Category: Farm Life
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The End of Lambing Season
It’s now June, and we’ve reached the end of lambing season. We had 49 lambs born to 29 ewes, plus 5 stillborns. The other lambs and ewes are all happy and healthy. In the meantime, we’ve been working on retrofitting our chute system. Part of that is to test new scale integrations with AnimalTrakker®, and… Continue reading
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Wool Micron Testing
In March, we sheared 102 sheep for wool micron testing. At that time, we used AnimalTrakker®’s Scan and Print functionality to label the wool samples. That lets us use our BaaCode scanner later to easily link the results to sheep in our database. Today, we finally got to work on getting those results. We rented a FibreLux machine from… Continue reading
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Ewe Ultrasounds
Today was a big day for us. We had all the pregnant ewes scanned today via Ultrasound for fetal counts and estimates of gestation days. We’re expecting between 49 and 52 lambs, including up to four sets of triplets. We had two open ewes, and I’m struggling with what to do with them. We think… Continue reading
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Auroras on the Farm
We captured this video on our back security camera, which normally watches for predators. Below you’ll see four hours of Aurora activity condensed into four minutes. Continue reading
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Sorting the Rams
We sorted the rams into their breeding pens today. Here are some pictures and a video of the process. We’re using AnimalTrakker® and a homemade EID reader to organize the rams. We just got a storm which brought a lot of snow, and we’re expecting another tomorrow. Many people associate snow with the color white,… Continue reading
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Fall at the Farm
The leaves are starting to change up in the West Elks, on Mt. Lamborn, and on Mt. Gunnison. Fall comes with cool nights, but the days still get quite hot. Our sheep have been back out on pasture for a few days, but more for the exercise than for the food – the pastures are… Continue reading
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Sheep on Hay and Hill Sheep Show
The drought here in Colorado continues, and that, in combination with our ditches running dry, means our sheep are in their winter corrals a bit early. It’s easier to get them water and hay that way. It’s not all bad news, though. We’ll be heading to Michigan in a few days to attend the North… Continue reading
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Irrigation Troubles and Moving the Rams
Our irrigation ditch is turning off this Saturday, August 2nd. We’ve been moving sheep to get them closer to the house. That way, we can more easily haul water to them if necessary. We do have a pond that holds water, and the adult rams have access to it in the lower pear orchard pasture.… Continue reading
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Irrigation System Work and Poetry
Today, we had to take a trip up to Juniper Gulch to service the irrigation system. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been working, and the part we’ve needed to fix it isn’t available anymore. Ken spent all day at his metal lathe making a new one, so now we need to go install it and see if… Continue reading
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Checking the Hay
We went out to check on the hay at Juniper Gulch today. It’s ready to bale, so it’s a good thing we took a look. It should be done and baled by this evening. We’re taking bets on how many big round bales there will be. Last year, our first cutting resulted in 24 bales.… Continue reading
