heads are down, each doing their own thing.  The majority are not heeding my truck horn, the slap of the whip, or my voice.  This occurred after moving the water, the security cameras, unrolling 1000 feet of electric twine, setting up the posts, vaccinating all 80 plus lambs.  I’m so tired.  

I drive my truck across the pasture to herd them, they move only if the truck is about to bump into them, then drop their heads to the grass.  Others decide to trot off in every direction except into their safe enclosure.  I have to jump out of the truck, snap the whip/flag, but they wait until I’m gone and return to the just cleared area of their field.  An hour later the last renegade is inside and I can stop chasing them.

They cannot understand they polluted the pasture grass with their droppings, which holds tiny barberpole eggs. These hatch into larvae which crawl up to the top of their grass in as little as three days later.  At a certain tipping point these larvae will cause a lamb or a ewe to bleed to death if the infestation is too high.

To prevent this the electric fences divide the fields into a just grazed area and an area ready to receive mommas and babies onto grass not grazed for two months. This helps keep just hatched larvae from being ingested.  All to say that keeping their head down in the stolen grass will be their downfall unless the Shepherd persists in making provision for their safety.

The post It can kill them appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

The enormous belly on the third and pregnant ewe walking away makes me a bit concerned. Yes, sheep can have triplets, septuplets even, but my experience on poor pastures of Hawaii is that singles are the norm.

A set of live triplets will create a hierarchy, and the weakest one will be a runt. This is because their moms have only two teats. On poorer quality pasture, this runt is not likely to live. So I’m debating on spending more than $150 on milk replacer or finding time to create a separate paddock in Kona where I can feed that mom and she can feed the triplets.

The post Wide load appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

This mature ewe just baffled me. She always lambs without difficulty. She was in good condition. Yet when I got her to her feet I saw the mucous plug, but hardly any sign of labor. Sensing a problem, I was baffled when the head and one foot was correctly positioned. I went ahead and delivered the lamb, in the video she is licking it off. Since the lamb was correctly positioned I decided to wait for her to deliver the second one. An hour later, she was still standing, not pawing the ground or showing labor. It was then I saw the placenta was discolored and the legs were not there, and only the butt was close to the touch. After cupping each hind leg and pulled, I sensed that this lamb was already dead. The full term lamb turned out to be partly reabsorbed, while the living lamb had her own blood supply. In hindsight I realized her womb was starting to close back up or never completely dilated. I was so grateful the Lord allowed me to see this ewe at that moment or all of them could have died. She was not separated or showing labor at all. If the mucous wasn’t showing I would have completely missed this lambing problem.

The post Always learning as a shepherd. appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

In Hawaii, grass can harbor larvae known as Barberpole worm all year long because there is no winter freeze to limit their reproduction cycle.

It affects young lambs and nursing mothers to the degree they will die if the internal worm load is high enough. Prevention is key, so I move sheep onto fresh grass twice a week. I am deworming with a variety of medications on a regular basis. More on this later.

The post When Grass Kills appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.

Today is a challenging day. I will teach for a little bit as a sheep farmer to 18 people. It’s an adventure, hands on experience to feed, move and medicate the sheep against internal parasites and tetanus. The grass greened up and it makes for a beautiful setting. I’m asking the Lord to make it a holistic experience, mental, physical and spiritual. The photos are of the students touring the ranch that day.

The post Handling sheep appeared first on Shepherd's Muse.