Sheep
Find and offer sheep in Panama.
Panama’s flock is small and almost all hair sheep, so most of what moves between farms here is breeding stock: a Dorper or Katahdin ram moving on before his daughters come into service, a group of Pelibuey ewes with lambs at foot, a few weaned lambs from a farm in Bugaba. The housing travels with them, from raised-floor sheep pens to lamb scales and hoof shears, new and pre-owned. A listing worth answering states the breed and the cross, the sex and age of each animal, and whether the flock is used to being penned at night.
Pelibuey ewes, Dorper rams and the crosses between them:
most flocks in Panama are built the same way, with a hardy ewe base and a heavier ram on top. Pelibuey, tan to reddish-brown, is the breed found on more farms than any other, and Black Belly, with its dark underside and lighter frame, is the one known for twins. Both come into season year-round in the heat and cope with rough grazing. Dorper, black-headed and broad, and Katahdin, a hair breed developed in the United States, came in from Mexico to add meat, and a half-Dorper lamb grows far faster than a pure Pelibuey on the same pasture. Sheep often share a farm with goats, though the two are not managed the same way.
The ram and the bloodline in a small flock:
with only a couple of thousand sheep and goat keepers in the country, and a small share of them working on genetics, good rams are the scarce part of the trade. A ram left in the same flock too long ends up serving his own daughters, and inbred lambs come smaller and weaker, which is why rams get swapped between farms every couple of seasons. If you take one on, ask where his sire came from and whether he is registered or AI-bred, and ask for the documentation that goes with him.
A night pen for sheep that graze by day:
most Panamanian keepers run their sheep semi-confined, out on pasture through the morning and shut in at night with cut grass or concentrate in the trough. The pen that works is roofed, open at the sides and built on a raised slatted floor, so droppings fall through, hooves stay dry and the flock is out of reach of loose dogs after dark. Troughs for chopped forage, a mineral salt feeder and a hanging scale for lambs are the other kit worth having; bagged concentrate is under animal feed.
Eyelids, feet and testicles on a ewe or ram:
pull down the lower eyelid first. It should be red to deep pink inside; pale pink or white means anaemia, nearly always from barber’s pole worm, the stomach parasite that does the most damage to sheep on wet tropical pasture. A soft swelling under the jaw points the same way. Lift a foot. Overgrown hooves curl and pack with mud, and a rotten smell between the claws is foot rot, which spreads through a flock. On a ram, both testicles should be firm, even in size and slide freely in the scrotum, with no hard lumps at the bottom, and he should walk sound behind, because a lame ram will not mount. With a used sheep pen, check that the slats are evenly spaced and unbroken; a gap that has widened will trap a lamb’s leg.
Passing on ewes, lambs or a working ram:
give the breed and the cross as a fraction, half or three-quarter Dorper, the sex and age of each animal and, for ewes, the date of the last lambing and how many lambs each had. Say which ram sired the lambs, because the next keeper will want a different line. Lambs belong with their mothers until weaning at around three months, so offer ewe and lamb together if they are younger. Photograph each animal side-on in daylight, and a ram from behind as well. Someone coming from Capira or Penonomé will ask whether the sheep are used to night penning and to being handled, and whether a livestock trailer can get up the track to the pen. Put each animal’s ear-tag number in the listing, so whoever arrives can match it to the photos before anything goes up the ramp.