any tips on handling sheep?

[sheepspin]

we seem to be doing things the hard way. hubby and i are getting older and can't seem to wrestle with the sheep anymore. we need some ideas for building chutes and corrals for sorting/worming/loading our woolies. is there an easy way of handling sheep without worrying about getting hurt? we have a bumper crop of lambs this year. just wormed and vac 47 on friday. we have border collies and used them to hold the sheep in a corner but we still have to wade in and grab em. it takes both of us to do this. was wondering if any older homesteaders have ideas or suggestions for us. or maybe know a good website with pics. also wonder how and what you all worm and vaccinate with. we've been using paste wormer and wondered if drenching was easier.
thank you

[RandB]

I feel your pain, we also are getting older and the sheep can be hard to catch! We have some sections of "hog panel" fencing that we use to set up temporary catch pens, we bought some of the 16' ones, and cut them into 8' and 4' lengths, they are quite useful.
I mainly wanted to suggest that you also post this over on the sheep forum here. There are some very knowledgeable and helpful people there!

[Wisconsin Ann]

A simple chute made of cattle panels, wooden pallets...whatever you can put together. just wide enough for sheep to go through, with hand/arm space for you to get to them with shots, wormer, etc. Create a funnel area, that the sheep are penned in, with an exit into the chute. Have a sliding door on each end of the chute. Close far door. sheep goes out of the pen, into the chute, you close up the back entrance door (this is why a sliding panel works well...sheep slips into chute, slide panel to close them in without having to move any other sheep out of the way)

When you're done with that particular sheep, open front door...sheep goes merrily on it's way out into pasture.

Works really well. Kind of like the big cattle set ups out west. Herd gets penned up, with a single exit. You shove 1 critter into the exit (which is actually a small stall), they get medicated, branded, whatever...open the far door and off they go.

[houndlover]

If money is no object (ha ha) then get the Sydell's catalog and buy a handling rig. If money IS an object, get the catalog and copy their handling rig using cattle panels (hog panel is too short, sheep will jump over it). We built ours by driving Tposts in the ground and lining the chutes with cattle panels, from a round corral. We used plywood to make drop doors to stop the sheep at certain points. We built a squeeze chute from pallets and hog panel. If the snow stops, I'll take a picture. I'd love to add a turn - table.

http://www.sydell.com/

[eurycea12]

When we started our flock 4 years ago we invested in a headlock from Sydell. The unit works great but is not good for trimming hooves. It is hard to get in there with the sheep (we have Icelandics which are a small breed). We also used hog panels to form a run up to our headgate. Until we watch a scared ewe jump over it! Now we catch them in our barn but definately have plans to build a chute, probably out of cattle panels and maybe tin roofing. It does make life so much easier.

[wendle]

I also use my border collies for handling the sheep. Sorting is done in a field with the dog shedding off necessary sheep, no touching the sheep needed most of the time. Another way is gate sorting which is having the dog hold the sheep to the gate and opening it for only the sheep wanted or unwanted, whichever you prefer. Loading is again with the border collie, I generally just need to handle the trailer gate. As long as the trailer is low enough for the sheep to jump in I can load pretty much anywhere there is good solid ground for the trailer.
For vaccinating and worming short of getting an expensive handling system you might try breaking the flock up into smaller groups , sorting with the dog into a smaller area or pen and mark them as they are treated. You can fashion a nice Y chute that squeezes tighter out of gates for easier handling. I don't have a handling system and take care of over 100 sheep with just a dog. If money is tight you might consider just getting part of a handling system like a head gate, and or a tilt table.
You probably hire out the shearing? Some sheep need hooves trimmed regular and some don't. I used to have to trip my katahdin's hooves at least twice a year, the border cheviots don't seem to ever need it.

[billooo2]

I went with a smaller breed.

[vegfarmer]

Sell your wool breeds and get hair sheep. I raise Katahdins and have not wormed all of the flock in 6 or 7 years. I will occasionally worm a single ewe that may look like she needs it but this is only 1 or 2 a year. I will put Shaklee's Basic H in there water 3 or 4 times a year but they are going to drink on there own so no drenching. I have been raising sheep for about 14 years and have never vaccinated for anything and have never felt I needed to. Its very rarely I loose a lamb for any reason. My ewes will usually breed untill they are 8 to 10 years old. Unless wool prices have gone up a lot you are not making any thing on the wool any way. They are a medium size breed so they are easier to work than a large breed. Very few lambing problems even with yearling first timers. Most years I don't feed any grain (we are in our 19th month of drougth and the hay is horrible so I am feeding some whole corn now) and I can go out and call them and they will come from 1/4 mile away ready to move to another pasture or back to the barn at night.

[sheepish]

My husband and I run a flock of 60-75 rideau ewes.

We have had a handling system for 30 years where the sheep are funneled into a chute where they can be vaccinated, wormed, tagged, etc. and sorted 3 ways. It has been a great help. up to 10 ewes fit in the chute at a time and gates close in front and back.

Now that he is 70 and I am over 60, and broke my back last year, we decided that the only way to stay in sheep was not to have to bend over all the time.

So, along with 3 other shepherds, we paid a guy ~$2000 to make us heavy duty "sheep flippers." The sheep runs into it at the end of the run, we use a lever to run fingers under the belly and then flip a hyraulic switch to raise it up to a sitting position. We do whatever needs doing with the sheep immobilized and at waist height and then release the hydraulics, lower the sheep open the belly lever and the front gate and the sheep runs off.

I don't know how many years this has bought us, but it has bought us some. Since there are very few of these in the province, we can probably get our money back when we want to get out of sheep.

[JW Parker]

Good devices for handling sheep. If you don't have any of these, borrow from someone else. They are called grandkids.

Edit to add;

I forgot, by the time grandkids get big enough to really help, they have lives of their own and are harder to catch than the sheep.

[kabri]

Wow, I like the sound of the rig sheepish uses! Another suggestion would be a sheep chair. I don't have one yet, but have seen them used. You can catch the sheep with a crook, close to the chair then back it into it. I've helped others who use this method and it sure works well especially for trimming feet. Smaller breed helps too!

[FreeRanger]

Stop vacinating your sheep...switch to rotational grazing and you don't need to worm...raise only as many sheep as your land can handle.

Oh wait that's right humans have been raising sheep for how many years before vacs and dewormers existed?....

Any way it's just a suggestion....it can be done with out vacs and dewormer...it has been done, maybe we should return?

Otherwise to answer your questions pallets are cheap, usually free. Cattle panels are used to bring the sheep in close but solid panels are needed to keep them calm and from hurting themselves.

[sheepspin]

thanks for all the suggestions. a little more info for you, we raise katahdins, have around 100 at the moment [thats including the lambs], have raised sheep for 15 years [many different breeds thru the years], do the rotational grazing on 40 acres. the sheep are penned in for the winter. we cant put them out to graze yet until the lambs get bigger[too many coyotes]. we lost a lamb and i checked the gums and they were very pale and lamb was very thin. thats why we wormed every lamb and most of them had pale gums and were thin. we also vac'd with covexin 8 while we had hold of them. we seem to have this problem every spring. we dont usually have this many sheep, but the trailer broke down on the last load of culls in december so had to tow trailer back home. so ended up with 20 more than we had planned on keeping over the winter and of course they all decided to lamb also! we usually only keep 20-25 ewes and 1 ram.
vegfarmer what is shaklees basic h? i have never heard of that. we seem to have a lot of worm problems. pale gums and thin, wouldnt that be caused by worms?
thanks all

[eurycea12]

Haemonchus contortus, the Barberpole worm lives attached to the sheep's stomach lining. Once attached they live off of the hosts blood and can cause anemia. You should review your past worming protocol and learn to recognize the signs of a severe infection.

We found out the hard way about this beastie during our first year raising sheep. We now use the FAMACHA method to determine stomach worm load and treat each animal accordingly. The problem with blanket worming is parasite resistance. Over time (and it does not take that long) your resident worms will become immune to your wormer. We now rotate wormer on a yearly basis and only treat animals that show signs of anemia. We run our own fecals to double check our FAMACHA results.

Using this method only gives an indication of H. contortus load as other worms do not cause anemia.

[GrannyG]

Sadly, in Abilene, an elderly lady died from injuries she received when hit in the chest by a ram.....she went out to check on the new lamb, and the ram hit her in the chest. Years ago, we had one that knocked down DH but it was the last time he hit him....as we get older, we really have to be careful around them...we sold ours years ago, now just have a few old goats.

[Yvonne's hubby]

The best way I know of to handle sheep is to get one to jump off a cliff, the rest will follow, problems solved.

[vegfarmer]

Shaklee's Basic H is a cleaning product. Its supposed to be made from soybean oil and other natural products. Its NOT labeled for parasites but Joel Salatin of Pasteured Poultry and Salad Bar Beef fame swears by it and I seem to have good luck with it. I mix about a quart into 100 or 150 gallons of water and let them drink that for a day or two.

Lambing season for me right now. Just got back from the barn and had a set of twins. I am not having very many twins this year but with the drought its probably for the best. There is a great chance of rain for us the next 4 days so keep your fingers crossed.