Pregnancy testing is one of the veterinary services offered by Optimal Livestock Services–Dr. Cleon Kimberling, veterinarian, and Geri Parsons, vet technician, proprietors. We ask them to pregnancy test our ewes who are expecting white-faced lambs. When we know which ewes are carrying twins, we can manage them separately so that they can get extra nutrition and care. At lambing time, we can make sure they have better shelter because the white-faced lambs are more vulnerable at birth than the cross-bred lambs which have black-faced Hampshire fathers. You old ag majors remember the lessons about “highbred vigor” which results when different types of sheep, or cows or whatever, are mixed. The purebreds are less hardy, but they are the lambs which grow into our replacement ewes (or at least the females do). We need both.
Geri recently showed up to check our ewes, who currently reside on the Red Desert, north of Wamsutter, Wyoming.