Farm – Page 54 – Stewart Creek Somethings

Lambing update

February 20, 2023Steve HardinLeave a comment

This weekend some time had to be devoted to the sheep. The ewes have finally started to have lambs on a regular basis. We had ordered four more portable panels and they came. They come in two feet sections and have to be assembled. I put them all together on Friday. I had to go into town and get more grain for the ewes and mothers. We have been feeding them up for the last month. They had started to get skinny. So when I went out Saturday morning to check on the sheep I rearranged panels and built a couple more jugs. The jugs needed fresh bedding and feed buckets and water buckets filled. The mother/lamb area needed to be expanded also, by the time I was done two hours had passed.

Date of update- Feb 20, 2023
# of Lambs born – 35
# of ewes who have delivered babies – 21
# of ewes still pregnant – 23 in area, I don’t think they are all pregnant
# of single lamb births – 8
# of twin lamb births – 12
# of triplet lamb births – 1
# tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-11
# tagged female lambs-9
# of bummer lambs – 2
# of lambs who died in first two weeks – 1
Total # of lambs on farm -32
% birthing rate- 166%
% production rate -152%
% survival rate at birth – 100%
% survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 91%

We have a single lamb from one mother who makes the weirdest noise, it sounds like a cat! I tagged and banded him today and when I picked him up his rib cage is narrow and big. It is not the correct shape. We will be watching boy # 347 to see if he survives. The sheep are now at the annoying stage, they are super friendly and know that you are bringing good treats and they just want to be the first one to get them. We try and usher them gently out of the barn but after five minutes of trying to be gentle and quite we end up hollering at them to get out of the barn and chasing them out. There is only so much patience one can have before you realize that it is getting you nowhere and there are other things that need to be done.

Our spring is running a little muddy so I drove up the pastures to look and see how our pseudo soft spot was doing in field #2. It is pretty boggy and soft, I had to get out of the soft mud so I did not sink the tractor and there is running and standing water. There is one corner of the field that I had not marked out that is really soft. I need to mark it as off limits so in the spring when I need to cut hay I avoid that area.

Sheep update, not where we want to be

February 12, 2023February 12, 2023Steve HardinLeave a comment

There are a lot of lambs left to be born yet! I am pretty sure a couple of the ewes are not pregnant and we are going to be past the first 21 day ovulation cycle this week. We are going to need a second ram so this event does not drag out. We would like everyone to be born in a three week window. That is not going to happen this cycle again.

Date of update- Feb 12, 2023
# of Lambs born – 21
# of ewes who have delivered babies – 13
# of ewes still pregnant – 31 in area, I don’t think they are all pregnant
# of single lamb births – 6
# of twin lamb births – 6
# of triplet lamb births – 1
# tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-8
# tagged female lambs-5
# of bummer lambs – 2
# of lambs who died in first two weeks – 1
Total # of lambs on farm -18
% birthing rate- 162%
% production rate -138%
% survival rate at birth – 100%
% survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 86%

We had another bummer, the ewe got distracted and forgot about one of her twins. Annmarie fed the baby and we left it for two hours with the ewe and it was still cold and laying down. She brought it into the house and warmed it up by the stove. She got it more alert and fed up. Tisha came and took the bummer away a few hours later.

I had on chicken die so there are only 11 layers left. Spring is coming, I have 2-3 chickens die every spring when the wild ducks come in to the back creek. I just replaced the light bulb again in the coop. I have been changing it every month due to the tweetie birds bouncing around inside the coop and breaking the light filament. I got LED lights this time.

Office closing in on finish line, sorta…

February 7, 2023February 7, 2023Steve HardinLeave a comment

My last two days of staycation were spent working on the office. The nephews came out to move their grandma’s new loveseat into her house. It was on our front porch so they had to move out the old one, into the wife’s new office and on the way past the old chicken coop we picked up an old TV stand, an empty Victrola case and an old wooden closet. All four pieces got unloaded into the office. I tried to keep them more toward the middle as I knew the trim still needed to be installed. More like measured, cut, sanded, dry fitted and cut a second time. I was not really feeling like working on the trim so I cleaned and polished all of the furniture. Annmarie was out of town so I wanted it to all be clean when she got home. Sarah came out and held the new overhead room light up into the air so I could easily install it. Letting it hang by the grounding wire just doesn’t seem to be a good option any more. The new light works wonderfully. The only real problem is I, for some unknown reason, put the light switch on the wrong side of the door. I think I got a left hand sided door and really needed a right hand door. So now the switches are behind the door. I did install the switches before I had the doors installed.

On Sunday, I took the wife out to inspect the office. I had spent the morning cutting and dry fitting trim. I could not do the floor trim until I trimmed out the door first. Unfortunately, the wall is leaning about 1.5” out away from the room. So when I squared up and leveled the door there is a huge gap near the top of the door. I had to come up with an overlapping system of boards to fill the gaps and appear to be planned. Once that was done I could start in on the floor. I managed to get over 50% of the trim cut and dry fitted.

Annmarie decided that she did not want the closet. It will get moved to the other room for me to use. I am going to store some cleaning supplies in it and some other stuff. It rained for most of the day so I kept wiping my feet on rags I put down outside the entrances. The puppy just does not care whether its cold or rainy or snowy, she wants to be outside. I tried to let her into the laundry room to dry off and she just did not want that. She wanted to run around free. We try to bring her into the house in the evenings and she will stay inside for about 20 minutes before wanting to go back outside. She spends most of her time in the evening on the front porch making sure no one can get into the house. I think I have another three days on the office to get it done. I already installed all the light and switch covers earlier in the week. Once I get the floor trim completed I need to work on the built in stained glass lights and frame to hold it in place. The sheep are not doing anything nor are they currently have babies. They are in limbo when it comes to birthing no more new babies. We had a pair of bald eagles come visit. They flew around the farm for a few hours before wandering off.

Lamb day

February 3, 2023February 5, 2023Steve HardinLeave a comment

The sheep have taken up more of my staycation than I anticipated. I spent a whole day on Friday messing around with them. Due to all of the babies and only having one Jug left open It was determined I should tag and band babies. I usually just turn the babies loose and in a month try and match and catch random babies. It tends to be inaccurate and fairly labor intensive. Annmarie has been trying to get me to tag and band from the jugs for ages. The real problem is banding the lambs at that age is not easy. I have tagged and banded over 330 male lambs so I am pretty confident in getting it right now no matter the age. Plus it has the added benefit of actually being able to track each ewe accurately. Meathead helped me tag band and give selenium supplement to everyone in the jugs except the newborn twins under the stairs. We then put fresh straw in all of the used jugs and moved panels around to make the momma/baby area bigger and created a chute for the pregnant mommas to get into the barn. As the momma/baby group gets bigger we just keep giving them more of the front of the barn and the preggers get the smaller back half. It took us few years to figure this out! Nothing is ever easy when you start, there are a lot of hard lessons to getting a good routine down. The feeders get moved around also to correspond to the number of mouths needing fed.

Date of update- Feb 3, 2023
# of Lambs born – 15
# of ewes who have delivered babies – 8
# of ewes still pregnant – lots
# of single lamb births – 2
# of twin lamb births – 5
# of triplet lamb births – 1
# tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-6
# tagged female lambs-4
# of bummer lambs – 1
# of lambs who died in first two weeks – 1
Total # of lambs on farm -13
% birthing rate- 188%
% production rate -163%
% survival rate at birth – 100%
% survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 87%

Staycation is paying off

February 2, 2023Steve HardinLeave a comment

It’s been a busy two days. I went out to the barn yesterday hoping for babies and found none. So I kicked everyone out, filled the hay feeders and then grained everyone. I went and opened the barn door to let the sheep in so I could go fill the triplet’s water and spotted a brand new lamb, still covered in goo out in the barn lot. I literally had only taken 15 minutes to get everything in place. Now I had no clue who had given birth and they had all bum rushed the door as they wanted to be the first one to eat grain, even the new mother. I walked up and down the feeders looking for the ewe that had just given birth. I found her but she was low woman on the totem pole and had not managed to secure a spot on the wall feeder. We walked back and forth along the feeder until I was finally able to catch her and lock her in a Jug. As soon as I had the Jug gate secured she hit the gate with her head at a dead run trying to get out. I went out, scooped up the newborn lamb, I had leather gloves on and they got all gooped up, I then wiped the lamb down with some old hay netting and put her in with her mother. Mom was not interested in the lamb, only in eating. I left the lamb and asked Sarah to check in on them in 90 minutes so I could get started on applying polyurethane sealant to the new office floor. I can use two coats and the best part is if I apply the coats between 4-12 hours after the previous coat I do not have to sand the floor between coats, this was a huge selling point for me. It took me almost three hours to get the first coat on the floor. I went out after dinner and applied the second coat. I was back inside by 2100. The floor looked pretty shiny, but the floor was still wet.

On a side note, I was at the door doing the last one foot of floor, since I was at the door I had the polyurethane can directly in front of me, instead of the side like normal. I also had a cheap work shirt with a short breast pocket only. I had dirtied my two shirts already this week with the zip close breast pockets. Of course my phone was in my breast pocket and yes it slipped out of my pocket and dropped into the polyurethane! It was totally immersed, I fished it out and dried it off as best I could. I then finished the floor and then went inside the house, took the phone out of the case and buffed off the polyurethane until it was gone. My case had a cover over the charging port but the women tell me that the speakers are no longer as good as they were. I usually Bluetooth it to an external speaker anyways. My hearing is not great and I need the bigger louder speakers. The phone case had to go in the trash. I am now using Annmarie’s phone case and need to buy a new one. I am “not to be trusted” without a case. I drop my phone several times a week in the course of just using it.

This morning the plan was to get outside, do the chores real quick and then start on the walls. The Juniper on the ceilings is not going to get sealed, it will remain untouched. The floor was dry enough to walk on. That polyurethane really did dry quick. I was pretty impressed. I am definitely not a professional applicator, as I could spot the imperfections in the finish but most people are not going to notice.

The sheep had other ideas. I found two more ewes that had given birth and the single from yesterday had turned into a set of twins and the crazy mother was now paying attention to both of them. I got the ewe with a single and the other with twins into new Jugs and proceeded to then feed everyone grain and hay, then let them back in and get water a couple of times for all the Jugged mothers. Once that was done it was time to go to the old house. I got interrupted earlier at breakfast to get a loveseat delivered for my mother-in-law. The nephews will come out on the weekend and help me move the old one out of her house and into the new office and then take the new one to her house. One more reason for me to get this thing done! Sarah came out and we started to rub the “Tried and True” onto the walls, it gets applied with a lint free cloth liberally then wiped off in 60 minutes. It took us almost six hours to get all the walls rubbed on then off. Tomorrow I will work on the trim.