I let the dogs out first thing in the morning to go to the bathroom and I thought I heard a meep.  We have five babies out in the barn so I just attributed it to that.  Monica wanted waffles for breakfast so I sat and drank coffee while “supervising” the waffle manufacturing.  I read the recipe and drank more coffee.  Annmarie came down and I happened to mention the meep sound.  She promptly put on some boots abnd winter clothes and went outside to the barn.  I drank some more coffee and ate waffles. I did tell the girls that after breakfast we were going to have to go outside and check on the lambs.  Plus, we had food to unload from the car, eggs to collect, chickens to feed and we just purchased some diatomaceous earth (ground up petrified freshwater shellfish) for the animals and needed to get a mixing container set up in the barn. 
Annmarie came back to the house hollering for me to come immediately as she could not get the ewe into a jug with the new twins that had been born.  That meeping sound I had heard was from the first twin falling under the outer barn door and into the old sheep area.  Momma could not get to her and she had crawled behind the straw to stay warm.  Annmarie and I chased momma into the jug with the twins and we watched them for a little bit to see if the first baby would get rejected.  It all looked good so we went back inside to clean up the house (recent tornado inside our house and the after effects are still present). 

We sent Sarah out at 1300 to check on the babies.  She came back and told me that the fallen baby was getting rejected.  We made up a bottle of lamb milk replacer and went out to the barn.  The baby in question was up walking around and would suck on Sarah’s finger but not the bottle.  The ewe backed up into the corner of the jug and the fallen baby went over, latched on and proceeded to drink a large amount of milk.  All is wonderful with the world!  When we backed away from the jug, the ewe started turning in circles and pushing the fallen baby away from her, no bond.  We grabbed the baby and brought it into the house.  It was cold so it stayed curled up in a ball in a towel on someone’s lap.  Zeke came over and licked the baby all clean.  He was incredibly gentle, which surprised us.  He did great.  We called Tisha to come get the little bummer girl.  She came a couple hours later and took her home with her.  We don’t do bummers, too much work and a negative payout.  We just give them away.  

After we got home late that evening I went out to feed everyone and lock them up for the night.  Our lead ewe #1, had just had a set of twins!  They are all white with a faded brown neck collar.  Both of them were right next to her and covered in yellow fluid (amniotic).  I just grabbed the babies and put them in a jug.  They meeped and she came right over and walked right into the jug!  If only everyone was that easy.  The single baby left over from the morning birth was doing well.  I watered and fed everyone.  We had mixed the grain with molasses and the diatomaceous earth together and will be feeding the sheep and horses this to get rid of worms.  It works by mechanical action on the worms in the guts of animals.  We thought we would give it a shot. 

I am going to have to ear tag everyone on Monday.  Too many babies to keep track of a pen full of them and their mothers.  I am going to wait a few weeks before I band the boys (castrate).  It is easier when they are a little older, but not too old!

Third baby of the day.

Machine shop south side completed.

Second set of twins, first born this morning.

Babies are popping out every where!  I started the hot water for my coffee this morning before going out to check on the sheep.  It took me an hour to check on every one.  Crazy ewe that had twins would not go into a jug.  Both babies were crying, mom was crying but she would not go in.  I tried to catch her but she kept running away.  I finally had to chase her around the barn and flop onto her.  My flop is well perfected and since I outweigh the sheep it is a good signature move.  Not very graceful, but effective.  I had to drag her in to the jug and then she was happy.

When I came back from town, Annmarie told me there was another baby.  That makes three of the six jugs occupied with my table saw in one and the grain buckets in another.  Only one open jug left.  I went back outside and cleaned out the hay area to make room for the jug contents.  Then I spread out straw in the two, now empty, jugs.  I moved some hay around and now we are ready for three more mommas to have babies.  We want to leave them in the jug about three days to bond well with their mothers.  Longer if the lambs are not very strong.  The mommas try and keep up with the flock and the babies cannot keep up. 

I went out and wired the gate back up to create a new momma and baby area outside.  Once we move the babies from the jugs we will put them in the entrance to the tack room.  This lets us close the outside door at night and open it up during the day.  The sheep can make their own way down to the creek for water.  Carrying water sucks and we are fortunate enough to not have to do it.  Just water in the jugs for the new mothers.

We got this fancy USDA survey in the mail last week.  It is “required” by them for all agricultural providers.  We fall into this category as we have a business license and are selling the sheep and eggs.  We have been doing it for a couple of years but this year they added hair sheep to the sheep section.  It is very detailed and asks quite a few financial questions.  I had not yet totalled up all the reciepts from last year so today was the day for that wonderful task.  I was pleasantly surprised by the results.  I almost stayed on budget for the barn and if we include a 10% estimate error I actually made it!  I have several categories so I will give a brief overview of each one and then my rounded expenses.  I am not going to add them all up so the numbers may not add up to my real total but it will be close enough for record keeping purposes. 
ANIMALS: This covers the baby chickens, medicine for the sheep and chickens, salt and supplements.  $415
FEED:  This covers all the chicken food, sheep grain and hay but last year we did not purchase any hay.  $375
GENERAL:  This covers the fencing supplies, gloves, safety gear, nails, clips, hardware for gates, locks for gates, hinges.  $1400
EQUIPMENT:  This covers the 16ft flat bed trailer we purchased, 8 ft disc set and rental of generator.  $2520
VET:  This covers Zeke only, his vaccinations, neutering and cheet grass removal from his ears.  $635
TRACTOR/SPRAYER:  This covers the tractor maintenance and fuel, mule fuel and sprayer repair and upkeep (tractor fuel $140).  $340
BUSINESS EXPENSE:  This is for a license renewal and some advertising signs.  $125
BARN IMPROVEMENTS:  This is for repairing the barn.  We added two external doors and repaired three doors, replaced 100% of the floor on the animal side, resheathed the Southern exposure, covered the animal side with metal tin roofing, repaired the 20×20 foot section of roof that had blown off, added hurricane straps to the roof to tie in walls, added sheep jugs to the animal side and patched West side. (We used 130# of screws for a cost of $600, lumber cost of $2900, labor cost of $2000, misc expenses $1160)  Total  $6670
GRAND TOTAL:  $12,500 for the entire year.

That is a pretty accurate number as I was very good about keeping reciepts this year for everything. 
The chickens made $645 for the year in egg sales.  We sold $600 worth of sheep (1 ram, 3 unproductive ewes, 3 lambs).  We also ate several for personal consumption.  We are now feeding four cows.  This seems extravagent I know, but we are setting infrastructure in place that will last another 30 years.  A few more years of fixing up the place and then reseeding and it will be minimal expenses for the year.  We are looking at this as a long term investment and it is starting to show.  The animals are a lot easier to care for and we are spending less time managing them.  Once I get some more fence completed and the barn done it will go a long ways in cutting down our expenses.  We already have some lambs reserved in advance of birth and more people are aware of what we do and sell.  It takes time to generate a customer base and provide a quality product.  We are willing to work on these things a few at a time.  I am pretty proud of the place and the changes we have made.  I cannot wait to see what it will be like in five more years.  I never would have envisioned myself doing this twenty years ago.  I have grown to love it and appreciate the way it fills our lives.  A lovely home, wonderful wife, happening and exciting job not many people can beat that. 

Well the chickies are not even laying eggs yet and they are already dying.  I had three babies die.  Not exactly sure why.  I opened the outside door so the babies can go out into their protected yard and nothing can eat them but they have not been going out.  Some are starting to get henpecked and missing feathers on their back.  Two of the dead ones were the white chickens.  There is only one white chicken left. The speculation is the chicken waterer kept running empty because it was not on a level surface.  So I filled it and leveled it yesterday.  When I went out this morning the chickens had thrown a large portion out onto the new bedding I had just put out last night. 

I had to add a couple of 2×4 scraps to the slanted ceiling so I could install large hooks in the ceiling.  Now the food and water are hanging.  Annmarie reminded me I have the nipple waterers.  So I have three nipples in the bottom of a five gallon bucket for 23 chickens.  As long as the bucket has water this should work.  I put a bunch more wood pellets on the floor today but the chickies started to eat them.  This can kill the chickens.  So I went and got my wood chips and covered the whole floor with those on top of the pellets.  This batch of babies seem to be very stupid.  Which when talking about chickens seems like an oxymoron. 

I went out and worked on the rock wall for an hour today.  I am going to need some more dirt next.  I need to build up dirt behind the rocks so I can keep going up. It has rained for two days so it was very easy to pry the rocks out of the dirt.  We are at 4 inches of rain since we installed the rain meter.  So I am going to use 4 inches as the new comparison number so I can watch the rainfall amount over the year.