Category: Hay and Forage
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First Cutting Hay Is In!
It’s the 3rd of July, and the rest of the first cutting hay is in the barn. It’s less than half the hay we got last year – only 23 tons – but it’s good quality. We’ve already called and reserved another 32 tons from another farmer, and we may buy more if the second… Continue reading
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Painting Finished and First Hay
The painting of the new shop is finished. It came out looking really nice. We have a few things left to finish on the inside, and then, we’ll finally be done. Today, we got the first of the hay for the year loaded into the barn. We received three loads of about 70 bales each.… Continue reading
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Woolly Lawnmowers
Why dig out the string trimmer when you have sheep? After all, that’s what makes a great lawn: sheep grazing on it. So, we fenced off the front of the house for the sheep. We did have to put some jug panels up on the stairs to prevent sheep from making themselves at home on… Continue reading
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Planting, Marking, Lambing, and More
A lot has been going on, and I haven’t updated this much since we’ve been so busy. The white shed is now completely gone. We still have a few foundation pieces that need removing. They’re rotten logs embedded into the ground, so removing them will take a while. We also had a major hailstorm on… Continue reading
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More Disking
Several passes later, the front field is looking pretty good. We still need to disk it once more to break up the clods, but we should be ready to plant later this week. As soon as it’s planted and marked, we’ll have to hurry and get irrigation pipes set up on it. The field below… Continue reading
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Disking the Field
Our front-west field is being disked now to prepare it for planting. We don’t have a big enough tractor or disk to do this sort of work, so we hire the job out to custom farmers in our area. We’re going to put it back to permanent irrigated pasture. We’ll be planting a mix of… Continue reading
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On Pasture
The pregnant ewes went out on pasture today. As you can see, the grass is still thin, so we preloaded hay into the pasture. Some ewes were eating it after testing the grasses. From the looks of these udders, this is none too soon. I expect lambs anytime now. Continue reading
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Sheep Dewormer
The pregnant ewes got their dewormer yesterday. One of the ways we reduce the parasite load in the pastures is by deworming the ewes 24-48 hours before they go out in summer. That, combined with our hard winters, means that we rarely have to deworm lambs until late summer. That’s when we start to get… Continue reading
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Lawnmowers
We got the ewe yearlings out to graze the bits of grass coming up around the guesthouse. Why use a lawnmower when you have sheep? The grass must be too young still – it doesn’t taste good yet, and they didn’t like it much. They did have a grand time racing all over and checking… Continue reading
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Spring, Then Winter Again
Animal Husbandry, Farm Life, Gardening and Harvesting, Hay and Forage, Other Animals, Sheep, WeatherWell, we thought spring was coming. The snow had melted, and things were starting to green up. The grass was just getting going, and the guard dogs looked ready to start their lamb-protection work. Then, we got this! More snow, which led to more mud when it melted the next day. Last year, we had… Continue reading