Break out of Framesby Mary Jarvis * 1994 In the planning stages for our farm, in 1987 and 1988, we spent a lot of time refining a list of the qualities we felt the American Dairy Sheep should have. Then we selected our sheep from the criteria we had set. Mid-sized, Prolific, Maternal ewes, who can raise triplets on pasture, producing the highest pounds of lamb weaned with minimal creep. Calm, Greedy, Flock Oriented, and capable of breeding Out of Season. Hardy, White faced sheep, with udders which are Capacious, Well Formed, Well Attached, and Free from wool. The legs should be free from wool. We felt strongly that this should be a 3-Pay animal, producing Milk, Meat, and Wool, so the ewe should produce respectable market lambs, and a commercially acceptable wool clip. We were also insistent that we purchase for our foundation flock, the most Healthy sheep possible. The three main diseases we wanted to avoid purchasing were foot rot, caseous lymphadenitis, and ovine progressive pneumonia (OPP). The breed we felt fit our criteria the best was the Polypay. We recommend, (as does Olivia Mills, the British dairy sheep expert), that you try to stay with one breed. If you develop your criteria correctly, you will be led to choose one "type" of sheep. If you choose your breeding stock carefully, and buy by records, not on looks, you should have a good foundation from which to build. After you do, don't go zinging off in 50 different directions because you hear that this breed milks better than that one. If you did a good job with your selection process, stick with that, and build upon it. You will see, as your flock develops, that your sheep begin to take on a certain "broody" look, indicating their abilities in the lambing pen and on the milk stand. We keep extensive ewe production records on each ewe in the flock. The sheep we bought, which met our selection criteria, are Finn/Dorset/Rambouillet crossed with DuBois Polypay rams. We have been putting that same breeding or registered Polypay rams on these ewes since 1989. The selection of our rams is extremely important! We choose rams based on their dam's records, and their sire's pounds of lamb weaned. To further expand on our American Dairy Sheep criteria, the Physical Size of your sheep will make a difference. We wanted a MID-SIZED sheep, which seems to go hand in hand with MATERNAL. We wanted milk production; we wanted ewes who would produce the most milk from the least feed. The mid-sized breeds eat less than the larger ones. Conversion of that feed into milk in an efficient, economical way is important for dairy ewes. Mid sized sheep are more easily handled, important for management and training to the milking stand. Uniformity of size (same breeding, discussed above), is important so that all your sheep will fit equally well on the milking stand. Larger breeds require a different set-up than smaller ewes, in width of platform, stanchion size, and so forth. PROLIFICACY was a quality we looked for, combined with the MATERNAL quality and the ability to produce the milk to feed the lambs. This is why we say we EXPECT our ewes to raise triplets on pasture, as we find that our ewes, challenged in this way, DO produce more milk. Prolificacy for its own sake doesn't make much sense to us, if the ewe cannot raise the lambs she bears. POUNDS OF LAMB WEANED on pasture with minimal creep, is another of the litany of criteria our foundation flock met. Research done in Michigan suggests that by feeding lambs creep, we may be selecting for ewes who don't milk well, but whose lambs are good at converting expensive GRAIN into GAIN. So, if you are looking for some sheep to milk, consider whether the lambs gained their pounds weaned on creep feed, or if the ewe provided the nutrition. In their first 30 days, our lambs are learning how to eat pasture from their mothers, so do quite well when weaning time comes so early. Look also, for ewes who are "hard to dry off", which will indicate not only high milk production, but also persistence. UDDER CONFORMATION is a physical quality which is quite important. Reject ewes with pendulous, uneven udders, or teats which stick out to the sides. Select for capacious, well formed, well attached udders, with teats which are of medium size. The teats ideally point down and out just a bit. Udder capacity is important, for the ewe needs to be able to store up milk for 12 hours which would, under normal conditions, have been suckled out a bit at a time by her lambs. We do have one family of ewes who have smaller udders, but seem to have one or more hollow legs where they store the milk, as they keep right up with the best of them. As a general rule, however, bigger is better. The udder should be clean of wool, as should the inner leg. Wool harbors moisture and bacteria, both of which you want to avoid in the milking parlor. Rams with clean wool-less scrotums tend to throw daughters with wool-less udders. PERSONALITY TRAITS which tend to belong to a dairy ewe are CALM and DOCILE, indicating that she won't explode in 10 different directions when you try to handle her. Jumpy sheep would be best left out of the milking string. GREEDY will be a plus when you are trying to entice her up on the stand. Ewes who put their tummies at the top of the priority list will come up on the stand for grain, and will also be the first one back out on pasture, ready to make more milk for the next milking. FLOCK-ORIENTED is important when you are trying to move your sheep into pens or staging areas. You want that ewe who, like Ferdinand the Bull, would just as soon "smell the flowers", and follows her flock-mates unquestionably. It is conceivable that one would want to milk sheep year round, although I was able to trick Rusty into this by telling him, "It's only for four months, Honey.", and now he's hooked! (And thinks the idea was all his.) We can think about expansion, and perhaps including a late-summer lambing group which would be milked into the Fall. In a more moderate climate, one could milk year round, so it is important to consider this when choosing your breed - if they will lamb out of season. Making our flock a 3-pay animal was important to us in our selection criteria. We, like others entering sheep dairying, are striving to make a living from our farms. Market lambs are an important part of our farm income, as is our Wool. We have had our wool professionally graded, and most is in the the 58's and 60's. Our fleeces are tight. In our climate, we considered it important to have a ewe who would be hardy, carrying her winter housing on her back. Our ewes seek shelter only on the most dreadful 40 below, blizzardy nights during the winter. The market lambs we sold as feeders in 1992, were more acceptable to the buyer than most of the Finn cross lambs he sees. We also sell some lambs direct to the consumer, with yearly reorders. Quality lamb and wool are important to your over-all farm income. After deciding on the type of ewe we wanted, we began to search for the healthiest sheep we could find. We knew that if we put garbage in, we'd get garbage out. We've seen people who have tried to milk sale barn culls, and they've been in and out of sheep dairying in short order. You can't make chicken salad out of chicken feathers! We emphasize three main diseases to avoid, namely foot rot, CL, and OPP; Olivia Mills agrees with us. We were determined to avoid these and any other infectious diseases. We have always been grateful that we stuck to our strict health protocol in selecting our sheep. All the careful selection of physical and personality characteristics can be tragically negated if you buy unhealthy animals.
Foot rot has probably put more sheep producers out of business than any other single disease. In the dairy, it will keep the ewe from going out to forage, which results in loss of milk production. Eradication of the disease is costly and time consuming. This is a disease which is easy to BUY, and hard to eliminate. Caseous Lymphadenitis, or CL, is a disease of sheep and goats which is easily passed from one animal to the next on the milk stand. An animal with a burst abscess infects the stanchion and the next animal up has the potential to pick it up as her turn comes on the stand. It is tough to eradicate once you have it, as the causative organism lives in the soil for years. We didn't want to buy sheep infected with it. Of the three main diseases we wanted to avoid, Ovine Progressive Pneumonia, or OPP, came to the top of the list. In 1988 when we were looking for our sheep, very little was being written about OPP at the producer level. I read an article about it, however, and immediately knew that this was one disease we wanted to avoid like the plague. Fortunately, I was able to connect with a small ruminant specialist who was actively involved in OPP research and she gave me a short course over the phone, sent me more information, and helped us to know what we were looking for in avoiding negative breeding stock. A discussion of health brings us to another important aspect of our breeding program - Closing the Flock. After the foundation flock was purchased, it was closed. If we do bring any animals in, it would be only a ram, purchased from flocks which met our high standards for cleanliness and health. These rams are still isolated for 6 weeks before co-mingling with ours. By closing your flock, you will virtually eliminate the risk of bringing in serious disease problems. Some criticize closing the flock because you limit yourself genetically to what you have on hand. If you did a good job with your initial purchase, this is a moot point. If you feel you need to add some more genes, purchase ewes from healthy stock and then close your flock.
I hope you find something here helpful - HAPPY MILKING!
Mary Jarvis (affectionately known as Mare) lives with her husband, Rusty, at Groveland Farm in Poplar, Wisconsin. Mare was Secretary and Treasurer of the OPP Concerned Sheep Breeders Society for 7 years. The Society decided to take advantage of the Groveland Farm web site to publish a fact sheet on Ovine Progressive Pneumonia and some other helpful materials. Mare has written numerous articles about sheep dairying for industry magazines over the years, and lectured at sheep conferences. When the Jarvis' were still milking sheep, they won awards for Milk Quality, and they basically wrote the Quality section of the Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative's manual. Mare is still a director of the Maremma Sheepdog Club of America, the breed association for the livestock guardian dogs that they raise. Rusty was a board member of the Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative, serving as a Vice President. His focus was Quality Control. He also served on the Endangered Species Committee of the American Sheep Industry Association for 4 years, with the timber wolf as his major focus. They raise Est A Laine Merino sheep, llamas, Maremmano-Abruzzese livestock guardian dogs, and Border Collies. You can email Mare at grovelandfarm@superiorwi.com or visit their website for more information. All Animals owns all rights to this article and the photos. You may link to the article (not the photos), but you may *not* copy it, nor reprint it anywhere else. You may print the URL which is www.all-animals.com/milk.html Advertising | Site Design | Site Hosting | About Us | Home | Email |
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