Ruggy Rastafarians

While Jim & I worked the flock last week we observed that the poorest shedders (and "worst looking") uniformly had the best body condition.

We care about our animals and using your eyes and assessing them in your most powerful first port of call. Having sheep that “look rough” is a hard thing to train your eye to look past.
It’s like trying to assess someones physical health under a knotted mob of hair, puffer jacket and overalls.

But under their knotted and scrappy hair we noticed full bellies, round bellies and fat tail heads.

Damara, our interesting African breed of sheep, have an interesting long tail. The are called “Fat Tail Sheep” and they store fatty deposits on the top portion on their tail - where it meets their body. 
A really fat sheep will have a crease here - think of it as a sheep’s love handle!
Well, these animals had them in spades. A good sign that they are nice a fat, just how we like them!

This week I recorded a podcast with Jill from "The Sheep Show". I mentioned this observation to Jill during our conversation.

She muscle scans Rams prior to stud offerings and says that they routinely see this.

Poor shedders (which get culled/not sold as stud stock) are very often highest performing for muscle depth and body condition.

I said to Jill that if I had all the data of all my animals on a spreadsheet, nicely organised (of which I certainly do not), that I would be selecting for 2 criteria. Fertility and longevity.

Colour, hair quality, heigh, horns, etc - all pointless to me. And the animals themselves.

This is a fantastic opportunity and asset to farmers who sell direct to market.
Any commercial farmer running scruffy, coloured, horned, leggy Damara would be severely punishing when they sell their lamb crop at the markets.

I think that this is so unfortunate. I believe we are leaving lots of production gains and opportunities on the table because of our “white sheep & black cow” obsession.

I'll keep my Ruggy Rastafarians as long as they don't cop any fly strike burden. Fly Strike is a nasty curse where maggots burry down into damp areas on a sheep and start to eat at it. We haven't had any on our Damara in the entire time we have farmed them - almost 2 years.

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