m shroyer

please take all this with a grain of salt,  especially as i myself am a sceptic of my own opinions, ideas, etc.
...anyway, Perhaps i am a forthright asshole, well actually i know i am a forthright asshole, but did your cousin and your friend invite YOU to support them in their binding to another, or did they ask for whatever they currently want to believe as convention to support them?

You mention that this thing you are worried about changing is something they are aware of. It is their responsibility to say something if they wanted action or had an issue with it, though yes it is nice to be courteous, but is it actually always truly courteous to be nice? Especially if they said nothing, though they are surly busy and preoccupied.

Would it not be more genuine for you as you are to show up as YOU to represent and support them as they asked? ...unless of course you do not support her decision, or you feel she really just wants another faceless body to support her. In that case if you show up as a facade of the  "you" she invited to support her you would be selling yourself short, and in the case of the former, in your possible opinion her as well.

...or are you just trying to vindicate your own decisions to yourself to see if you really and truly do not care about convention etc over what your body naturally is and that you want it to be natural?
...and If you think it, or know it is going to be a big deal, please ask them, a lot of the times folks will "ok" things meaning to talk particulars over, then get lost in the whole thing, and it is easy to get lost in a wedding.

Yes it is just body hair on a human female that just happens to naturally grow there, and that is not a big deal aside from the fact that it is unreasonable and irresponsibly made into a big deal by unreasonable culture. If your friend wants you to sell yourself short in support of her she cannot in all seriousness be in true support of her self and her decision, or at least is not 100 percent sure...  ...that is not to say it is not a good decision... all things relative.   who knows, you may just take one for the team and become the inevitable wedding scapegoat, just don't be a martyr about it:)


...i am not sure this actually answers the question, but hopefully it will "help" you answer it.

Alright,
everyone seems to have their opinion, and i have seen valid arguments for either side of this.

so far, i have not castrated any of my sheep, i dont band tails either. this is because i do not give medication etc (to them or moms before birth), and at the time it seemed that with proper management practice there was really no reason to alter the animals.

However, i am rethinking my decision. it seems that the older boys (three together )would do a lot more eating and waste more of their energy wandering around baaing if i did not have them separate them from the ewes. i also wonder about fat and marbling in the meat. i have read that weathered animals will have much greater fat content, which i want. the churros i currently have grow slow enough intact i have to bring them through one winter. perhaps the gulf coast native / north country cheviot cross i am moving too will be different. in terms of fat these guys meat needs all the help it can get.


so...

Do castrated ramlings have more fat content?
Do castrated ramlings have more fat marbling?
which method of castration is the most comfortable (or seemingly) for an older animal?
which method of castration is the most comfortable for a lamb?
which method of castration is safest in terms of infection if not medicated? burdizzo?

if anyone wants to know why churros did not work for me, i can elaborate.

this is probably the best info i have found so far http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00Man/PainRumOverviews/PainProc/P06PainPrev_Lamb_Castrate_Dock.htm

thankyou everyone!

welp, i talked to the local vet here and she said it is likely that one of them just ate something that it should otherwise avoid. i will bring in a sample if it happens again.

i will talk to my sister (vet student) and see what she thinks when she gets back from here internship in germany.

so that sortof gets that one out of the way, in the mean time i am going to look into some ovine anatomy and see what i can find, i have a lot of books, maybe i will turn up an actual explanation, it may be a while before i get around to finding it though. busy busy.

Hello folks,
i am not exactly new to permaculture or visiting this forum, but i am new to posting here.

i will start by giving you guys a brief sum-up of where i am at with things regarding this, which may help you guys to better answer this question as it pertains to me, but i will put it in italics so that folks who pop on here with general questions regarding holistic treatment for worms and parasites in sheep can just hop over it to what is pertinent to them.

finally after much dreaming etc we bought a farm (western central NH), land, put up fences and have sheep. my plan was to get all my facilities up, fences up, pastures set up for rotational grazing, animal quarters, get my raised beds in and then get animals... but in the usual fashion, things did not go according to plan. basically, a group of sheep, the breed i was set on, from a person i like and trust needed a quick home and i got them for a song.... delivered, so...
here i am with sheep and bumbling around them trying to get everything else up...
right now we have 8 Navajo Churro ewes on 2 acres of pasture while we are building a combination sheep shelter, laying chicken house, seed starting solarium in the center of the pasture. the plan is to radiate portable fencing out from there to quarter off that 2 acres for rotation while i can finish getting the other 7 acres of pasture fencing up.
so far i have been very impressed with the sheep, they group up and graze very tight and pretty much poop and pee in that spot and move on, not touching that spot for near a week, so as far as i can see they seem to have some instinct left to responsibly rotate themselves, they also have great character for sheep, lots of personality especially compared to the ambulatory plants that most sheep act like. i also noticed that when it has rained for a couple of days they like to eat pine needles, and i am wondering if this is a response to help deal with parasites, they seem to not eat them on the dryer days, or at least not as much.

all sheep are acting perfectly normal, but i found a strange poop. there was a long foot and a half string of clear yellow mucus encapsulating perfectly formed sheep pellets. the mucus was pretty strong and somewhat thick. no signs of blood, no worm segments, etc. sheep are all acting perfectly fine. my wife and i did a fairly thorough walk around the pasture and all other poop looked normal at least as far as i know. with some other digging on the internet i found some folks saying that this is basically not from parasites, but this was the result of the sheep eating a plant that they should have avoided, and this will go away...
i wondered if any of you guys had any thoughts or experience. anything is appreciated. if i find another one i will bring it to the vet. thankyou!
i attached a picture of the girls, not sure if it will work


in addition to all that, anyone have any general recommendations on holistic worm and parasite control?
i have heard that apple cider vinegar mixed with garlic as a sheep drench works, honey, as well as copper oxide pellets, but i never found any specifics as to what parasites etc. i am putting a little aside to invest in a microscope, so i can actually see the results from these when i run into problems, and i will share the results on here. of course i did try to start with a sheep that was known for parasite resistance, but i am not sure how far that will go. i would more than prefer to avoid pharm things like ivermectin...

thanks everyone!