Category: Health
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Toe Trimming and Deworming
I finished trimming toes on at least half of the adult ewes today. The sheep have better feet this year compared to other years. We’ve been culling for poor hoof growth patterns for a while, but not very heavily. It seems to have made a big difference this year. Our next batch to do is… Continue reading
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Sorting More Sheep
No pictures, but a lot of work. Today, we sorted all of the adult ewes into their breeding pens. I also got the toes trimmed on half of them. We’ve still got to trim toes on the rest of the adult ewes, all of the rams, and all of the lambs, but it’s a start.… Continue reading
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Farm Blather
Today (why always on a weekend?), Becky came in with a huge gash on her side. We have no idea what she did, but after a trip to the emergency vet in Delta 30 miles away, she’s been stitched up. We were given some stuff to keep her from chewing the drain and stitches, but… Continue reading
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Somerset, September 5th, 2008
My next stop was at Melinda Baker’s farm in Shepton Mallet, Somerset. She had to work for part of the day on Friday, so her husband kindly took the day to take me around and play tourist. This is the chapel of the Marston House. It belonged to the Earls of Cork and Orrey. The… Continue reading
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Sheep Shots
On the 31st of July, we gave all the lambs their first vaccinations, plus dewormer. Nose bots are a real problem this year, so we have had to watch carefully and deworm more frequently. Here, the sheep are going back up to their grazing segment. We use Electronet as a guide rather than a herding… Continue reading
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Win Some, Lose Some
Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. We lost 109 Daron today. She went into an unusual labor, and I couldn’t get the lamb out. It felt weird. I talked to our vet about options. A C-section would have been $300 at minimum with no complications. Realistically, it would have been more like $500+. It’s… 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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Federal Flock Inspection and Vaccinations
Yesterday was the yearly Federal flock inspection. We are in the Scrapie Flock Certification program and are certified Scrapie Free. One of the things we have to do is have our flock inspected once per year. The inspector comes out and we run every single sheep through. He checks ear tag numbers against inventory. I… Continue reading
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Shearing Day
Saturday was our sheep shearing day. On Friday, we picked up Eifion – that was the good news. The bad news is that his shearing equipment in his luggage wasn’t on the same plane as he was. He tried to shear the first flick with my Lister shears and got it done, but it was… Continue reading
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Getting Ready to Shear the Sheep
This weekend is the big sheep shearing day. On Saturday, all the sheep will get shorn, and I’ll have a bunch of new wool to skirt and prepare for sale. We’d hoped the shop would be done so the wool could go upstairs, but it’s not. I’ll be storing the boxes of wool under the… Continue reading