[Jacob-list] assisted lambing - an opinion

[Neal and Louise Grose]

I tend to agree. Maternal characteristics are hard to breed for but easily lost if we do not actively select to maintain them. I try to think of the sheep as a whole, even the flock as a whole, which sometimes puts me at odds with only looking at the breed standard.

We lamb "on pasture/muddy lot" without assistance and lose a few, particularly early in the season. That said, we do on occasion raise bottle lambs. These are almost never retained for breeding stock, and never the ram lambs. We do have a relatively mild climate.

Neal Grose
Harmony, North Carolina
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: gordon johnston 
  To: jacob-list at jacobsheep.com 
  Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 7:54 AM
  Subject: [Jacob-list] assisted lambing - an opinion


  The following appeared on another sheep list and is about Soay, but the same principle could be taken to apply to Jacobs, if their primitive characteristics are to be preserved (and the lesson from British 'big Jacobs' should be learned - most breeders sponge their ewes, lamb indoors and assist whenever necessary, in a sheep which, whatever breeders here claim, has lost much of its easy lambing characteristics)


  <<<<I am uneasy about all this talk about assisted lambing, keeping lambs alive
  etc.  there is a large heritable component to lambing problems, and to
  weakness in lambs.  I would most strongly urge that ewes or lambs with
  problems are not registered, or used to produce soays.  If they would have
  died without assistance, they should be "dead" to the breed - however dear
  to their owner.>>>>

  What do others think of this harsh approach?
  Juliet in Scotland


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