Category: Sheep
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Hay Delivery and Warm Weather
Today was hay delivery day. We got five big square bales – over a ton of hay. The adult rams, ram yearlings, pregnant ewes, and horses all got fresh bales. Moving to big bales helps us make feeding simpler, but it now also means that the tractor is required. The pond is nearly thawed out… Continue reading
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Sheep Happens
Sadly, we had a ram yearling die today. He’d been injured in a fight. As required, we had to do a post-mortem on him to determine the cause of death. Unfortunately, it was a burst bladder, probably from getting a horn in the belly. We are allowed to bury our animals on our farm, so… Continue reading
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Sheep Coats
Here’s my plan for sheep coats. Coat parts from top left to right: 2 assembled leg pieces, chest piece, chest reinforcing, coat body folded in half. A fully assembled sheep coat. A fully assembled sheep coat from the inside. The chest piece is at the top, girth tucks are on the sides, and leg straps… Continue reading
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Solar Sheep
Our ram lambs – now yearlings – enjoy eating fresh hay under the solar trees. Continue reading
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Sterling Is in Jail
Little Sterling is the lamb whose mother died when he was only three weeks old. He’s small and stunted, and he can’t live with the rest of the ram lambs. However, he seems willing to try and breed the ewes, so he’s now in a separate pen in the hay barn. We don’t need any… Continue reading
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Lambing and LambTracker
Most of this past year has been spent working on LambTracker, our open-source flock management program. As a result, this blog has been totally neglected. My Twitter feed has been the one thing I’ve kept up with. It’s a lot easier to send a quick tweet than it is to write a decent blog post!… Continue reading
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December Breeding Season
We are once again participating in the USDA NAGP research project for non-surgical AI in sheep. We synchronized the ewes, then teased them through the fence with the live rams. All 24 experimental ewes were very interested! Fortunately, the coming storm held off until after the big insemination day. Now, we have a lot of… Continue reading
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Where Did August Go?
August has flown by! We’ve been moving the sheep to fresh grass frequently. I was trying to get them on fresh food every 24-48 hours. So, a lot of our time has been spent moving fences and figuring out where they’ll go next. The late July flood started our annual monsoon rains, and we’ve had… Continue reading
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Managed Sheep Grazing
We’ve been moving the sheep to new grass every day or two. We use electric netting to keep them contained in small grazing segments. This allows the grass to rest after grazing, and it’s really improving the quality of our pastures. After all, fresh grass = healthy sheep! Continue reading
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Summer Grazing
Summer grazing is in full swing. We’re moving the sheep to fresh grass every couple of days. It looks like they’re leaving a lot behind, but in actuality, it’s mostly dry, tough stems. They’re not very good for nursing ewes and growing lambs. Once the sheep move off a major section, we mow it down… Continue reading