Providing Immunity
Q: One of our cows died shortly after calving, and we were wondering how old a calf should be before it can be given vaccinations. Our neighbor told us that the calf is too young to be vaccinated, but we’re afraid it won’t do very well if we don’t vaccinate it.

A: Before you can deal with the calf, it’s important to know the cause of the cow’s death. A necropsy, if the cause of death is unknown, is recommended for your herd-health management program.

There has been a long-standing assumption that very young animals have a poorly developed immune system and will not respond to vaccination. Current research has shown the calf’s immune system isn’t fully functional by 170 days of development during pregnancy. Normally, the calf receives protective immunity from its mother’s milk, particularly the colostrum received during the first 24 hours after birth. This immunity protects the calf during the first few months of life. Approximately one month before your cows give birth, vaccinate them for diseases that will affect the calf, including infectious bovine rhinotracheits, parainfluenza virus, bovine viral diarrhea virus, bovine respiratory syncytial virus, rotavirus, coronavirus, Clostridial diseases and E. coli diarrhea. This ensures a high-quality colostrum for the calf.

If this cow wasn’t vaccinated or the cow died before the calf could drink colostrum, consider vaccinating the calf. Many people use vaccines administered in the nasal cavity, which seems to elicit a stronger immune response. The response to vaccination is also dependent upon stress levels. If the calf is particularly stressed, it might not develop adequate protective immunity. Provide adequate shelter in a well-ventilated area, and don’t expose it to older calves that may be shedding pathogens that will be detrimental to the calf.

Some people vaccinate calves at 3 months of age, while the calves are still nursing. At this point, most cows have been bred again and are pregnant. Pay attention to whether the vaccine is killed or modified-live. (Check the label.) Bovine viral diarrhea virus can cause severe problems for young calves. It’s important to protect them from this disease, but when calves are given a modified-live version of this vaccine, the pregnant cow can be potentially exposed to virus shed by the calf, resulting in abortion. A killed vaccine for this disease is recommended at 3 months of age. After the calf is weaned at about 6 months, it should be boosted with a modified-live version of the vaccine. Of course, if your calf isn’t nursing a cow and isn’t around other pregnant cows, you could use the modified-live vaccine at any age.

Ultimately, you should consult with your veterinarian about the types and timing of vaccines for your herd.

Lame Pig
Q: One of our best sows was having problems getting up and walking around. She finally got to the point where she couldn’t get up at all. We keep the pigs on pasture, so they get plenty of exercise. Our veterinarian gave her something for pain, and eventually she was able to get up again, but she still doesn’t move around very well. Is this a common problem in pigs? What causes this?

A: Lameness is one of the most common problems that reduces the longevity of a sow. Even if she’s able to walk, her ability to obtain food and reproduce is severely compromised. Lameness is more common in confinement production systems where the animals are kept on concrete surfaces and don’t get much exercise. In your situation, there might be several other problems involved.

Trauma is the most common form of lameness in sows and growing gilts; rooting in pastures and tangling in fences or structures are possibilities.

Another source of leg weakness and lameness is osteochondrosis, which is associated with bone and joint soundness. Modern breeds of pigs are designed to grow very quickly. They may gain a considerable amount of weight before their skeleton is completely mature. This puts a lot of stress on their joints and can result in lameness issues as they get older. The stress on bones’ growth plates and cartilage formation causes irreversible damage. If this is the cause, evaluate your nutritional program to slow the growth rate of the females that you intend to keep for breeding.

Another cause of lameness is infectious (septic) arthritis, which might be caused by a number of pathogens. Generalized infections with organisms such as Erysipelas and Streptococcus can result in chronic problems in the leg joints and spinal column. There are vaccines available for these diseases; consider them if your herd has been diagnosed. Wounds, infected hooves, skin abrasions and uterine infections can all lead to septic arthritis. Routine inspection of the hooves is important, as well as preventing situations where fighting can occur. Aggressive animals should be either removed from the herd or isolated from less aggressive animals. Introduction of new animals into a group of hogs can pose particular problems. The social order is very strong in pigs and it is not unusual for them to pick on newcomers to the group.

Older boars that are too large for young gilts could cause injury to the hind legs and lower back during breeding. Care should be taken when selecting a boar for young females.

Genetic conformation is also an important consideration for preventing lameness. Some animals will exhibit overgrowth of the heels, have one toe longer than the other or have dew claws that overgrow. Poor conformation puts stress on the joints. These animals should be taken out of the breeding herd, as their offspring can have these problems, too.

Calcium and phosphorous imbalances may cause problems with osteoporosis and subsequent lameness. Current research indicates that organic sources of zinc, copper and manganese in the diet can contribute to sound feet and should be considered in your nutrition program.

Other structural soundness issues in pasture-pork production are rickets, due to mineral imbalances, and fractures, where paddocks have uneven surfaces or wallows for summer cooling are improperly built.

Photo by Rhoda Peacher The American Karakul descended from Middle Eastern sheep breeds that were valued for their pelts.

Descended from the fat-tailed sheep of the Middle East, Karakuls are nevertheless as American as pizza and chop suey. Though their ancestors hailed from the former emirate of Bokhara, a land located in present-day Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, early breeders tweaked the sheep breed’s genetics, making today’s American Karakul unique among the world’s fat-tailed sheep breeds.

North American breeders raise Karakul sheep (pronounced kah-rah-COOL, CAR-ah-cool or CARE-ah-cull and named for a city in old Bokhara whose name means “black lake”) for their wool and their mild-flavored meat. Internationally, the breed is considered a fur sheep still raised for the pelts of newborn Karakul lambs.

Pelts of newborn Karakul lambs are known in the fur trade as Persian lamb or astrakhan. Neonatal Karakul lambs are coal black with soft, tight curls; they are slaughtered for their pelts prior to 3 days of age, lest their lovely coats begin to lose texture. Fetal lambs from ewes slaughtered to harvest their lambs’ pelts are called broadtail or karakulcha; these high-priced, glossy black moiré-patterned pelts resemble watered silk. The Karakul fur trade is alive and flourishing in Central Asia, Africa and parts of South America, but not in North America. Still, this industry is what gives the Karakul its history and should be recognized.

Karakuls in America
In the late 19th century, when breeders first imported Karakul sheep, the name of the game was Persian lamb; fur was on breeders’ minds. According to “The Karakul,” an article in the 25th Annual Report of the New York State Department of Agriculture in 1918, America’s first Karakuls—five rams and 10 ewes—were imported from Russia in 1908 by Dr. C.C. Young of Belen, Texas, for $25,000. He imported a second group in 1913 and a third in 1914 for a total of 31 rams and 22 ewes. Importations by other breeders in the U.S. and in Canada continued through 1929, but the number of sheep imported was relatively few.

Photo by Rhoda Peacher Trade of the Karakul lamb pelt is vibrant in Central Asia, Africa and parts of South America, but is not common in North America.

To expand the sheep breed and produce lamb pelts for the trade, imported Karakuls were crossed with sheep of other breeds. Crosses to “tight wool” breeds such as Shropshires and Rambouillets produced lambs with average pelts, but crosses of Karakul with loose-locked “long wools” like Lincolns, Leicester Longwools and Cotswolds truly shone. C.C. Young himself writes in the July-September 1912 issue of American Breeders Magazine, “Quarter-blood Karakul-Lincoln skins have been produced in Texas equal in luster and tight curl development to the best of the so-called Persian lamb skins, and as for the half-blood Karakul-Lincoln pelts, there is nothing Asia can produce that can compare with them.” Skins from the best Karakul-Lincoln lambs brought $10 each at the furriers’ market, the same as imported Persian lamb. At the same time, Young reports, regarding lambs raised for the meat market, that “Karakul-Shropshires with the Karakul strain predominating, show a wonderful increase in weight and lambs at 4 and 5 months old have been found to weigh from 80 to 100 pounds. The Armour Packing Company of Fort Worth, Texas, vouched for these facts and also stated that the Karakul strain seems to have the faculty of removing the disagreeable woolly and musk-like flavor peculiar to our tight-wools.”

By 1920, when Professor Charles S. Plumb updated his classic textbook, Types and Breeds of Farm Animals, flocks were well-established in Canada (Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Alberta for a total of about 600 head) as well as Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, Maryland and New York.

While the American Persian lamb industry did not withstand the test of time, during its heyday, the American Karakul evolved. Because so many breeds were used in its development, the breed was never uniform—a trait today’s Karakul fanciers appreciate. Horns or no horns? Long, floppy ears or no external ears at all? Double or single coat? Solid brown or gray or fleece of colorful hues? There are Karakuls to suit every taste.

Today, there are fewer than 2,000 American Karakul sheep in the world. The breed is listed as “threatened” on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy’s conservation priority list, having fewer than 1,000 annual registrations and an estimated global population less than 5,000. It might, however, be the perfect breed for your small farm.

Conformation and Color
Karakuls are medium-sized sheep, making them easier to handle than today’s typically larger breeds. Rams tip the scale at 175 to 225 pounds; ewes range from 100 to 150 pounds. They are elegant sheep, alert and active but friendly and biddable with handlers they know.

Karakuls are tall, with long, narrow bodies set atop long, light-boned legs with small, strong feet. Unlike most other breeds, Karakuls stand tallest at the loin and have sloped rumps and noticeable dips in front and behind the withers. They have long, narrow, often Roman-nosed heads with prominent foreheads and a slight indentation between their wide-set eyes. Ears are generally thin and pliable, long, and pointing downward and slightly forward, though some have smaller, thicker-textured ears; a few sport tiny ears reminiscent of LaMancha goats. Rams may be naturally polled or horned, and their horns may be short or curl into large, curved spirals; ewes are usually polled, but some have horns.

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Mom is reading Uzzi and me her favorite book, Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story. It was written by a German lady named Leonie Swann. It’s about a flock of clever sheep who solve their shepherd’s murder and discover a thing or two about humans along the way.

Mom got the idea about reading it to Uzzi and me because George, the shepherd in the book, used to read to his sheep every day. Usually romance books about red-haired ladies called Pamela, but he once read part of a detective book to them too. That’s how they figured out how to solve his murder.

The sheep are Othello, a four-horned, black Hebridean ram with a secret past; Mopple the Whale, a Merino ram; Miss Maple (“the smartest sheep in Glennkill and maybe the whole world”); Sir Richfield, the flock’s aging lead ram and his mysterious brother, Melmoth; and a supporting cast of other neat sheep and lambs including Zora, a Connemara Blackface ewe who is the sheep of the abyss. Zora likes to go way up on the cliffs and look out over the sea (like a mountain goat, so Uzzi and I like her best).

In this passage Zora is up on the cliff watching a fierce dog and Othello battle to the death (hint: Othello wins). Mom says this is the kind of writing that makes her love this book.

“Zora quickly closed her eyes and thought about something else. That was her way of dealing with the bad moments in life. She thought of the day when she brought her first lamb into the world, thought of the pain, and the anxiety later, because the lamb had been brown as earth, even after she had spent ages carefully licking the blood off of his coat. Brown as earth, with a black face. Later the brown would turn a woolly white, but Zora wasn’t to know at that time.

“She had wondered why she was the only sheep in the meadow not to have had a white lamb. But then the lamb had bleated, tiny and brown as he was, and he had a more beautiful voice than any of the other lambs. He had smelled good too. And Zora knew she would defend him against the whole world, whether or not he was the brown color of earth. She had taken him to the cliffs that very day to show him the gulls and the sea.”

If you love sheep, adventure, and lots of humor you should read this book too. And when you’re finished, read it to your goats. Uzzi and I give it two horns up!

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