Calling Patandchickens!

[big brown horse]

Hi Pat,

Didn't you recently get some sheep books? Which one do you like the best?

I am interested in "milk sheep" info. (I think I finally located a ram!)

Thanks,
Sally

 

[Henrietta23]

Hi Pat,

Didn't you recently get some sheep books? Which one do you like the best?

I am interested in "milk sheep" info. (I think I finally located a ram!)

Thanks,
Sally

Nope, I'm not Pat but....
Um, BBH, you can't milk a ram. I don't need a book to tell me that!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I want to say I once had a book on dairy goats and sheep from the library. I'll try to find out the name of it. It had a lot of info.

 

[big brown horse]

Hi Pat,

Didn't you recently get some sheep books? Which one do you like the best?

I am interested in "milk sheep" info. (I think I finally located a ram!)

Thanks,
Sally

Nope, I'm not Pat but....
Um, BBH, you can't milk a ram. I don't need a book to tell me that!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I want to say I once had a book on dairy goats and sheep from the library. I'll try to find out the name of it. It had a lot of info.

hahahah! I suppose I should have been more clear! I happen to be so excited I can hardly type!!

I just adopted a 1/2 icelandic 1/2 east Friesian bottle baby aka "bummer baby". His mother died last night trying to give birth to his twin sister. (She was a great mother in the past, but sadly she tore her uterine wall and she had to be put down.)

Thanks Henrietta! I'm heading to the library just as soon as my daughter gets home. Boy, I'm about to be the most popular mom on the planet! She doesn't know yet! (We are picking him up tomorrow!)

 

[patandchickens]

I don't know - I wish I could help you out by unequivocally recommending one single book, but as with chicken books, I have not yet found one that is 'all things for everyone'.

Capsule reviews, as per my idiosyncratic personal opinions:

Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep (Simmons & Ekarius) -- very well-organized, as all the others in the series are too. Easy to find the information you are looking for. Fair amount of what I'd consider blah-blah-blah padding (yakking on about self-evident things that do not really relate to sheep in particular).

The Sheep Book (Ron Parker) -- much more intense and "real world-y" than the Storey Guide, which has a certain 'I read about sheep and wrote a book report about 'em' element to it. Many anecdotes and detailed suggestions from author's and other shepherds' actual experience. Gives you much better idea what it is like to manage a small commercial type flock. Organized by seasons more than by topic, consequently I have a lot of trouble finding particular half-remembered pieces of info. Author runs a rather useful sheep listserv, too.

How To Raise Sheep (Hasheider) -- in the FFA book series. Oodles of color pics of all sorts. In tone and content it is maybe sort of like halfway between the above two books. Talks more about sheep dairying than either of the above two books does, although much of the info is aimed at commercial dairying rather than 'I want to milk my sheep' and author is fixated on East Friesians as the dairy breed.

Honestly my recommendation would be to buy (or at least borrow) all three -- each gives you a different slant on things, and covers a slightly different span of territory. I also would like to get/read "More Grass, More Sheep, More Money" and some book whose exact title i forget but it's something like 'Natural Sheep Management", but have not done so yet. There is also a book specifically about sheep dairying but it is out of print and used copies start at $150 or so on Amazon so I know no more than that about it

So, I know that is not really a recommendation. But I have gotten approximately equal amounts of benefit from all three, and can't really say one is overall better than the others.

E.t.a. - congrats on the bottle baby, POST PICS

Pat

 

[kcsunshine]

Pics please. I have to live vicariously through all of you when it comes to cows, pigs, horses, sheep, goats, yaks, and any other 4-footed animals. I'm only allowed chickens (and 2 geese).

 

[big brown horse]

Thanks Pat!!

I'm picking him up tomorrow and I will take photos and post them as soon as I can.

I have been looking and looking for a dairy ram with no luck. Seems all the sheep around here are bred for meat. Finally I found this little guy. I didn't want to bottle feed anyone, but for the cost (almost free) I couldn't pass him up. And what 13 year old would not just love to bottle feed a baby?

(Don't worry, I know he is going to be a ram soon, so we won't spoil him.)

 

[Wifezilla]

Don't worry, I know he is going to be a ram soon, so we won't spoil him.

 

[big brown horse]

Well that is what I keep telling myself anyway!

 

[Henrietta23]

OH hooray for more new animals! Can't wait to see pictures.
Can't find the name of the book I had. I'm sure it did talk about milking sheep because I had considered it.