First weeks

after birth, before weaning

The case for all-wether Soay sheep flocks

The case for all-wether Soay sheep flocks

Over a decade ago I posted about the pros and cons of castrating some of your Soay rams: in a nutshell, no worries about accidental breeding, more mellow fellows in the fields, more flexibility in butchering, and having a companion for non-breeding rams left behind or injured rams or ewes, versus losing the statuesque horns […]

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EweTube: The Soay nursery as a way-station

By now regular readers know I am a firm believer in every shepherd fine-tuning the lore of how to manage his or her flock to suit farm layout and personal style. Nowhere in the life cycle of Soay sheep are there more variations on standard husbandry practices than in the management of newborn lambs. Here […]

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Soay ram lambs:  Whether to wether, when, and how

Soay ram lambs: Whether to wether, when, and how

Absent a big win in the gender lottery, we end lambing season with more ram lambs than we need or can sell.  When the lambs are about 8-14 weeks old, we convert some rams to wethers, i.e., we castrate them.   Why castrate at all, rather than leave things be? I can think of at […]

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Let the [Soay sheep] Games Begin!

Let the [Soay sheep] Games Begin!

  Having now dithered for a full two weeks trying to figure out a way to introduce our lambs, I have given up on the notion of an orderly, grown-up recitation of the lambs as they arrive, complete with mini-pedigree and a clever phrase about each one.  My downfall was watching the little woolies cavorting about […]

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