Dear Curiosity Journal,
As a shepherdess of two thick Babydoll ewes, I got caught up in the comments section of a group post about how to slim them down. Rufus and I joke that the comments in the sheep farming groups can be ruthless. Some farmers will straight up insult you for asking a question they deem ridiculous. It’s not uncommon for posts to begin with some preamble like, “No hate please” or “New farmer here, please don’t shame me”. For this reason, I’m strictly an observer in these groups, learning from the online belittling of those brave seekers who dare to be so vulnerable as to unveil their relative ignorance (usually in some emergency plea for help with a gruesome photo of a suffering animal). This post on sheep weight loss was on the lighter side and included a full spectrum of advice ranging from “a little extra weight won’t hurt them” to “don’t feed them in the winter”. I take these comments with a grain of salt and look for patterns of many farmers giving the same advice. The impression I got from the thread is that Babydolls are “easy keepers”. They don’t need a lot and fatten up easily. There was a strong emphasis on NO GRAIN. It was not recommended to skip a year of breeding because they gain too much weight if they’re not raising lambs. You can try dry lotting and limiting feed to minimal amounts (1 slab of hay/day) or forcing them to exercise by putting water on one end of the pasture and shade on the other. As a meat sheep, they are meant to pack on weight. So, the older they get, the more they gain, and the harder it is to lose. Sounds familiar. Pearly and Joy Jr. are 6-year-old maiden ewes (never lambed) who eat non-stop (including a serious grain binge last winter before I cut them off) so I have little hope that they will trim down much, but I will try to breed them again this fall. I consider putting them on a diet before the ram comes to rendezvous, but I think we might be past the point where that would move the needle much. Just fat by nature, making pig noises as they munch along the marigolds.
~Joy
