Here's the thing about raising a variety of animals you've never even been around before; THE PARANOIA IS SO REAL. I'm endlessly terrified that I'm going to give my little babes something bad for them, so before I give them anything I google to make sure they won't die. The problem with that is that I typically get as many, "Go for it" results as I do, "This will kill them immediately". Yesterday after an hour or so of researching salt blocks, (who even knew that there were so many different ways/kinds of salt to give to sheep?!) I went to the feed store armed with my google degree on sheep nutrition and asked for a list of things. The guy immediately informed me that all of what I was looking for would kill my sheep and sold me instead some things I had read online were bad for the sheep.
I went home too afraid to give my sheep any of things I purchased so instead just gave them some hay and oats. This morning I texted the man who sold me the sheep and he said, "Don't worry, they're hardy, I kept them in with my cattle, they had access to whatever the cows did, if they were going to die from a salt lick they would have died already." So, maybe raising Jacob Sheep is a little less complicated than google tells me it is. OR MAYBE I'M A TERRIBLE SHEEP MOM! So, if ya'll come across any books on raising Jacob sheep let me know, hit me up. The only ones I've found so far are about raising jacob sheep in the UK and i don't think that'll work for me because this is Canada so we have different weather, soil and pastures. The struggle, it's real.
The poor man that sold these sheep to me, he's been so incredibly kind and patient with my endless questions, but he's probably full of regret for ever giving me his number and saying , "Shoot me a text if you've got any questions." I have all of the questions, all of them.
Now, I know that there are probably lots of people that have raised sheep before, and people seem to do it with relative ease and don't typically kill their sheep by way of salt lick poisoning. So if you guys know anyone with even a little bit of sheep knowledge, send them my way so I can plead with them to impart some of their wisdom onto me.
You need to make sure that your sheep mineral has no copper. I recommend feeding loose mineral, as the blocks wear down their teeth prematurely. To check on the copper situation, just look at the label that lists all of the percentages of mineral ingredients. Usually you need to find mineral mixes that are specifically for sheep, otherwise they almost always have added copper.
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