McDermit Ranch

Not very many sheep get names on our farm, but I’m going to call this little 12 hour old lamb Lucky. Here’s her story: As I was walking past the pen this morning, I saw the ewe laying on the lamb’s head. I quickly got the ewe up and I thought she was dead, but she took a little gasp! So, I started softly blowing in her mouth and nose from a few inches away. I could feel her heart still beating and pretty soon she started taking little breaths!... In a few minutes, she was breathing well and I gave her back to her mom. In the picture, she hadn’t perked up completely yet. Looking a bit sorry. Occasionally , ewes unknowingly lay on their lamb because they can’t feel through their wool. This is the first lamb I have saved from being smothered like this. I’m usually too late.

It looks like someone has been enjoying the molasses lick! We feed these molasses tubs just prior to lambing to help keep the energy up in late gestation.

We are happy to see our first LAI lambs arrive! Twin ewe lambs, too! They are sired by one of the Australian Gooramma rams. Looking forward to seeing how they turn out.

This chunky December born Dorset ram lamb is on his way to his new home in northern Alberta. He is sired by our ranch raised ram, McDermit 96G. He and his sister were raised by a 7 year old ewe.

We’re pretty happy with how these 86 December born Dorset lambs are coming along. They are all sired by our flock sire, McDermit 96G. We just weaned them on Saturday and they didn’t skip a beat as they were already eating their pellets well. The 6 lambs with a blue line on their shoulder were bottle fed. Most of the ram lambs should be ready for the Easter market, however, there are some really nice rams in this pen that are too good to go to market! So, if anyone needs an ...unregistered Dorset ram lamb let us know soon! (We will also have January born registered ram lambs in a few months). See more

Believe it or not, ALL the sheep in the first photo are laying in the little bush in the second photo!

Yesterday, we pulled the rams and put all the ewes back together again. We also let the replacement ewe lambs out with the rest of the flock to graze until the first of October when they will be put with rams for March lambing. Overall, we are happy with the condition everyone is in.

We turned 5 January born Dorset ram lambs out with our mature purebred ewes a week and a half ago. They are all ranch raised, RR genotyped and they each have their own group of 7 to 17 ewes. We put marking harnesses on them, so I like to check them every day to see how they are working. To get a look at them, I call them over to a little bit of grain. In the first week, they all had 2/3 of their ewes marked. The teaser ram had been in with them for 3 weeks prior to the ram turn out. We usually leave the teaser in for just 2 weeks, but we are wondering if 3 weeks is better. Looking forward to the next January lamb crop!

And the race is on and here come ewes up the backstretch, guardian dog is going to the inside..... These are some of our January born ewe lambs coming in for their half a pound of pellets tonight.

Another beautiful Saskatchewan sunset tonight! We never get tired of seeing sights like this.

Bringing the ewes in to sort into two groups, registered and non-registered. We put a ram in with the latter group for a December 1 lambing start. In another month, we will sort and turn rams in with the registered ewes to lamb in January. They have put on good condition since weaning and being turned out to grass. We love the easy-keepingness of Dorset sheep.

These are our January born Dorset ram lambs before they start going to their new homes. We have a good selection of March born ram lambs as well. We can arrange trucking to anywhere in Canada. Schieck Livestock is stopping in to pick up some sheep on July 14, and is heading to Ontario.

It feels good to be back in the saddle again after not riding for several years! I have a little riding buddy, granddaughter Taylen, to check sheep with. We are glad to have found these two really nice horses.

We will be shearing the January replacement ewe lambs soon. It is always fun to see what they look like under all that wool.

These are the 60 January born ewe lambs that we have selected for replacements. They are sired by McDermit 767E and Briar Glen 100B.

Here are photos of a limited number of January born Dorset ram lambs that we have on offer. A couple of them got sold before I got these photos posted, but it gives you an idea of what we have here at the ranch. We will have March born ram lambs available soon as well. Photos of them to come in a month or so.

Thanks to my "photography assistant" granddaughter, Taylen, for helping me get photos of the ram lambs last evening. Stay tuned for photos of our available ram lambs!

Ben. He is one of the seven livestock guardian dogs we have between our ranch and our son's place across the field. Because of these dogs, we can sleep at night, knowing the sheep are well protected from coyotes.

I took a quick picture of some of our top January born Dorset ram lambs last evening. We will be getting them sheared soon and will post individual photos a little later on.

A short shower just went through and we were left with this beautiful double rainbow!

April seemed to slip by and I didn't post photos of our yearling Dorset ewes and their lambs. Here are a couple of 14 month old ewes with their twins, when their lambs were two weeks old at the end of March. We are really happy with the job they are doing raising their lambs. Out of 47 yearlings, they gave us 3 sets of triplets, 27 sets of twins and 17 singles for an average of 1.7 lambs per ewe. In order to help them continue to grow as well as raise their lambs, they get fe...d the best quality hay we have, along with a 16% grain pellet from Masterfeeds. We keep them separate from the mature ewes until they wean their lambs so they don't have to compete with the bigger, bossy ewes. See more

Today, we had our last lambs born in our March group. The 47 yearling ewes impressed us with 80 nice lambs. That’s a 170% drop! Only one loss. We couldn’t be happier with their mothering instincts and milkiness. Their lambs are doing fantastic. I will post some photos soon. In the meantime, you might get a chuckle out of this short video of our lamb with the funny baa! He makes the grandkids laugh!

This is Herc, our new 10 week old LGD that we brought home yesterday. When we let him in with the yearling ewes and their lambs this morning, he slowly got closer and closer. They were checking him out and occasionally stomping their foot at him in warning, but he wasn't concerned at all. If one bunted him, he didn't run away, he would just sit down. We love how he instinctively knows how to act around the sheep. No bouncy, playing. Just calm, gentleness.

The first yearling ewe lambed today, with her pen mates cheering her on! It was quite amusing to watch. This was the first newborn lamb they had ever seen, so they came over to check it out. Some of them got close enough and brave enough to sniff it, one stomped her foot at it and another one bunted it. Then Ben, the LGD (livestock guardian dog), decided he better step in and chase them off with a little bark and lunge.... We are really impressed with the udders these 14 month old ewes have, as well as their tremendous mothering ability. It is great when first time lambers follow their lambs into the jug without having to chase them down. We love our Dorsets! One down, 63 to go! Thanks to Donald and Bonnie for shearing them recently. It is so nice to have them shorn for lambing.

Here is an update on the 5 lambs that were born deformed: The lab results confirmed they had Cache Valley Virus, not a vitamin deficiency. "CVV is a mosquito-borne virus. It is transmitted to sheep by infected mosquitos that previously fed on infected white tail deer, or that are offspring of infected mosquitos. Late summer and early autumn are the months when the highest amount of virus is present in the mosquito population." So, there is nothing that can be done about it,... except breed the ewes after mosquito season is over. There are quite a few cases of this in Ontario and the lab has seen a few in Saskatchewan now. What next? Always something! At least it wasn't something we did wrong. Here is a link for more info. https://www.sciencedirect.com//a/abs/pii/S0921448803000506 See more

Our December/January lambing group is done! It has been a busy 25 days with 170 ewes giving birth to 326 lambs for an average drop of 192%. This is our best drop ever with these Dorset ewes in 14 years, so we are really happy about that. Even though we checked a minimum of 2-3 hours day and night, we lost 22 lambs to three reasons: 1) twelve were stillborn or smothered at birth because of a thick sack if we didn't happen to be there right when they were born, 2) five were ...laid on in the jug, and 3) five were stillborn, deformed and stiff. One big 2 week old lamb died for an unknown reason. Our vet says the thick sacks and deformities are from a vitamin A and D deficiency, so it is something we need to watch for better in the quality of our hay and mineral. The other 303 lambs are healthy and thriving! Here are some photos of the last few weeks. See more