And btw sheep may be dumb but so are beef cattle. And far less likely to kill you. I consider sheep a personal safety improvement lol.
Oh gawd no, sheep are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay stupider than cows. And waaaaaaaay more high maintenance IMO. I do like them, but omg.
My parent's have between about 75 ewes at any given time. Sometimes its more like 80-85 girls. My stepdad has kept a flock his whole life. Our girls (we keep back all our good white face ewe lambs for replacements as they get old or have accidents, etc.) are Dorset/Columbia cross which gives us some really nice ewes. We have some pretty tall girls because of the Columbia. The lady who cuts my hair that lives out in the same area as my parents has purebred Dorset ewes and the last few years she's leased one of our rams. reason we keep all good wool ewes is for selling the wool when we shear... and its a pretty big to-do to shear that many, usually takes all day. Though not as big as when the one guy who does most of the shearing in ID has to shear the bands (1,000 ewes to a band...) owned by Shirts. They also run primarily Dorset/Columbia cross ewes.
We usually have two to three rams at any given time. They are in their own area aside from the month of September when they are with the girls doing their job. We've always had really nice rams and are able to work around them fine. I think if you treat them like you are scared of them or try to make them pets I think is where you run into issues and of course part is temperament too so look at temperaments of stock already produced by where you want to get your ram. The time I went up to N ID with my parent's to visit family and we stayed with the folks that raise Columbia sheep, I remember they took us to the pasture where they were keeping their young rams. We could walk freely among them no problem.
Our Hampshire boy Dobe got old and sick and had to be put down (my brother did it) this spring, but my stepdad plans on getting another young Hamp boy from the same people. We get our Columbia rams from some people in North Idaho that do a lot of showing and stuff with their sheep. In the past we've had a few Suffolk rams/ewes... I personally don't care for Suffolks as a breed. Not a big fan of hair sheep either, but thats just me. They seem to be extremely popular with dog people though.
Its a lot of work, but I don't really mind it. Lambing is fun with all the cute babies and I actually enjoy the huge time commitment of feeding morning and night more than my "real" job lol. That said, you can't be sqeamish about making the best choices for the health of the animals. My stepdad has tried to nurse some along that needed put down long before he did because he loves those **** sheep.
My parent's BC is pretty worthless, but we love him anyway. I think its mostly a handler problem...
He will not stand his ground to a ewe that wants to take him at all and forget working the cows, no way in hell he'd work the cows. They should've bought a ranch bred BC and not a trial bred BC. Oh well, he's a super sweet dog and we like him anyway!
We keep a llama with the sheep. The last two were great at their job, but our current one is a big fat fail, so the sheep just come in the lot every night so they are safe. They're so used to the habit they basically put themselves up. Liberty (the Llama) was free from some people who raise llamas and wasn't raised with sheep and is solidly middle aged so I'm betting thats the issue. Our last two (King and Henry respectively) were male llamas. King was pretty standoffish to people for the most part and killed one of my stepdad's dogs, but Henry was just really awesome.
We've got 35 head of cows too. Maybe more, I'm not sure... I think we kept back some more heifers this year. Its more a pain in the ass when something goes wrong with calving... usually you get them in the head catch at the cow barn and call a neighbor (lotta ranching out here in the boondocks), BUT I have to say we have a lot less instances of stuff going wrong with the cows and them needing help than the sheep do. They are so well fed and cared for that we get a lot of twins too, again usually with no issues. All our girls are fine during calving and other times, except one. We got her from a neighbor down the road and she's a different breed (Solaire)... Pie needs sold or turned to burger, she is no bueno.
All our other cows are Simmental/Angus cross mostly. We have one Hereford (used to have her mom as well, but she got cancer by her eye on the white marking and it went to her brain before we could do anything) and we've kept back a few heifers over the years from them, so Muzzy and a couple other girls are part Hereford. Muzzy is black with a white muzzle. She was so cute the day she was born. I was in high school and got to pick her up.
Our bulls are real well mannered too. They are big, especially Bob our Simmental boy, so obviously you have to be conscious of the power there, but overal just really good bulls. Our red Angus boy SS is younger, but he's been great so far.
They are smart enough to peel back the tin on the barn and get to the hay, whereas the sheep are not lol.
I much prefer the cows tbh. Even if my parent's herding dog is totally useless and I'm always the cowdog lol.
I will post some pics when photobucket decides its going to work.
