Category: Sheep
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Rams on Pasture
Now that the hay is in, we can put the rams out on the front pear orchard pasture. They’ll clean up the parts we cannot cut. This is the first time all the sheep will be out on pasture at the same time. We have one ewe who is sick and one ewe and a Continue reading
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Sheep Butchering and a Garden Update
The second batch of rams went to slaughter today. We try to sell and use as much of the sheep as we can. One thing we save from the rams are the horns. They get made into shepherd’s crooks and knife handles. Here, Ken is using a sawzall to cut the horns off the skull. Continue reading
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Lamb Scoreboard
Here you can see the 2009 lamb scoreboard, which shows all of the rams and the lambs they sired this year. Continue reading
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Lambing Is Officially Over for 2009
We have officially finished lambing for 2009. We’re now at 152 days from when we took the rams out. While we technically could have lambs up until 155 days, none of the remaining ewes look pregnant, nor do they have any udders. I’ve declared us finished. This year, we bred 56 ewes. 48 of them Continue reading
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Lambing Is Nearly Done – We Hope!
Well, we’re near the end of lambing now. We’re at 144 days from rams out, and we have about 15 ewes looking ready to pop at any time. Here I am checking Cerridwyn for the proper positioning of her first lamb. She had an ewe. Much later, she had a breech stillborn. She never showed Continue reading
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Sheep Trick
Some lambs start learning how to jump on their moms early. A few continue this into adulthood and stand on top of others to get the best hay. Continue reading
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Jump Starting a Lamb
Lambing is in full swing, and I thought I’d share a trick we now use on all lambs. I milk a bit of colostrum into a syringe case. Ken uses his finger to entice the lamb to nurse, then he squirts the milk into the size of the lamb’s mouth. This does several things: it Continue reading
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Dog House? Sheep House?
The new puppy is still unnamed, but he has a buddy. Is this a sheep in a dog house, or is this a dog in a sheep house? Continue reading
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New Puppy
We picked up our new guard dog puppy this morning. He is an Akbash. The sun was unfortunately shining in the wrong place to get good pictures. All of the sheep and Kimball came to investigate, and the sheep were very concerned. They will settle down with time, but it’s been a while since they’ve Continue reading
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Cute Lambs
This pair of twins discovered how much fun it is to sit on the high rocks above the other sheep and survey the pasture. Continue reading