[Ag-eq] Probably the final report on lambing

[nfoster at extremezone.com]

Jewel:

I've only ever seen one sheep without a docked tail.  It got really nasty,
everything got caught in it, including lots of sheep poop!

The docked tails seem much easier to manage.

Nella
Quoting Jewel <jewelblanch at kinect.co.nz>:

> I think that all the ewes may have dropped their bundles.  I haven't seen all
> the lambs but I seem
> to have more ewe than ram
> lambs.
> When they are all out in the paddock, which will be within the next day or
> two:  that is:  when I
> have finished feeding out the opened bale of hay, I will get Sam, my honorary
> shepherd, to count
> them, but it will not be until I get them back in for docking and castration
> that I will know,
> precisely, what I have.
> Last lambing which, for me,  was 2011, I had heard a sheep farmer saying that
> he was going to try
> leaving the tails on the lambs.  He gave a number of quite valid reasons:
> after all, wild sheep
> survive very well with tails and in many parts of the world, they aren't
> docked at all:  more of
> that shortly:  so I left the tails on too.
> However, I don't think that I will do it:  that is:  leave the tails on:
> again as the disadvantages
> far outweigh the advantages.
> I had 3 ewes that did not get into lamb, and 2 of them were those that I had
> left tails on;  must
> have been coincidence surely, but it does make one wonder!
> I would not be surprised if Europe, with all its namby-pamby animal welfare
> regulations,  started
> putting up trade barriers against importing lamb meat where the animal had
> been docked;  all quite
> ridiculous as to import the meat, the animal had had to be * killed which
> makes the operation of
> docking seem to be of very small moment, but ridiculous or not, it wouldn't
> surprise me if that is
> what happened, and in the not so distant future either!
>
> Jewel
> |
>
>
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