Ewes-is there a reason someone would only shear the front half?

Question

Driving to town today I seen a pasture with about 50 ewes. About 12 had the front half of their bodies sheared, the back half wasn't. The rest of the ewes were completely sheared. No lambs with them. I was just curious. Thanks!

Answer 1

gosh Ayla,sheep need their dignity too and you cant have them running around the pasture without their bloomers on.i have a sheep ranch across the road from me and the same thing happens to some of their sheep.sometime i will go over and ask him if his pasture dogs dont kill me first.

Answer 2

Are you sure they weren't shedding hair sheep?  Hair breeds shed their winter coat much like a horse or cow does.  Often times the hair on the back or rump is the last to come off.  They'll rub themselves on fences, trees, low limbs and such trying to get the hair off.  My ewes were late to start shedding this year and are still shedding, the latest they've ever done so.  Must have been the cold, late spring.

Answer 3

One old management tip is crutching before lambing. "Crutching," means the removal of wool around the ewe's rear end and belly in preparation for breeding season and/or lambing season. It is important for cleanness for the lamb to nurse. New lambs will suck on a twist of wool instead of a teat and eat all kinds of dirt and manure from the wool.

Crutching is very common when ewes are too far along in their pregnancy. I've even seen farmers shear the entire back half of a ewe while she is standing up. I really can't see any advantage to shearing the front end only. If anyone knows what was going on here I too would love to hear about it.

Answer 4

well.. this sounds funny but its almost as if you drove by our farm.. except we only have 12 ewes...   some of ours are hair sheep and we dont shear them... the others we do shear, normally paying a guy to do it.. BUT he is extremely rough and has cut them in the past.. a few cuts are normal, but our sheep are our pets, and he was VERY rough... too many cuts...

soooooo

this year we did it our selves... we are not strong enough to flip the big ewes to shear them (me and my daughter are doing this) and we do not have electric shearers.. so we have hand held scissor like shearers.. as such we did the sheep one at a time standing up.. it takes us FOREVER just for one ewe.. as such we only did the front half.. plus the weather here is still sucky... really colder than usual.. so we left some wool on them...

probably not the same reason those people did it.. but ya never know...

Answer 5

Maybe to show the fat content?

Answer 6

a lot of the time if the ewe is near birthing and sheering was running late, they'll stay away from the back end, to not disrupt the birth. either that or they are weird