[Jacob-list] British jacobs, spongeing etc

[gordon johnston]

<<<>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

<<<Hi Juliet,
             With respect, the show breeders and those aiming for early finished lambs may sponge, and lamb indoors to avoid losses to foxes and severe weather, but many ewes (past the shearling year) in the south lamb naturally from mid-January onwards, so I would like to see how you derived "most". A quick flip through the registrations reveals nothing like those figures, and of course many flocks don't register every year/ever....and I would argue that most if not all of those don't sponge either.>>>

Hi Trish,
OK I probably made a sweeping statement there as perhaps some Jacobs do lamb early naturally in the south of Britain.  However, here in Scotland the natural time for lambing is from the last week of March onwards.  In order to have lambs of a size comparable with those from further south at shows and at sales, breeders in the north HAVE to sponge and lamb early, and I can assure you that most do (in fact all the 'big' breeders we know here do - we do not as we are not big breeders, we don't like the stress it puts on an animal to breed outside its normal pattern and we have the brass neck to stick to our principles.) 

<<<Many simply would rather not overwinter meat lambs or fatten them on expensive grain etc. Having seen a well-known Yorkshire breeder selling store lambs for a mere £10, economics must play a part! Here, Spring lambs are making a very respectable sum right now (no, they aren't Jacobs, but they aren't big lambs either...).>>>

Jacobs and other primitive breeds produce a far better tasting carcass when reared on grass, of course, but we find that our April born lambs are a good size by November, with no extra feeding and no need to lamb earlier.  I suppose the big British Jacob can compete with the commercials as Spring lamb, but grown slowly on grass and allowed to develop some flavour, they are prime candidates for the niche restaurant market where prices are good.


<<<With regard to lambing "problems" - it depends on your criteria. I have read several accounts of primitive ewes messing about for a day or so and producing dead lambs on at least three newsgroups in the last few weeks. I would much rather pull a large and always vigorous single or large twins with their horn buds grating on the ewe's pelvis. This reduces the chances of prolapse and results in great lambs - yes I could leave the ewe and yes some will manage alone, but everyone is happier with action A IMHO.>>>

The opinion I forwarded was not to not intervene, but to keep animals which had been born after severe problems out of the breeding pool.  I think few would be so extreme as to leave an animal struggling to survive and not intervene - they would be prosecuted for cruelty surely, if nothing else.  One of the tales of primitive sheep which produced dead lambs which I have heard about on another list were ewes which had not been lambed for SIX years, so hardly typical.  Obviously some primitive animals do have problems lambing and in the wild those would die - the opinion expressed was, I believe, that to simulate that situation without being so cruel as to let the ewe and her lambs die, we should keep them out of the breeding pool.   I had never consciously thought about it before, and all our Jacob tups are wethered anyway, so they are no problem, but I had not thought of not breeding from a ewe which was from a difficult birth - I might do so now, especially with my rare breeds.
I didn't reply sooner as we had one more Jacob to lamb, but now that she has done so I can say that this is the first year where we have had not a single lambing problem with our jacobs.  We only lambed 5, with 3 sets of twins and 2 of triplets, but in the past we have always had problems, some of them severe and once ending in the death of the ewe.  There have been two differences this year - one has been the superb dry weather and the other has been that we have lambed exclusively outside - I'm sure that being able to exercise adequately is very important to easy birthing, including the correct positioning of the lambs.  I do wonder what management systems those who have had problems with their primitive sheep are using - perhaps they are housing them inappropriately or feeding 'commercial' ration quantities

 <<<Their size is due to feed input (AKA greed-at-the-trough) rather than a problem due to their non-primitive status.>>>
I'm not quite sure what you are saying here.  It is accepted that the size of Jacobs overall here in Britain has gradually increased over the last 20 or 30 years as a result of , probably unconscious, selective breeding.  I find myself doing it too - the animals you pick as future breeding stock are in the first instance those which catch the eye, and one way of doing that is to be a fine sturdy example of the breed.  When that happens over successive generations, which for sheep are only a couple of years, gradually over the years the size of animals in that flock will tend to increase.  It was this insidious increase about which I was warning those in America, where Jacobs are still a small breed.  The beginnings of the same type of increase in size have been noted in Hebrideans, hopefully in time to prevent them from becoming a larger breed too.
The over feeding argument is frequently put forward to account for the increasing size of jacobs.  However, you could force-feed a Soay, or any other small breed, for all of its life and it would never outgrow its frame.

<<<In the last six years we have had one breech lamb (second of twins), and one triplet the smallest of three with it's head pushed round and not presenting perfectly. Lambing problems? Not a bit of it.
Trisha M-S, Marmont Jacobs,Wales>>>


That's as it should be, but is not universal - perhaps we should all buy our stock from you Trish !!!!  (Ours came from a 'top breeder' up here and are definitley large - we bought them before we were aware of the 'bigger is not necessarily better' argument).

With Jacobs, one other difference may affect lambing  - four-hornedness. This seems to mean the head is a different shape so perhaps this could mean more difficult births in the North, where 4 horns are more popular than down South.

The main point is for those in America where jacobs are small to be aware of the insidious nature of the phenomenon of slowly increasing size, and to tackle it before it gets them too !
Juliet in Scotland


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