Annmarie took care of the lambs this year! We sold Pahlow Farm in Elgin, OR 24 ewe lambs and 4 whethers. We sold 11 whethers and a cull ewe to our regular buyer and we kept 3 whethers for local customers and one replacement ewe lamb for a grand total of 43 lambs. The real problem here is we should have had 6 more lambs as we did find one dead one in the barn lot.
We figured we lost six lambs from the lambs going into the upper field and getting eaten by some predator. We are not sure if its a cougar or a bobcat. We have had neighbors and helpers see both on the property. The bobcat was spotted trying to kill a fawn. Again we have that dilemma about cost versus loss savings. We lost about $500 worth of lambs. Annmarie has me trained during the winter to bring in the sheep. After the first few times the sheep pretty much do it themselves as they quickly learn we are feeding them when they show up every night. I take the summers as a time to just let them run wild and do whatever they want. What this really means is I don’t have to go out every night and get them into the barn lot and lock them in and then in the morning let them out again. So if we figure the summer consists of four months or 120 days and we lose $500 worth of sheep it costs us $4.20/day to not bring the sheep in every night. Now this is a fixed cost so only bringing them in occasionally will not be a cost savings, it has to be every night to realize an actual savings. Maybe what we really need to do is to run the alpaca with the sheep during the summer? We could get a little donkey to keep the horse company but it would really be for the sheep and I am afraid it would just get fat on an all you can eat diet like the sheep have. The donkey would have to be fairly cheap to make up for the loss of lambs and any upkeep it would cost us. Our adult ewes are still coming into the barn lot every night on their own so their good habits seem to be protecting them.
Annmarie had some help from Mr Rainman to sort them as they had all gotten back together. The latch I was supposed to repair a couple of months ago on the barn lot double gates failed and allowed the entire herd to reform. So they had to sort out the lambs from the ewes and then sort off two groups of lambs. She managed to get both parties to come on the same day to pickup lambs so sorting only had to be done once! She said the lambs were so tame that even a shaker stick would not move them down the chute. This is a good problem to have, usually they are so flighty that its hard to keep them contained. We have been working on temperament for years and it looks like we are finally starting to get some success. Pahlow Farm has a St Croix ram so it will be interesting to see what the blood line addition will do to the new babies.
Our three local sales and replacement ewe will hang out in the orchard for a few months and then become food and breeding stock. The game birds are doing amazingly well this year. We are seeing quail everywhere and today spotted a pair of adults with 10 babies! We have pairs of quail all over the place and went into spring with 40-50 mature adult quail. If every pair has 5 babies that would be another 100 quail but it could be another 250 quail! I told Annmarie if they can get past 500 quail maybe then we would consider culling some but not until they become a nuisance. They are by far and away our favorite bird on the property. I even spotted the Hun partridge covey again this week when I was coming to work. On our way home last night the stubble field had five whitetail buck deer in it grazing away after dark. There are a couple of nice four point bucks in the group but I did not get a buck tag this year.
The heating/air conditioning got repaired today! Annmarie says he is now her favorite man of the year. The house was 72 degrees within 15 minutes of it being repaired, the entire house! It was amazing, and yes he is secretly my favorite man of the year also. 72 was too cold so we had to turn the air conditioner up to 74 degrees so an extra layer is not needed inside the house. I am hopeful that Mr Rainman can get the entire place mowed next week and Mr Professional can get the yard cleaned up and my replacement door onto the Ford Focus that was attacked by deer.
Stewart Creek Somethings 