Identity and Parentage in a Hair Sheep Flock
Record every Katahdin against its ear tag number, with birth date, sire, dam, and birth type. Katahdins shed their hair coat rather than being shorn, so there is no wool record to fall back on; identity and performance notes carry the whole story of the animal. Because breeding stock is often sold on the strength of its bloodlines and recorded performance, a lamb with unrecorded parentage loses value it can never recover, however well it grows.
Lambing and Mothering Records
For each ewe, log the ram and breeding dates, lambing date, lambs born and weaned, and honest mothering notes: whether she claimed her lambs promptly, milked adequately, and kept twins together on pasture. Katahdins are promoted as easy-lambing, attentive mothers, and your records test that claim ewe by ewe. A ewe that needs lambing assistance or rejects a lamb should have it written down while it is fresh, because keeping her daughters depends on knowing it.
Parasite Monitoring Is the Central Record
Parasite resistance is a defining selection goal in this breed, so keep dated monitoring results by tag: faecal egg counts where you take them, condition and anaemia checks, pasture group, and grazing conditions at the time. Crucially, record which sheep were treated and which were not. A ewe that stays productive through a high-challenge season without treatment is genetically valuable to a low-input flock, and she is indistinguishable from a treated sheep unless the book says otherwise.
Weights, Hooves, and General Health
Add weaning weights and a later weight before breeding or sale, taken consistently across the group. Log hoof trimming and any lameness, vaccinations, illnesses, and treatments by tag and date. Note shedding completeness in young stock being considered as replacements, since a clean, early shed is part of the breed's low-maintenance promise and varies between individuals.
Culling and Sale Outcomes
Finish records with outcomes and reasons: retained, sold as breeding stock, sold for meat, or culled, and why. In a breed built on selection pressure, cull reasons are the engine of improvement, and they only work if they are written.
Turning Katahdin Notes Into Selection Decisions
Records change a flock only when they are converted into keep-and-cull decisions at set moments, and for Katahdins the natural moments are weaning and pre-breeding. At weaning, rank ewe lambs by their dam's lambing and parasite history before you rank them by their own appearance, because the traits this breed is kept for are inherited and easily lost by choosing on looks. Before breeding, pull every ewe's treatment history for the year and mark the ones that stayed untreated through the highest-risk grazing period; those ewes, and especially their daughters, are the core of a genuinely low-input flock. Write the decision and its reason on each animal's record at the time. A season later, when results are visible in the lamb crop, you can check whether the reasoning held, rather than starting the argument from memory again.
Keeping each Katahdin's lambing, parasite, and weight records in a KinsLe Pet Passport gives you one portable packet that proves performance at sales and simplifies vet visits.