Sheep

The Creole ewe and her long, coarse fleece:

still the sheep most Guatemalan families keep. She is small, hardy and slow to grow, bred from Spanish Churra and Merino stock, and her wool is long and rough rather than soft. That makes it useless for a fine sweater and exactly right for the heavy wool blankets and ponchos woven in Momostenango, many of them in the natural white, grey and black of the fleece. Hair sheep are a different animal. Pelibuey, Black Belly, Katahdin and Dorper, and their crosses, grow hair or a coat that drops out by itself, so they never need shearing and are raised for meat. The real choice is wool and a tough backyard ewe, or faster-growing lambs and nothing to shear.

A small flock on grass rather than shrubs:

is what sets sheep apart from the goats they often share a yard with. Sheep graze low and crop grass close to the ground, where goats strip leaves and bark, so a flock needs pasture or cut grass rather than a hedge to browse. Sheep rarely climb, and a plain mesh fence that would never hold a goat usually holds them. What they cannot stand is being alone: a single sheep panics and will push through that fence to find the others, so they move to a new home in twos at the very least. Sheep will not lead on a rope like a goat or a calf; they are driven from behind, so build a small catching pen with a gate before the first ewe arrives.

Feeling under the fleece of a ewe or a ram:

is the only honest way to judge a woolled sheep, because a full fleece makes a thin ewe look fat. Run a hand along the backbone: you want flesh over the spine, not a sharp ridge. Part the wool at the shoulder and along the side and look at the fibre. It should be clean and sound, with no felted mats, no weak point where a lock snaps when you tug it, and no ticks or keds at the base. With a ewe, ask whether she has ever prolapsed before lambing, because it tends to happen again. A ram bottle-raised as a pet lamb can grow into one that charges people, so watch how he behaves with you in the pen. On a hair sheep offered as purebred, woolly patches along the back give away a cross somewhere in the line.

Shearing dates, lambings and the ram’s line:

are the details another keeper weighs before making the drive. Say when each sheep was last shorn and, for woolled ewes, the fleece colour; a picture taken just after shearing shows the body as it really is. Give each ewe’s age, how many times she has lambed, whether she has had twins, and whether and when she ran with a ram. For a ram, name his breed or the flock he came from, so he is not put over his own daughters. For lambs, say whether they are weaned and whether the males are castrated. More than a few head load far more easily into a low-floored livestock trailer than into a pickup bed. And shut the flock in the pen the evening before the new keeper drives over from Quetzaltenango: sheep loose on a hillside can take a whole morning to catch, and a ewe chased into a truck arrives frightened.

FAQ:

• Can sheep share minerals and feed with goats?

  Not safely. Many minerals and concentrates made for goats or cattle carry copper, which builds up in a sheep’s liver until it kills her. Look under animal feed for salt and minerals made for sheep, and keep the goats’ supply out of the flock’s reach.

• When do ram lambs have to come away from the ewes?

  Sooner than many keepers expect. A ram lamb can mate within a few months of weaning, so one left with his mother and sisters will breed them; move him to his own pen or castrate him young.