Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Lamb Born With Unusual Coat

Just two days ago we had a lamb born on our farm that has an unusual coat.  The mother is a Barbado x Jacob sheep, she has wool and hair, but evenly mixed.  We do not know who the father was as we had a few rams at the time, I suspect an unrelated Barbado cross Dorset ram (due to the color) although we also had some Katahdin and Katahdin cross rams too.

The lamb was born outside in the afternoon and we got her into the barn within hours of birth. I thought she had a sort of gray color to the fur on her shoulders but then noticed that she looked almost bald there.  In fact the hair on her shoulders looked very fine and totally different to the hair on the rest of her body.

The lamb is one day old here, photographed with her mom.
Could she be a Chimera?  I know they can occur in any mammal.  Or did she just not grow proper hair in that area prior to being born?  I am keeping an eye on her to make sure that she gets more hair, or wool, there prior to going outside.

I have noted in the past that when I have a white Katahdin they often have orange in the same area and that it tends to look a bit different for a few days, although not "bald", which does make me suspect a Katahdin connection of sorts.

This photo was taken within hours of her birth
I should note we have had other lambs born earlier, none of whom exhibited any signs of having different hair.  I am very curious to know of other sheep keepers have seen the same thing on their lambs or know anything about hairlessness on newborn lambs?

No comments:

Post a Comment