The Soay Sheep Chronicles

When I started this blog, it was my intention to write only about subjects on which Steve and I felt we had a basic grasp of the research or professional writing about the problem confronting us.  This time, I am stumped and so is Steve, and we can rely only on our own observations of a number of our Soay sheep.  The topic:  lambs who do not reach sexual maturity in time for fall breeding, and who frankly evoke an image of “runts.”  Let me explain.

During the last three lambing seasons, we have had over 170 Soay lambs born on our farm, and three or four of the ram lambs, and a couple of the ewe lambs, have failed to mature by fall.  We have been unable to find anything in the literature or on the web about why this happens or how we can prevent it.  We know it is not a case of breeding too late in the year, because the vast majority of our ram lambs go roaring through ovine puberty right on schedule in late summer, early fall and cannot wait to show their stuff, and show it they do! 

But occasionally a ram lamb does not butt heads, sniff other animals’ private parts, show dramatic horn growth or impressively-sized you-know-whats for his age.  Or a ewe lamb simply does not grow anywhere near as quickly or as much as the other ewe lambs and her horns do not grow, either. It is as though, if they do not reach a certain hormonal point by, say, September, their hormones go into arrest and they do not mature sexually until the next spring.  Let me say right up front that we have not figured out the biological explanation for this phenomenon, but we have found ways to address it successfully on our farm.

The first couple of times this happened, we assumed it was worms even though the little ones did not have dirty bums, and we dutifully treated them with Ivomex.  Nothing happened.  We also noticed that the apparently stunted ram lambs were much less asssertive about bellying up to the feeder once we took them off grass for the winter.  In one or two instances, we have moved a slow-growing ram or ewe lamb into a small pen with some other small sheep and supplemented them with grain until we felt it safe to return the small lambs to the general melee of the bull pen or the ewe pasture.  The nutrition boost at least keeps them growing generally so they will not fail to thrive, but does not provoke them into puberty and does not kick-start them into the kind of rapid growth we expect from our lambs for at least a full year.  Quite apart from their small size, they are clearly way to immature to breed.

In each case, thankfully, once the days began to lengthen in the winter, and especially when the dramatic increase in daylight started in March, the slow-growing lambs began catching up with an impressive growth spurt in all respects.  By their second fall, the rams were stomping their feet to get at the ewes and the ewes were ready to breed.

How do you know if you have one of these slow-growing Soay lambs?  Not surprisingly, they are unusually small (even more so than some lambs who have sexually matured quite nicely by fall), generally they have far less horn growth than their sexually mature pasture mates, and most conspicuously, they will not assert themselves at the feeder and none of the more mature ram lambs will butt heads with the slow-growing lamb. 

We do not want to lose even one healthy lamb, of course, so we devote enough time to watching our littlest lambs’ behavior to catch problems before the lambs give up and wither away.  In fact, this year we had the mixed fortune of having both a little ewe lamb — our cute bottle baby Patterdale — and a little ram lamb who needed to be sequestered for a few weeks because they simply were not keeping up in the big pen.

Since I have done all the talking about Patterdale in the past, I think I’ll let her pick up the story from here and explain the problem of being a slow-growing lamb and how to deal with it. 

Dear readers,

You are such nice people to keep reading Priscilla’s blog.  But she really talks too much, especially about me.  I wanted to be the one to talk this time so I can tell you how to help your sheep if you have a little lamb who grows too slowly, like I did. 

As you know, I arrived in less than ideal circumstances and frankly, it has been a struggle ever since to catch up.  Once Priscilla and Steve took me out to the Maternity Ward where I did not have to live in their kitchen in a dog cage, I was very happy.  Whenever Priscilla would ring the dinnerbell, I would let out a loud “whoopee” and come running for my bottle.  I loved being in the nursery with Sedgwick and Threlkeld and their moms because they had just been born so they were my size (I’m very small for my age, but I’m really smart).  I missed my own mom, of course, but since I never really knew who she was, I didn’t know who to look for so I was content just being in the same small area with my friends and their moms and they were very nice to me. 

When Steve let us all out onto the pasture grass in early July after the other lambs were weaned, I was even happier.  I love grass.  It is just my size.  I can put my head down, see the grass, and snarf it up whenever I am hungry and I get to behave just like the bigger lambs and their moms.  It is really nice to be on grass.  There is plenty of room for everyone to have her own space on the pasture. 

And that is why I was so sad when fall came and the grass ran out.  Steve puts a lot of hay out in the feeders for the ewe group — a whole bunch of big sheep who are not very sympathetic to us wee ones.  It’s not that easy for me to get my head up high enough to reach the hay and to make matters worse, those rude old ewes shove me out of the way all the time so they can have my share of the hay to themselves.  It’s not fair.

So I went out into the barren pasture by myself and kept trying to find enough grass to stay alive.  It got really cold out there way before winter was supposed to start.  I have a spunky personality for such a little sheep and I was trying so hard to be like the big girls that Steve and Priscilla didn’t realize how much trouble I was having.

We have a big dog named TJ who lives with the ewes and takes care of us so the coyotes don’t eat us for their dinner.  I really like TJ.  He’s really furry and sometimes he lets me lie down beside him when it’s extra cold outside.  He dug a big hole in the ewes’ winter pasture so he can have a place that feels like a bed to him.  One cold day Steve found me in TJ’s hole all by myself.  I didn’t understand that if TJ was not in his hole with me, it would be too cold to be there alone, but I was so tired from trying to find enough little grass nubs to fill my tummy that I just could not get up enough gumption to stand up any more and I figured I was done for. 

But Steve never gives up.  He took me back to the nursery in the Maternity Ward and put me in there with another little sheep — my buddy Sedgwick actually — who also was having trouble being with the big kids, especially for him because rams are supposed to be tough but he isn’t.  He’s just a nice little guy and I like being with him.  Now the two of us are living happily in the nursery together.  Sedgwick has not grown up yet, if you know what I mean, so it is okay for us to be together for now.  

Steve gives us our own grain

 and our very own customized hay feeder, a scrap of “hog” panel tilted up on the batter boards of the nursery.  I don’t know why shepherds call it a hog panel when it is so perfect for a little Soay sheep like me.

We can reach right up and get all the grass we want and there are no big ewes or rams to push us around.   I hope Steve will make more of these beginner feeders for the lambs next spring because they are a really fun way to practice eating hay without having to compete at the regular feeders.

I’m glad you were willing to listen to my story.  I have to ask you something, though.  Please watch out for your little Soay sheep who avoid the feeders after they have lived on grass for awhile.  It is scary to look up at those big feeders and at the same time be careful not to get stepped on or shoved by the grownup sheep.  It just seems easier to try to make it on the old grass in September but we can starve if you don’t pay attention to us and help us make it through until we grow some more.  And by the way, Steve says that even though I think I am precocious (it is the longest word I know), I really am not, and that I am both physically and psychologically immature.  I call it being scared. Me and Sedgwick are growing okay, I guess, but Steve says we have to eat a lot, and that is why I can’t go back to the winter pasture with the ewes until later.  I really need to pay attention to eating and besides, I don’t do very well with grownups yet.  But I am determined to become a big sheep so I can have lambs and Steve thinks I will grow up much faster when the seasons change in the spring and my body tells me it is time for one of those growth spurts you humans talk about in serious voices with your teenage children. Maybe you can come out and visit me in my new home, which is really my old home but I am much bigger now than when you saw pictures of me as a Soay bottle baby last summer.

I have such mixed feelings about Patterdale, our first and only bottle baby.  She seemed so vulnerable when she first arrived and then as she started to grow in our breakfast nook, yattering away to be sure we knew she was there and needed milk — all the time.   Both Steve and I had to resist the urge to smother her with attention, lest she get too attached to us.

We need not have worried.

These days, Patterdale hangs out with the friends she made in the Nursery when she first moved outdoors:  Sedgwick and his mom Yalo, and Milburn and his mom Catalaya.  We are relieved that she does not cling to us, or pay any attention to us at all, truth to tell, except when she wants milk.  Yalo and Catalaya will not let her nurse, of course, but Patterdale beds down with one or both of them nearby.  It is a surprisingly endearing family group scene for “just” sheep.

During the day, Patterdale is one of the crowd, exploring the hay feeders, running in and out of the creep feeder,

and generally learning the only skill — eating adult food — she will need until the Ancient Rituals — breeding and lambing — kick in.

But back to milk.  Notwithstanding her increasing independence, all it takes is a ring of the dinner bell hanging on a nail, or simply calling Patterdale’s name, and she comes racing over from whatever games or other mischief she’s gotten into with her lamb colleagues.

It is not very often I allow Steve to act as the official Saltmarsh Ranch photographer, mostly because he is somewhat of a perfectionist and I get impatient waiting for him to take the ideal picture.  But a few days ago he grabbed the camera as I was strolling down the gravel lane in the Maternity Ward to feed Patterdale.

Does the old Al Jolson tune, “Me and My Shadow” come to mind?

When Patterdale first moved inside with us, we used a purchased lamb nursing bottle, but once she moved out to the Maternity Ward with her buddies, we needed something a bit bigger so as not to be running back and forth to the house all the time.  Enter a no-longer-needed-for-human-consumption Schweppes Diet Tonic bottle — just the ticket.

As you can see, there is no shortage of enthusiasm for eating in this little ewe lamb. 

I have to laugh at our naivete in this whole episode, especially our unwarranted fear that we would not be able to find Patterdale amidst the throng of lambs in the Maternity Ward.  We actually put a big swath of green marking crayon, the stuff we use to tell us which of our Soay have been vaccinated when we work the ewes or rams, on Patterdale’s head. 

Oh yes, the red nipple.  For such a mundane tool, it has an awfully fancy name, “Pritchard teat,” and it is widely available in farm stores.  Unfortunately, as you can see it is way too big, as is a lot of sheep-related equipment not made especially for the little Soay, lambs or adults.  So far we have not had any luck finding a reliable smaller nipple and we welcome any advice on where to find one.  The nursing/watering equipment for rabbits and such in the pet stores never seems to include a nipple and we cannot imagine the Soay taking a liking to one of those stainless steel “straws” that little rabbits are supposed to lick on for liquid intake.

I haven’t decided whether to submit this next picture to the American Dairy Board or whoever it is that puts out the ads featuring celebrities with milk mustaches, but if life gets boring around here, I may just give it a whirl.

Meanwhile, as endearing as Patterdale is, on balance I will be relieved when her rumen is fully operational so she can live exclusively on hay and grass and we can commit the Schweppes bottle to the recycling bin.

For now …

For those of us lucky enough to have grass pastures in summer, feeding hay twice a day through the winter in the cold and rain is an annual reminder that not everything related to sheep-raising is fun.  In plain fact, it’s a nuisance having the animals’ dietary needs dictate our daily schedule.  How to keep the hay dry.  What to do about the accumulated muck from all those little feet trampling the same spot twice a day.  How to get the hay into either a feeder or a rumen, and not on the ground.  All of this is daunting at first.  The good news?  Enterprising metalsmiths, carpenters, and Soay breeders have devised a goodly number of economically rational solutions to the winter feeding dilemma.

Before I launch into the sampler of feeders, I’ll share with you a few factors you might want to keep in mind when considering what will work best for your setup.  Not surprisingly, there are tradeoffs.  

Purchase or build.  Cost is a threshold factor, of course (assuming you can make a feeder for less than you’ll pay a commercial source), but for many shepherds, time and access to a supplier also enter the equation.  Plus, homemade feeders can be customized in ways that off-the-shelf products cannot. 

Cover or don’t cover.  If you feed your animals in a barn or other building with a roof, skip this one.  If you feed outside, read on.  Chief among the advantages of covered feeders is the assurance the hay will stay dry until the animals eat it.  Also, your gluttons – the big ewes who always shove their way to the front of the cafeteria line – will not be able to stand up and pull great tufts of hay out and spill it on the ground.  Our Soay have no table manners and I refuse to install a TV in their pasture so Martha Stewart can give them lessons.  Here is our “rainbow” breeding group – mahogany, tan, and black — at their small feeder.

The big girls chomping away are Portia on the left and polled Allspice on the right.  They should be grateful they drew stud muffin Fenugreek (the tan fellow in the middle) as their playmate this year and mind their manners.  Not a chance.

The only real downside to covers is they tempt a shepherd to fill a large feeder and then not show up in the field again for two or more days, during which time the sheep will pick through the hay for the goodies and leave all the less attractive stems in the bottom of the feeder.  Despite their legendary stupidity, sheep figure out quickly whether or not they need to be members of the Clean Plate Club and if they get accustomed to cherry-picking, they will waste a lot of pricey hay.

Sizing the slats or grid.  The typical commercial feeder has either vertical slats 4 inches apart or 4-inch mesh fence, too large for Soay.  Although adult rams and ewes probably would do okay with them, a 6-to-8 month old lamb can poke his head through a 4-inch opening in search of hay, get caught, panic, and hurt or kill itself.  Feeders sized for Soay with rigid (steel or wood) feeding slats or mesh must have openings of less than 3 inches.  Another solution is to use flexible pipe such as PVC in vertical slats, which solves the problem of a lamb getting stuck because the pipe will “give” enough to let the lamb’s head work its way back out, but it probably also means replacing pipe more often than if the slats are made of steel or wood. 

Wood vs. metal feeders.  The tradeoffs here are weight and ease of handling, durability in the weather, cost, and the ability to withstand the occasional battering ram.

The Sampler.  Since this is my blog, I get to talk about our feeders first.  Of necessity (the barn is full of hay), our Soay live in the fields day and night, with 12 x 8 roofed shelters in each pasture area.  Here are the older, non-breeding ewes taking shelter from a recent rain.  The contraption in the background that looks like a carnival wagon is a dandy sheep trailer made locally eons ago.

This style and size of shelter is good for protecting our animals from winter rains and the highest-sun days of summer, but is not designed for, or big enough, to include feeders.  For feeding, we need stand-alone equipment.  Portability also matters because we re-group and move at least part of our ewe flock twice each winter, first in December once breeding is over, and then again in early March when the pregnant ewes migrate to the Maternity Ward for lambing.  Once we figured out how long it would take to build the number of feeders we needed, we decided to purchase ours from Bill and Susan Shaul in California.  Here’s what our biggest Shaul feeders look like in the pasture area we use to winter-feed all our ewes before lambing.

Shaul’s and other commercial feeders of this style do a good job of protecting the hay from tumbling onto the ground.  Our smallest weaned lambs will feed quite adequately from the hay that falls into the trough below.  The next picture shows a mixed group of ram lambs and adults chowing down in the Bull Pen.  As you can see, the little guys are not shy about bellying up to the bar.

In all candor, we did have one enterprising lamb crawl into a feeder recently and somehow she got stuck below the slatted section, a first for us.  Thankfully, Steve was able to extract her without harm, thank goodness.  The shorter Shaul feeders like the one pictured above can be comfortably carried by two people or by one person with a pair of Shaul’s wheels, like a hand truck only the wheels fit into the end legs of any of their feeders.  The really long ones need to be moved using the tractor and forks.

In lieu of covers, Steve is in the process of making ramada-like structures of 4×4 pressure-treated wood posts and corrugated metal placed astride each set of winter feeders.  When we bought our feeders, we elected not to get covered ones, and not just for economic reasons.  Oregon is so mild compared to Chicago that until we had been through a full winter, we simply failed to appreciate the impact on our sheep and our pocketbooks of feeding them consistently wet hay.  Plus, we thought the extra step of opening and closing lids sounded like a hassle.  I don’t really know whether we would get covered feeders if we were starting from scratch now.  But it has worked out well for us anyway because the existing shelters in our winter pasture areas won’t hold all our animals now that our flock has grown so much.  The stand-alone covers Steve is making will provide additional space for the sheep to come in out of the rain.

If they were large enough, our new stand-alone covers also could solve the problem of the persistent deep muck that builds up over the winter where the sheep feed.  For this problem, we decided to keep the covers a smaller size and instead to concentrate on the ground itself.  Look back at the picture of our long feeders.  See that nice raised area surrounding them?  It is the pasture equivalent of rubber shower mats.  Our trusty summer ranch hand, Shawn (”Red”) Olsen, built us a perimeter of railroad ties set slightly into the surface of the pasture for stability, then filled with crushed rock.  I am happy to report that after a full rainy season of experience, these “balconies” mean no longer do either the sheep or the shepherds slip in muck at the feeders.   

And there’s a nice side benefit.  Remember hoof trimming?  We’ve observed a significant decline in the rate of new hoof growth in our Soay who have to walk across rock twice a day to eat.     

On to covered feeders.  The next set of pictures shows the feeder in my friend Anne’s field in Knayton, near Thirsk in Yorkshire, England.  Remember Anne?  She’s the total stranger I heard from out of the blue almost a year ago when I was starting this blog.  Anyway, since last we encountered Anne on these pages, she has acquired a new adjacent pasture, lucky her, and from the looks of her sheep feeder, it should roll next door to the new pasture quite easily if need be.   The first picture is the design itself.

And now the feeder itself.  Look at these wheels.  I’ll have to ask Anne if they are big enough to allow her to move the feeder by herself when it is empty.

In some respects, Anne’s feeder is just a Shaul of a different color, same open sides for feeding, same trough to catch the scraps of hay.  But look at that wonderful roof, hinged on the ends so Anne can simply tip it back on its hinges (marked with an arrow) when she is ready to fill the feeder.

Reminds me of the red and white coolers, Igloos, I think is the brand name, that have the same sort of balanced, roll-back top.  Anne’s hay certainly does not get fouled by rain, does it?

The mesh in Anne’s feeder is 2.5″, small enough to keep her lambs safe, and don’t they look contented facing the camera here.

Although the transportation costs probably eliminate Anne’s supplier for most readers of this blog, in the interests of completion, here is what she has to say about her source:  “They are purchased from our local agricultural supplier. I guess they are made by a local small-time workshop by the look of them. All in this area are the same - we all use the same supplier (”Sam Turner”).”

Now it is true confessions time:  I have hay feeder envy, big time.  A couple of weeks ago our friend Kate Montgomery of Blue Mountain Soay, from whom we purchased a major part of our foundation flock, sent me pictures of her brand-spanking-new hay feeders, and are they ever the cat’s meow.  Look at them, first unpainted and lined up in a row,

and then with their first coat of not-John-Deere green paint.

Kate and Bob made these feeders, hinged roofs and all, just before a major, 100+ MPH windstorm struck their farm.  When I asked Kate for a sketch, here’s how she described their work:  “It’s a way-easy thing if you build them in assembly line status.  We used good plywood and 2×4s. 2 people can “rickshaw” them around.   The sheep love them.  Otley has to wait her turn but others are right in there.   For tiny sheep you need to make the ’shelf’ more narrow.”

What versatile feeders these Blue Mountain Beauties are, big enough to feed a good number of Soay but small enough to pick up and move.   Kate and Bob chose to use flexible pipe for their vertical slats.

We’ll be eager to hear how this material works out.  Meantime, I’m seriously considering putting a couple of these feeders on my Santa wish list. 

So much for the brief tour through Soay feeders.   In the course of putting this post together, I came across several helpful websites and I only scratched the surface.  For example, the MidWest Plan Service run by Iowa State University in Ames bills itself as providing “practical, expert agricultural information for 76 years” and we cannot say enough good things about these folks.  The design of our shelters, for example, evolved from a MWPS plan.  In response to an inquiry about feeders for “miniature” sheep, Kathy at MWPS sent me to www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/abeng/sheepplans.htm, which also looks promising for purchased creep feeders, especially for newly-weaned lambs until they can belly up to the bigger feeders. And so on and so on.  If you have another feeder style that works well for Soay, I hope you will share it with readers of this blog, either by commenting directly or sending me a private e-mail and I’ll do an update to this post. 

Best wishes to everyone reading this post for a bountiful Thanksgiving feast with your friends and family.  May your animals’ dinner stay dry and your dressing and turkey stay moist, and let us all give thanks for our good fortune in finding and raising these appealing little creatures.

For now …