Program proceedings online

The program proceedings from the recently-held Lambing & Kidding School are now online.

The web page includes links to fact sheets, presentations, videos, and other handouts. All information pertains to the subject of lambing and kidding.

The page includes links to publications that were not included in the notebook and/or flash drive that participants received.

Program proceedings

Lambing & Kidding School well-attended

Eighty-six adults and youth attended the 2011 Lambing & Kidding School, held November 19 at Chesapeake College in Wye Mills, MD. The school is held every other year at a different location in  Maryland. The next school will be held in 2013 in Western Maryland.

Dr. Susan Kerr, a 4-H Extension Educator and veterinarian from Washington State University was the featured speaker at this year's school. Her participation was sponsored by Northeast SARE.

Youth practice tubing a dead lamb.

Other speakers included Dr. Nelson Escobar, the Small Ruminant Specialist at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES); Dr. Dahlia O'Brien, the Small Ruminant Specialist at Delaware State University; Jeff Semler, an Agricultural Extension Agent in Washington County (MD); Dr. Michael Jacobs, a private veterinarian; and myself, Susan Schoenian, Extension Sheep & Goat Specialist.

This was the first school in which a separate educational tract was held for youth. Seventeen youth participated in the youth tract, which included a parasitology lab, skills lab, wet lab, and skillathon practice.

Proceedings of the Lambing & Kidding School were provided to the participants via a notebook or flash drive. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the proceedings (notebook @$15 or flash drive @$10), please contact Pam Thomas at pthomas@umd.edu or (301) 432-2767 x315.

USDA eliminates January Sheep Report

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) is discontinuing or reducing a wide range of agricultural survey programs including the January Sheep (and Goat) Inventory Report -- the only annual report NASS provides for the sheep (and goat) industry. Your help is needed to revive this report.

To ensure the return of the January Sheep (and Goat) Inventory Report, producers, state associations, processors, warehouse-men and all others associated with the sheep (and goat) industry are encouraged to take a moment to send an email to the Joseph Prusacki, NASS statistics division director, Joseph_Prusacki@nass.usda.gov, and to your state NASS director explaining the importance of this report to you and to the industry.

Beyond the NASS sheep inventory report, the industry is not aware of an alternate source for the formulation of inventory reports. Please, take a moment to request every consideration be made to reinstate the annual sheep (and goat) inventory report.

2012 nutrition and feeding webinar series

A series of webinars will be held on consecutive Thursday nights in January and February 2012. The webinars will focus on the feeding and nutrition of sheep and goats.

• January 12 - Digestive physiology
• January 19 - Nutrients
• January 26 - Feedstuffs
• February 2 - Nutritional management
• February 9 - Rational balancing
• February 16 - Nutritional disorders

Each webinar will begin at 7:30 p.m. EST and last for approximately one hour. An hour of questions and answers will follow. Topics may overlap more than one webinar. University of Maryland Extension Specialists and Educators will be the instructors for the webinars.

Anyone with an internet connection may participate in the webinars. High speed access is recommended. The first 100 people who log onto https://connect.moo.umd.edu/sschoen/ will be able to participate. All webinars will be recorded and available for later viewing at http://www.sheepandgoat.com/recordings.html.

Even though pre-registration is not required, those who plan to participate should should contact Susan Schoenian at sschoen@umd.edu, so that they can be added to the webinar e-mail reflector list.  People who registered for last year's webinars should already be on the list and receive e-mail notification of the 2012 webinar series.

Download webinar flyer

Virginia Bred Ewe Sale

The Virginia Sheep Producers Association will be holding their annual Fall Bred Ewe Sale on Saturday, December 3, 2011, at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The sale begins at 1 p.m. Additional details, including an online catalog with photos can be found at www.vasheepproducers.com.

Spanish shepherds protest urban sprawl

Spanish shepherds led flocks of sheep through the streets of central Madrid in defense of ancient grazing, migration and droving rights threatened by urban sprawl.

Jesus Garzon, president of a shepherds council established in 1273, said some 5,000 sheep and 60 cattle crossed the city to exercise the right to droving routes that existed before Madrid grew from a rural hamlet to the great capital it is today.

Photo:  AFP/Getty

Shepherds have a right to use 78,000 miles of paths for seasonal livestock migrations from cool highland pastures in summer to warmer grazing in winter. The movement is called transhumance and in Spain it involves around a million animals, mostly sheep and cattle.

Some paths have been used annually for more than 800 years and modern-day Madrid is in the way of two north-south routes, one dating back to 1372.

Read full Telegraph article

Thanks to Jeff Semler for suggesting this entry.

New source for McMaster Slides

McMaster slide

There is a new source for McMaster slides.  It is FEC Sources.  The slides can be ordered online from their web site at fecsource.com.

A McMaster slide is a two or three-chambered slide that is used to count worm eggs.  Fecal egg counting is a quantitative method of determining anthelmintic (dewormer) resistance and pasture contamination.

Other sources of McMaster slides include the Chalex Corporation (www.vetslides.com) and Focal Point (www.mcmaster.co.za).

Register for Lambing & Kidding School

The deadline for registering for the 2011 Lambing & Kidding School is next Wednesday, November 9.

The biennial school will be held Saturday, November 19, 2011, at Chesapeake College in Wye Mills, Maryland.

Dr. Susan Kerr, an extension educator and veterinarian from Washington State University is the featured speaker.  While the school is appropriate for any sheep or goat producer, it is ideally suited to to persons who have been raising sheep and/or goats for less than five years.  There is a separate educational tract for youth.

More information about the school can be found on the web at http://sheepandgoat.com/programs/11LKSchool.html.

Download program brochure with registration form.

Body condition scoring goats

Langston University (Oklahoma) has created several resources to teach goat producers how to body condition score their goats. 

The resources include a new video and fact sheet and a quick reference card. The resources are available at http://www2.luresext.edu/goats/research/bcshowto.html. The fact sheet is a large PDF file (11 meg).

Body condition scoring (BCS) is a simple, fast method of assessing the overall condition, or the thinness or fatness, of goats.

It provides an indication of available fat reserves that can be used by the animal in periods of high energy demand, stress, or suboptimal nutrition and allows producers to make better management decisions. Goats should be maintained with a moderate amount of body condition.

Download fact sheet
View YouTube video