Author: Steve Hardin

Sheep success!

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We had some great luck on Thursday!  One of the sheep buyers from last year randomly called AnnMarie and asked if we had sheep for sale. She negotiated a fair price for both parties.  He wanted to come over on Friday but she had to work and I needed to dig out the barn some more to allow panel placement. 

After two and half hours of digging on Friday I had managed to clean out about Six feet of the barn. It’s slow going.  I had already broken one tine on a pitchfork and bent another one on a second pitchfork. It sucked. I finally decided to see if I could fit the tractor inside the barn. It fit through the door with a couple of inches to spare on each side. Unfortunately, I had dug a trench for a panel and had the tractor on three tires trying to keep it from falling onto its side. In 30 minutes I managed to dig out more than I could of done in five hours by hand. It was enough to get the panels in place. I used to always tell AnnMarie that the tractor would not fit into the barn. Funny how when I have to do all the digging suddenly I figure out a way to make it happen!  
This plan to get ready for the sheep sorting threw me off finishing the tile floor on Friday. AnnMarie had went out on the back hillside Friday evening to bring all the boys into the ram pasture. There should have been 22 animals there was only 12!!  We are not sure what is happening. We have not seen any predators but the grass is very tall.  I need to mow but the mower has been out of commission. They called Friday at noon to tell me it was ready, $1000 to get it rebuilt. I went into town late afternoon to pick it up before heading to work. We are going to have to contemplate the cause of this loss. This could be a cougar, wolf problem. We have not seen anything harassing the sheep or cows since our dog problem. Whatever it is the sheep are far easier to kill than the cows 

We had to get up early on Saturday so we could be out sorting at 0700. AnnMarie let me sleep in till almost 0630. This was very nice as I had gotten in late. We called Sarah to get her to come out and help us. 
I wore my “sheep sorting apology” shirt just in case. AnnMarie started out by running both dogs together. This caused much swearing. I went to the barn to finish getting it ready. At one point Annmarie called us into the ram pasture as she needed a human fence because the dogs would not listen. I offered my assistance, T-shirt turned toward her, as she impaled me with her narrowed eyes and proceeded to tell me where to put my offer. I made a great silent fence after that. Sarah and I had just had this whispered conversation in the barn about me helping run the dogs. I had predicted this outcome. Not sure why I offered, probably just to rile her up a little. She gets better looking with a little ire in her blood. 

We ran the boys into the chute and sorted off two boys and the ram then ran them out of the barn back into the ram pasture via the swing gate. We managed to get the mommas and babies in through the front of the barn. Tanner was helping us also. He was more like reluctant boyfriend help. We needed 29 sheep from this group to make our agreed upon 40.  Unfortunately, were counting on 20 from the back hillside not 11. So we started sorting off everything we thought was three months old off that could be weaned. We herded the keepers into the almost empty hay room, this kept them distracted.  Our buyer showed up about 2/3 of the way through the first sorting. He was talking to her as I was on the other end of the chute. Turns out the sheep he bought from us last year turned out great!  He was surprised at how fast they put on weight and their low maintenance. He said that our sheep are learning to forage at a young age because of our pasture type. Their mothers teach them to look for food. He wants to buy sheep from us every 2-3 months. The reason we were going to downsize again is because we cannot find a consistent buyer. If he would take all the female babies before 5 months old we would never have to run two herds. This does mean however that we will need to run the sheep in nightly so we can tag and band and pay better attention to our genetics. We talked about getting a cull color ear tag for the girl babies so we can easily sort, green=good. I wonder if they make a gold tag= $?
So we tossed back several females and we put the ram back in with the herd. We might be able to produce 70-100 babies a year maybe 150 we will have to see. This is enough money to get us our winter feed!  Now that we have the hay loader we can have it delivered on a semi truck and unload it. This will give us a much better price. 

Memorial weekend work

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The grass on the front hillside is too tall again. We had set up a panel fence but after three days the nephew started digging out the barn and the sheep got loose. They didn’t finish their job and eat the hillside down so I don’t have to break out the whamplidyne weed eater. I used the new weedeater to clear the yard and behind the garden on the back hillside. It cut right through the huge thistles!!  

 
You can see that the sheep are not done with their job. Gizmo has discovered the joys of sheep pellets. They are kinda like skittles for dogs. He loves them!!  
I wanted to fence all weekend but there is still tiling to be done inside. I did spend half a day moving the straw pile from the barn. The barn is about 25% dug out. There is a lot of straw. 

 

I did spend half a day trying to finish the tile. I have about three hours of tiling left. I plan on doing that Friday morning. I also wanted to mow with the tractor but when I called they said they had to order parts to repair it and it was not ready. I kinda figured that was going to happen. On the plus side one of my large tractor tires had a leak and they found all three holes and repaired them for free!!  I dropped off my spare trailer tire to be replaced also. It has perpetually leaked and they can never find it. 
 
The cheatgrass is starting to head out. I really need the mower to whack it all down to ground level. 
The entire area is still green its amazing. 
I used the dogs today to move the sheep. Mouse did better, he did listen mostly. A vast improvement over two weeks ago. 

Sheep banded and tagged again

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Well it was that time again. Time for conflict and discord between the wife and I. It was time to work the sheep!  I also forgot to wear my apology T-shirt. We have removed the boys and ram weeks ago and needed to get the last of the lambs tagged and banded. It started out on a sour note. We took both dogs and Mouse snuck off and went around and tore into the sheep. He scattered them everywhere and had one he was chasing down. He would not lay down or let off the chase. Luckily for me and the ewe they were running toward me and I was able to get him to lay down. AnnMarie took Zeke around the lot and got the sheep to run over near the barn. She told Zeke to “down” and he decided to continue left which did make the sheep head toward the barn but was not what he was told to do. So I hollered at him to down then AnnMarie and I hollered at each other then Mouse got loose and started running toward the sheep so I hollered at him. We had to break out the shaker sticks as the sheep did not want to go into the barn. We need another small 30 foot section of fencing that lines up directly with the barn opening. This would allow us to use the dogs to push the sheep into the barn. Otherwise, it’s takes two people and two dogs to get them in the barn plus we had to use shaker sticks. I almost never use them with AnnMarie as she is far more patient with the animals than I am. Once inside the barn and doors shut. We proceeded to tag and band lambs. 

This sounds like a shared duty but it really is not. Annmarie cannot work the bandorator or the ear tagger as they take a lot of hand strength. So she has to catch all the lambs. This sounds easy but the lambs are not all dainty newborns. Some are up to 2.5 months old and big up to 30 pounds. We tagged and banded 33 lambs today!!  She was tired, dirty and grumpy by the time we were done. I kept offering to trade jobs, not much help, but we did manage to get finished. We have 94 moms and babies plus 21 whethers plus 1 ram for a total of 116 sheep. 

We had pulled the ram off early but the horny bugger managed to get most of the older ewes pregnant!  We had planned on a break allowing the ewes to put some weight back on. This means the ram is going to stay out for another six months at a minimum. We have to get rid of 85 sheep this summer. It will be interesting. 

Today I placed panels across the front yard so I can turn the sheep out onto the front hillside again. The sheep are now mowing the hillside.  

I don’t need any help

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The grass is starting to get too tall.  I decided that it was time to break out the tractor mower this weekend. I got the sprayer unhooked and tried to get the mower attached.  It did not want to attach. One point of the three point hitch would not latch. I pried and beat on it. It took me about 45 minutes to get it all attached. I was able to then crawl under the mower. One of the blades was bent and loose. This is what is beating up the metal shell of my mower. I put it on my trailer and managed to get a flat tire on the large back tire of my tractor. I had to take it off and throw it on the trailer also. 
The tractor repair shop was not surprised to see me. I am hard on equipment but I told them I had the mower for over five years!  
The tire place said they would get back to me to tell me if the tire was still any good. 
 
Tonight when I came home I was filling up my water containers for the upstairs plants when I suddenly noticed a rock chuck playing on my rock wall! My rock wall that I have spent years working on. A Little Rock chuck was running around on the ground then it jumped into a hole in the middle of the wall. It started throwing dirt out of the middle of the rock wall. I started hollering at the window and yelled for AnnMarie. 
She grabbed the 22LR long gun and headed out to the chicken coop. She could get a good angle from there and hopefully to take out my rock wall destroyer.  The little destroyer went back into its hole and hid out. She never got a shot off. This is going to be a big problem if we cannot get rid of it.  

It is gross

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It was a long week. The sheep keep having babies. We need to tag and band babies but want to wait until all the lambs are actually born. We peer out at the flock on a daily basis but haven’t been doing daily walk throughs. Last Tuesday I went out to put away the horses. We have been bringing them in so they don’t founder.  Both horses were out in the pasture standing over a brown lump and refused to come. I walked out and spotted a ewe in labor with a lamb under her alive. I headed back to the house to get some towels and gloves. Once inside the house I informed AnnMarie about the problem. The ewe most likely had at least one other lamb stuck inside her. I grabbed two of the shoulder length vet gloves. I figured I would only need one but brought an extra just in case.

 AnnMarie came out to hold the ewe. The ewe got up twice but AnnMarie finally got a hold of her and I then had to figure out how many lambs were stuck in there. I had to take off my coat and lay on the ground in my tshirt. As I tried to reach inside and ascertain the situation I stimulated the ewe causing the contractions to escalate in frequency and strength. I could feel the back of a lamb but could not push it back inside. After about 10 minutes of pushing and fighting I managed to pull out one dead lamb. It was very big and then I pulled another one. I was pretty certain I had them all, but I was informed that I had to go back in and make sure. The smell and gore was not pleasant. I was right and there was no more dead lambs. We backed off and she managed to keep her head up. We almost pulled the lamb off but she kept her head up. The baby was at least 24 hours old and very strong. 
The next morning we saw her walking around with the baby. The same thing happened that evening. All was looking good. The next evening I walked out to check on her I found her dead behind the lamb shed. We caught the baby and took her inside. She was doing fabulous and needed no formula. We called our house keeper and she came to pick up the bummer lamb.  It was a little girl and the cutest black and white mixed color. We were sad to see her go. 
 
The dead ewe had to go up to the barnyard bone pile, one final tractor trip.  

This is not the most glamorous portion of taking care of animals.  But it is necessary.