Bringing
Sheep Home
by Pegg Thomas
Your sheep are purchased and coming home at last! To help
them make the move and transition well, introduce any different type of
new feed slowly. A quick change of diet is very hard on
already stressed ruminants, often
causing bloat. Whenever possible, purchase some feed from the
shepherd
along with the sheep to help them change over.
If your sheep have been on hay and you want to turn them out to
pasture, do it slowly. First let the sheep fill up on hay and
then turn them out for an hour or so of pasture. The next
day, let them stay out
a couple of hours after their hay. Within a week they should
be ready for full time pasture. Switching sheep from fresh to
dry feed, however, is not usually a problem. Pasture fed
lambs will take to hay and do very well without bloating.
The move will stress your new sheep, and to prevent bringing a new worm
load onto your property, it is a good idea to worm your new
sheep. Worm
populations in the gut can explode during times of stress.
Take a fecal
sample in to your vet and get it tested for worms. Follow
your vet’s
recommendations for worming this first time. Since you have
no experience
with the seller’s worm load, it’s best to follow
this route to know for sure
what you are dealing with.
Introduce any dogs or other animals to the sheep only while well
supervised and with a barrier between them. While Fluffy or
Fido may have been a family pet for many years and “would
never harm a sheep”, the sheep don’t know
that. Sheep are prey animals with no real defenses except
flight. When we pen them up together and introduce a
predator, it’s no surprise
that they panic and stampede.
Now the whole world of livestock management is open before
you. There are some very good books to have on hand for
reference resources.
Sheep usually get sick, have lambs, hurt themselves or otherwise
inconvenience
their shepherd at about 2:00am when a vet cannot be reached.
At the
bottom of this page I am recommending two books (both
available at Amazon.com) that provide the new shepherd with
good, helpful information. Both cover
the basics but there are some differences in opinion between the
authors and
it doesn’t hurt to get a copy of each. One approach
may work better for your situation than the other.
Good luck and
congratulations on owning your spinner’s
flock!
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