I've found a sheep.. what do I do!?

Erm...




I'm now the er, proud owner of a sheep!

Came home last night to find ANOTHER differently marked sheep stood in front of the garage so I let it into the field. Some people came round as they thought it was theres and they'd seen it a few minutes earlier on the road. They came back today, its not their sheep! The guy has spoke to other farmers and the sheep is 'no ones.' He checked it over, its around 10, he thinks shes in-lamb and she has no teeth. She hasn't got an ear-tag etc so he said he'd take her for us and send her to the knackers yard. Mum said no no after her great adventure it'd be a shame. So we now own a sheep :o

Going in the search of pink dye for her today. Will pots pictures of pink Dolly asap :D
 
The paperwork is a total pain. I think it'll need an ear tag with a holding number at some point. Speak to Defra and trading standards for the latest rules. I'm not up to date - haven't had them for a few years now.
 
The paperwork is a total pain. I think it'll need an ear tag with a holding number at some point. Speak to Defra and trading standards for the latest rules. I'm not up to date - haven't had them for a few years now.

We've just been talking about this! Going to have to get it sorted as some point :o
 
Erm...




I'm now the er, proud owner of a sheep!

Came home last night to find ANOTHER differently marked sheep stood in front of the garage so I let it into the field. Some people came round as they thought it was theres and they'd seen it a few minutes earlier on the road. They came back today, its not their sheep! The guy has spoke to other farmers and the sheep is 'no ones.' He checked it over, its around 10, he thinks shes in-lamb and she has no teeth. She hasn't got an ear-tag etc so he said he'd take her for us and send her to the knackers yard. Mum said no no after her great adventure it'd be a shame. So we now own a sheep :o

Going in the search of pink dye for her today. Will pots pictures of pink Dolly asap :D

err you need to be contacting the animal health people at the council trading standards and they will track down the owner - you cant just keep it- all sheep have to have paperwork and you have to have a holding number and herd number and tagging records for that sheep.
 
err you need to be contacting the animal health people at the council trading standards and they will track down the owner - you cant just keep it- all sheep have to have paperwork and you have to have a holding number and herd number and tagging records for that sheep.

Will do! Be interesting to see how they do it with no markings, no ear-tag and no farmer within 5 miles coming forward to claim it.
But if not, as I suspect, then I shall be registering it to myself, thank you :)
 
Without an ear tag it will be near impossible to trace it if no one comes forward

This is the time of year when many ewes will have a ram in with them, at her age it could be that she hasnt been marked by the ram as served and has had her tags removed and has been turfed out maybe...

The registration is easy, flock numbers and holding numbers need to be obtained but thats just a couple of phone calls to Defra and Trading Standards. You can apply for fresh tags for her once you have your numbers. There are options to replace lost tags if you know what was on them or (as in your case) get completely new tags

You need to keep a few basic records and may need to confirm your details if asked but if you arent looking to move the sheep to shows or slaughter you should have few problems keeping on top of it all

If she doesnt lamb I would consider getting another to keep her company
 
Without an ear tag it will be near impossible to trace it if no one comes forward

This is the time of year when many ewes will have a ram in with them, at her age it could be that she hasnt been marked by the ram as served and has had her tags removed and has been turfed out maybe...

The registration is easy, flock numbers and holding numbers need to be obtained but thats just a couple of phone calls to Defra and Trading Standards. You can apply for fresh tags for her once you have your numbers. There are options to replace lost tags if you know what was on them or (as in your case) get completely new tags

You need to keep a few basic records and may need to confirm your details if asked but if you arent looking to move the sheep to shows or slaughter you should have few problems keeping on top of it all

If she doesnt lamb I would consider getting another to keep her company

Thank you for your help! I presuming if she does lamb it'll be in spring? If nothing by then then we will be doing so! My sec-a has really took to her so she wont be lonely for the time being!

Will ring up on Monday and explain my scenario, I think anyone there with a level head will realize how hard it'd be to track down her owner, so I suspect the process won't be too drawn out! :)
 
yes they usually lamb late winter/early spring

Its interesting that someone thinks she may be in lamb though as without a scan it would be hard to tell at this stage if she is indeed on to lamb in spring

I omly really know my sheep and know their lambing times as I control those by adding the ram so I am not sure whether it would be usual for a sheep to lamb at other times of the year. if she is visibly in lamb it would probably be quite imminent

lets hope the chap was wrong - most lambings are easy and need little human intervention but it can get tricky!
 
The price of even cull ewes I would be suprised if she has been deliberately disposed of - even a barren aged ewe with no teeth is worth more than the cost of taking her to market.

The green on her back esp if near her backside would strongly suggest she has been running with the ram and has been covered ie is likely to be in the early stages of in lamb.

With poor dental condition you will need to feed her concentrates towards the end of pregancy to avoid 'twin lamb disease' (where an old ewe struggles to get enough nutrition for her and multiple lambs inside her, all the goodness goes to the lambs and the ewe gets thinner and thinner - it can kill them).

Even if the council peeps cant find the owner going to them and trying is the only way to get your sheepy into the system and get the paperwork straight - esp as there may be 2 to deal with come the spring.

NB lambing is normally Jan - May - mine are April/May due to our long winters, more commercial types would often be Jan/Feb as they are able then to get them to grow enough to go to slaughter the same year as they are born - ours arent ever going to do that so we have slow growing breed (shetland and shetland x cheviot) that go off only in the second year.

If you post a picture of Mrs sheepie we might be able to offer a view on the breed type, this might help tracking down the owner. Also suggest ringing local large animal practice vets (ring any vet and they will know the vets locally who specialise in farm animals) and they will prob know who has that breed locally to you.

I have several times had large ugly sheep turn up in my fields, and there is lots of renting out winter grazing (Tack they call it) round here but eventually Ive always managed to reunite sheep and owner, tho it can take a few days)
 
The price of even cull ewes I would be suprised if she has been deliberately disposed of - even a barren aged ewe with no teeth is worth more than the cost of taking her to market.

The green on her back esp if near her backside would strongly suggest she has been running with the ram and has been covered ie is likely to be in the early stages of in lamb.

With poor dental condition you will need to feed her concentrates towards the end of pregancy to avoid 'twin lamb disease' (where an old ewe struggles to get enough nutrition for her and multiple lambs inside her, all the goodness goes to the lambs and the ewe gets thinner and thinner - it can kill them).

Even if the council peeps cant find the owner going to them and trying is the only way to get your sheepy into the system and get the paperwork straight - esp as there may be 2 to deal with come the spring.

NB lambing is normally Jan - May - mine are April/May due to our long winters, more commercial types would often be Jan/Feb as they are able then to get them to grow enough to go to slaughter the same year as they are born - ours arent ever going to do that so we have slow growing breed (shetland and shetland x cheviot) that go off only in the second year.

If you post a picture of Mrs sheepie we might be able to offer a view on the breed type, this might help tracking down the owner. Also suggest ringing local large animal practice vets (ring any vet and they will know the vets locally who specialise in farm animals) and they will prob know who has that breed locally to you.

I have several times had large ugly sheep turn up in my fields, and there is lots of renting out winter grazing (Tack they call it) round here but eventually Ive always managed to reunite sheep and owner, tho it can take a few days)

The sheep with green was the one I found the other day! This one has no colouring other than a nearly grown of blue splodge on her backend!
I can't see sheepy at the moment (hopefully shes not escaped but if she is it'll be into the sheep field next door) but I'll try and get a picture tomorrow. Thanks for the help :)
 
Maybe you aree wearing some kind of 'come hither sheepies of the world' perfume :-DDD

good luck with the photo session. It could help (tho not so much if its a mix of breeds) - it did help with some of my strays as I showed the photo to local farmers and they then knew who had that breed locally.
 
We had one come gambling across my colleague's fields, it came right up to us obviously lost.
Was a half grown lamb, no tags nothing, I caught it as it decided to hide round the back of a shed.
As hard as they tried, they simply couldn't find anyone who owned it, so they kept it, I named it Shawn and he lived for several years keeping the highland ponies they had company!
 
My knowledge of sheep is fairly limited but I would of thought 10 for a ewe was pretty ancient and would also admire the xray vision of whoever said she was in lamb. Our rams went out yesterday with their ladies and I think this is the usual sort of time for rams to go out unless you want early lambs.

Would also agree about price of cull ewes being good enough to justify taking them to market.

You are definitely attracting the sheep to you, perhaps you will wake up in the morning and find a flock in your paddock?!
 
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