Alright, a really nervous and edgy Persephone gave us another set of twins today. Mon Motha and Admiral Akbar. Yeah, Star Wars names are going to be interesting this year.
Something we decided to do this year was to add ear tags. We bought them from Premier 1 Supplies. The link will show you the size we decided to get. They aren't super expensive and you can get them custom printed. We have them serialized, 17XX, with 17 for the year, and XX from 01 to 80. Just in case we have a bunch this year! The other side says LSF for Long Shadow Farm. We decided to try ear tags after we had about 6 lambs that were solid black all within days of each other. This made it hard to track them and know exactly who we were taking to the processor. I keep detailed records of my lambs, including their weights and such, so I can track which mama is doing a good job!
Anyhow, click the link above and look for the video on how the applicator works. The video I saw showed a big guy easily and quickly squeezing a tag into a lamb's ear. Turns out I need more practice. It takes both hands for me to work the applicator. But our 6 little guys have their ear tags on. I hope they grow into them, the tags are weighting down their cute little ears right now.
I do feel slightly guilty about it. We had just moved to no alteration of our sheep at all. Most of our sheep are hair sheep, so we don't need to dock tails. Since we do some Halal slaughter on farm, and those folks prefer intact males, we aren't banding rams, either. But here we are, back to alteration. I hope it's minor for them, and only pinches for a second. It does kind of break my heart a little.