Gestation in Cascade Farmstead Sheep

BREEDING SEASON

We have found that breeding season often coincides with "the rut" found in deer, which normally occurs in October and November in our area.  Most ewe lambs tend to come into heat (estrus) in November, while older ewes might come into estrus in October.  We prefer a shorter lambing season, so we put our breeding groups together in November for best results, with lambs arriving just when our pastures are coming on strong.

GESTATION LENGTH

Cascade sheep have a gestation of approximately 5 months.  The parent breeds have gestations that range from 142 to 155 days.  We have not yet witnessed enough breeding dates to announce a gestation range. 

FEEDING DURING GESTATION

We feed unlimited amounts of good quality grass hay during the times our pasture growth slows.  During flushing and the early part of gestation we supplement their good quality grass hay with limited quantities per day of high quality alfalfa hay, and then taper off the amount of alfalfa for the next 3 months to just a bit per ewe.  During the last month we increase the amount of high quality alfalfa hay again.  Our sheep are always on pasture, with access to green grass all winter long.  It's very important to make sure that their salt feeder is kept full; we use a half and half mixture of kelp and sheep salt with minerals.  Not making this available can cause a selenium deficiency in the lambs known as white muscle disease.  We do not have experience with all-purpose livestock salt block or mineral mixture due to the fact that they are toxic to Soay sheep, one of the parent breeds of Cascade Farmstead sheep.  Sheep salt is a mineral mixture specially formulated for sheep and has the right amounts of copper; Soay sheep can die from ingesting salt/mineral mixes made for other livestock.

HOW MUCH FEED IS ENOUGH?

Feel the backbone of your sheep; the backbone of a Cascade often feels much like the knuckles of your clenched fist.  Bony ridges are normal, but not too bony.  It is helpful during the winter to butcher a few rams that don't make the grade as breeding stock, and before you butcher them, feel their backbones.  Once you have butchered, you can see just how much fat is on a sheep compared to the amount of backbone you felt.  See Feeding Sheep for more information on what sheep should be fed.

KETOSIS

While we have never had ketosis show up in any of our sheep since then, we did have it show up in a couple Shetland ewes in our first year of shepherding, back when we grainfed our sheep.  We no longer grain feed, for the reasons stated on our Feeds page.

If ewes are not fed properly during gestation, ketosis (pregnancy toxemia) can result.  Ketosis is often called twin lamb disease, and results from the ewe not receiving enough nutrition during late gestation when her twins or triplets are taking so much from her.  This is a tricky time, as the lambs are taking more space in her body, making less room for her dinner.  Therefore, her feed needs to be of a higher nutritional value at this time, and provided more often.  If the ewe is fat before coming into late gestation, she will use the fat in her body to turn into calories, which will happen faster than she can utilize and cause her to become ketotic.  Keeping the ewe fit and in good condition during gestation, but not fat, is the key, as well as increasing her plane of nutrition in late gestation.

Symptoms of Ketosis are a suddenly listless ewe, not wanting to get up and looking rather sleepy.  She may have an acetone smell in her breath.  Most people cannot smell this, but some can.  Getting glucose into the ewe immediately is important, or she may die.  This can be done via a solution from the vet, or you can use molasses mixed with some grain (if you use grain) or molasses mixed with leafy alfalfa.  Warm water with molasses added to it will also help, but is not the solution in itself.  In a severe case with a valuable ewe, call in the vet, who can set up the ewe with intravenous glucose.  This will turn the ewe around very quickly; we had a Shetland ewe who was so near to death when we discovered her condition (it does happen quickly) that my husband had his knife out, ready to cut out the lambs, when the vet arrived literally in the nick of time.  She set up the ewe with an IV, and within minutes the ewe was up and fine.  Within a few hours, the ewe had ripped out her IV and escaped her pen.  We realized that she had recovered when we were having difficulty catching her as she ran around our pastures; this is truly a quick fix!

Your vet can sell you some strips to check for ketones in your heavily pregnant sheep.  We have never had to do this, as we have never had ketosis in our Soay flock, and never again in our Shetland flock after that first time.

VACCINATIONS

While some shepherds vaccinate for this, that and everything else, we only vaccinated with CDT, with the goal of not even using that. Not only do we want our sheep to not rely upon modern medicine to survive, we expect them to flourish without it!  We vaccinated our Shetland, American Soay and British Soay adult sheep with CDT yearly; about a month before the first lambs are due.  The C & D in CDT is for "over eating disease" and we never had a problem with that due to the fact that our flock is grassfed only; we gave it for the Tetanus only.

Now that we exclusively keep Cascade Farmstead sheep, we have finally reached our goal of not vaccinating!  It is such a pleasure to have low maintenance, healthy sheep!

We do not and have never vaccinated lambs, knowing that young immune systems do not need the shock and interference, and we have never had a problem due to lack of vaccination.  Twelve lambing seasons and hundreds of lambs born on our farm attest that this is not necessary.

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Pregnant Cascade Farmstead Ewes.  Lavender, on the left, produced twin lambs 5 days after this photo was taken.  Honeysuckle, right, produced twin lambs two weeks after this photo was taken.  April 2011