Saturday, May 22, 2010

Please tell me everything about keeping sheep? (feeding, area, breeding, shearing, vetinary care etc.)?

I am interested in buying some sheep, as pets, not to make profit or anything. Please tell me about jabs, and everything I put in the question, and anything extra which I need to know about?
Answers:
my family buys and sells sheep a lot and hopefully i can help you a bit.
depending on where you are going to keep them you don't need to give them very much food because they eat grass for the most part but in the colder months you should provide them with plenty of hay and they should of course always have water. sometimes we also make a mixture of corn, soy, and oats to give them more nutrition.
if you truly want just "pets" then it might not be the best idea to have any males because they are much more powerful and aggressive than any female. but if you do want to breed them you should get only one ram and and a few ewes depending on how many lambs you want, it is important to remember that each ewe can and usually will have more than one lamb. when you aren't breeding them you should keep your ram seperate from the others and it might be the best to even sell it because dealing with rams is no fun!
you do not need to shear your sheep at all but it is usually a good idea and it is better to do it in warmer weather but it is okay to shear them when it is cold out as long as they have a good shelter.you can also do it yourself but if you don't feel confident that you can do it there are people that charge an appropriate amount to shear them for you.
health wise it almost all depends on the breed of sheep that you have and you can ask a vet what you should use for the spacific breed you have.
i hope i helped and gave you some helpful information
Sheep do make good pets. They are fairly easy keepers and not all sheep are wool sheep that have to be sheered. There is a kind of sheep that we raise.(and prefer) Kentaden sheep. They shed out their coat and don't need sheered.
They will eat just about anything, so if you have a grassy area they will graze to their hearts content. They will need hay in the winter months and of course as with any animal lots of fresh water as they can get dehydrated easy.
I don't know where you are located but here in Oregon something that we run into allot with our sheep is that they can get a diarhea which in the sheep is called scours. This will dehydrate them quickly and if not taken care of immediatly your sheep will die. There is a specific medacine that you can get either from the vet or from your local farm supply (usually) that you can give them. You will know if they have scours cause their tail, bottom and all the way down and usually their legs are covered with diarhea.
But other than that we have found the sheep to be wonderful pets and fun animals. If you have a ram and ewes count on having babies. When the ewes birth you will need to have the ram seperated to a differant place due to the fact that he will try to kill the baby. When sheep are raised form baby's you can determine by how much time you spend how friendly they will be...and they can be pets!

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