Sheep

Birds are here

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Life is happening every day around us. We keep seeing more and more birds and are now pretty sure that this pair of ducks have been coming back for several years. I spotted them up the creek last week when I was discing and Annmarie saw them down by the house the other day. If I can get the shallow ponds dug this summer I may line a 8×12 foot section of bottom in the lowest spot with a pond liner. This should act as a very durable weed barrier and allow a small open spot of water to be visible in the spring in both ponds which will hopefully entice the ducks into nesting.

We looked at the spring head again yesterday and the watercress is starting to fill up the waterway again. I have to pull it out several times a year. I think that two domestic geese are our answer. I don’t want ducks as they are not tough enough. I think the geese will survive the predator attacks better. Unfortunately, I don’t want super mean geese that bum rush us whenever they see us. So far I have only found one pair that someone is willing to part with and they are super aggressive. I don’t want them chasing the sheep or cows. So maybe next year I raise my own.

We had not seen the quail in a few months and were afraid that they might have all gotten eaten. But yesterday Annmarie spotted them on the back hillside. Hopefully this year we get the quail back in droves. We only usually have one to two coveys on the place. This is why my mother-in-law doesn’t want the hunters to shoot quail. The pheasants are like weeds, no matter what we do they come back and are plentiful. Eventually, when I run out of tasks and hobbies I would like to contact the ODFW and try and get a remote setup to raise quail with minimal human interaction so they are wild and turn them loose on the property. I am going to start putting cow panels around the rose bushes in an attempt to create more habitat.

Annmarie spotted five barn owls on her 2 mile drive home yesterday. We have lots of hawks of different varieties but the owls are usually an occasional sighting phenomenon. We only see our great horned owl every few months now that it has moved down to the schoolhouse. There used to be a mated pair but we have not seen them together in years and I am not a birder, they all look alike to me.

We are also now seriously talking about a large subterranean greenhouse heated by passive solar energy. All these food scares and bacteria outbreaks really make you conscious of the food chain. The shorter the chain the better.

Now that the weather is changing the working dogs have started to get overheated. An hour out working the animals and they start wandering over to the creek to lay in it, drinking is secondary to immersing their bodies. Last year we shaved them and they did great all summer. They were much more comfortable and worked better for us. Sarah shaved them for us last week and they are getting used to it. Mouse thinks the process is humiliating and hides for a day or two afterwards. They both look kinda funny for about six weeks until they get a little hair back. It also makes it much easier for us to find ticks on them. This wet weather has caused the ticks to come out of hiding and we have found three already. Gizmo is taking his cues from the big dogs. I make them wait and sit before they can have food and he so wants to come eat but he keeps looking sideways at the other two and they are holding still so he waits.

We sent out a deposit on a new ram for out flock today! We figured that May was our six month mark and we should be safe to get a new ram. Yesterday during our walk around we spotted as brand new baby lamb born hours earlier, they just keep coming!! We are going to get a full blooded Katahdin ram this time. He has good genetics and the breeders are doing genetic culling and comparing them in a national database for growth and disease traits. Way more work than we want to do but so handy for us to look at when choosing a new ram. If this guy works out good for us we may keep him for several years and use that farm in the future. Here at Muttville Central we want happy healthy animals that are super self reliant. This is a harder task than you might imagine as the industry has bred self reliability out of a large portion of the breeds in an attempt to concentrate on size, growth rate or fat marbling. We are looking at disease resistance, ease of birthing, twins, growth rate, size and ease of handling for us these characteristics determine how many animals we can raise and how well they do.

This is why we have a mix of three main crosses, Katahdin, Barbados Blackbelly and Dorper. There are certain characteristics of each breed we like and we keep mixing in different rams and keeping the sheep that meet our above requirements. Its working well for us. We don’t vaccinate, we worm every 1-2 years as a precaution. We have never had any type of infection go through the herd that killed any animals. We had ORP, basically a oral herpetic type disease, go through a couple of times it came in on some sheep we purchased. That is it, no other problems in 8 years. We totally attribute this to our low bioload. The animals have so much pasture to roam on that they just don’t sit in one place and live. This also accounts for why our animals are such good grazers. We also allow the animals access to shelter year around and in the winter we lock them up in the barn every night. The barn gets dug out every year and fresh straw laid down throughout the winter. Now that we have upped our barn cat population I have not seen a single rodent in the barn!

Getting there

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Sunday was catch up day. I had big plans for the trim but we really needed to work the sheep. I stayed home while Annmarie went to church (this happens a lot) and I busted out one more window, the largest window in our house. Annmarie came home with the great news that Sarah was going to come out and help with the sheep.

We needed to count the sheep as we had no clue how many there were. We also needed to get a count for how many we were going to need to sell come summer. Plus we still had to tag and band the stragglers from the last two months of random births. We rearranged the barn panels and ran the sheep into the barn. The sheep were pushed down the chute. I like to just wade in and randomly catch the babies but this is stressful on the sheep and I don’t get to do the catching. I sit down on my kiester and have the babies brought to me. I do the tagging and banding. I am the only one with a strong enough grip to hold the banding pliers open and to punch in the ear tags. I have a secret thought that no one else wants to torture the baby lambs but the banding pliers are very hard to hold open and you cannot let them go until everything is correct and there are 2 peanuts on the right side or it doesn’t work! It can be hard to hold open if it takes any time to fish around for the second testical.

We have 100 sheep exactly! We need to sell 40 lambs this summer and hopefully will get another 25 ewes this summer also. Each mother generates on average 1.5 lambs/year. So with 85 ewes we will make 255 lambs every 2 years or 127 lambs/year. We are going to hold off on getting another ram until all the ewes have had babies. There are still a few that are pregnant. We want everyone to get on the same cycle so that all babies will come in a single month. At least all born within a two month period, not constantly trickling all year long.

I have started digging fence post holes in the barn lot for the ram and bull enclosure. I have called the custom wood mill in Reith and will be purchasing some tamarack 2x8x16 foot rough cut lumber to use inside the enclosure. This is the hardest native wood we have in the area and they only do 2 runs a year for this express purpose- corrals. I also managed to get 50 boards of 1×12 x16 foot rough cut boards to finish the siding repairs on the barn. Again I called at the perfect time as they had cut the boards just not run them through the dryer yet. I will be picking those up next week.

I am done with all three windows in the living room and dining room! Unfortunately, I ran out of caulk! I had 18 tubes and used up 17. I ordered 20 more tubes from Amazon and will work on the floor trim when they arrive. I know, Amazon is the killer of local businesses but I waste hours going to those stores and they never have enough as I want more than a few at a time. Its a trade off and Amazon has been good to us so far. I am getting so many boxes now that I am having to burn them on a semi regular basis now.

We have another barn kitty getting used to the place in the barn kennel. We had one die but have seen several around the place. Not sure why the one died.

We also may have a pack rat in the barn! No one has seen it but we are starting to find hordes of nesting material in quantities that mice cannot form. I sure hope not as they are hard to catch and can be very destructive.

Yard fence

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I came home early on Friday just so I could work on the Gizmo fence. He has learned the many splendors of the snack potential in the barn and surrounding area. As soon as we let them out to potty he is running for the fence and squirts through the 4×4 hole. Once he is out of the yard he will not come back. It does not matter if you can see him and call him. He pretends he doesn’t hear you hollering “I can see you!”. So I will be installing a 2′ chicken wire fence using hog wire clips. It was cold, windy and rainy that afternoon. I used 1500 clips before I got cold. I only have a few hundred clips left and will have to order a few thousand more to finish the job.

I went to Bimart to get bagged dirt for our elevated trough beds in the back yard. It was a wonderful sunny day so I grabbed a bunch of different herbs with the intention of planting them outside. Once I had all the dirt unloaded and planters ready I opted to actually check the weather on my phone. No go on the herbs, its supposed to snow three days out of the next week. So I took them up to the breezeporch to survive another two weeks. Annmarie wants to create planters that go inside a tin can on our 3D printer so that all the herbs can go in the kitchen windowsill. I am afraid the herbs won’t get big enough if we keep them inside. We are starting to really like cooking with fresh herbs. I am really starting to like the idea of an underground greenhouse 10×20 feet long. I want to grow a few citrus trees, tomatoes year round, herbs year round and greens year round. I think it will be very cool. Water will be the real issue but I think I can store a few hundred gallons in 50 gallon barrels that will get us through the winter. Annmarie has agreed to listen to the plan and it is on the list for next year. I am sure it will cost $2-4K. Our wood trim arrived on Friday. Everything stained and finished I just have to cut it and install it. This is everything for our entire house. All the doors, all the windows, all the floor trim and the trim necessary to complete the stairway. It of course started raining and wind blowing on Saturday that caused me to finish covering the trim. I had covered it up after delivery but I had left open the left end and a few garbage bags with some tape closed it all off. I cannot install any of this until I finish painting so on Saturday I started to paint the downstairs. My goal is to finish all painting this week. So hopefully I can start installing the trim next week. My plan is to bring in the air compressor and then setup the chop saw on the front porch.

We had another set of twins born this week! The babies just keep coming. Next weekend we will have to tag and band the babies that have not been touched yet. This mother was so crazy we felt the need to lock her up with the twins in the momma area. She jumped out over the back wall! I am now going to have to raise that wall by 18 inches and raise the height of both gates just to keep these crazy mommas inside the pen. We locked her in the barn alone with her twins for four days so they could gain some strength to be able to keep up with the herd. Our internet sucks and is slow. I have discovered a way to speed up my picture uploads to the blog. I climb up the ladder 24 feet in the air and use my cellular data plan. Instead of each picture taking me 2-4 minutes they only take 10 seconds. This is a farmer update that most people will understand.

Internet hotspot at the top of the ladder!.

Squirrel!!

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I was supposed to be fencing all day today to keep the bull away from the heifers he is not to breed. He has a different plan and it starting to become highly annoying. I spent two hours yesterday with the dogs moving him away from the heifers. It was an exercise in patience. I finally started tossing dried cow poop patties at him. He didn’t like that and it seemed to move him better than anything else I had tried.

I started out fine, went and got my drill so I could install the gate hinges. I found all my fencing tools in the pickup and needed the tractor to move rocks. So I chased the sheep into the front yard to finish mowing the lawn and then alternated driving the pickup and tractor to get them both through the gates into the barn lot. I did get Zeke to load up in the pickup, he always wants to ride and then on a fluke I told Mouse to load up. Damned if he didn’t do it on the first try! So I had both dogs ride in the back of the pickup through the barn lot. We then unloaded and took the tractor up to the far upper bottom pasture to get the smooth wire dispensing bucket and some wire. Well there is a lot of water running on the wheat field side of the bottoms. Usually, there is not very much water on this side. I ended up digging out the ditch in a section in the upper prime pasture. When I got into the next pasture it was even worse. I had to clean up two sections of the ditch I dug earlier and then tried to dig four channels in a swampy area. All the dirt I take from the swampy area I put on the edges of the swamp. I will try and build up some of the low spots in an attempt to keep them from getting so swampy. I am going to have to dig a couple of small ponds. They will only be about 18 inches deep and 6×10 feet across. I just need the water to settle someplace and then evaporate. I may have to see if I can find some used grape poles to build a visual ring around the water so we don’t accidentally drive the tractor or equipment into the water or swamp.

I then drove up unto the middle pasture that has not been burned yet. WOW! There is at least 2 acres of swamp. There is running water through the middle of the field. It looks like a ditch may end up separating the field in the middle. This isn’t such a bad thing we just need to be able to get by the ditch on the upper and lower side. I think I am going to have to install one of my new culverts up here to ensure cross field access. There is no question that we will not be doing anything in these fields in the spring after we plant them with alfalfa. Not even spraying the first year until we can see how the field and alfalfa does. I am hoping it takes up some of the water. I managed to get stuck again in the upper pasture and could not get out. I have only ever pushed myself with the tractor bucket backwards in an attempt to get unstuck. I had about a 30 foot liquid mud trail in front of me and i was pushing myself further into the swamp. So I figured out how to pull myself with the bucket! Its not as easy as pushing but it is possible. I then went to load up the wire and realized I needed to drill some post holes for the gates up here. I had the auger on the tractor and ended up digging 7 holes. Which made me aware that I need to dig holes in the barn lot ASAP. This was nice all dirt bottoms and each hole took me 5-7 minutes to dig. I cannot let the barn lot dirt get any harder or I will never get a hole dug. No hole means more rock cribs!I managed to get started on the fencing at noon. The dogs got to terrorize the hillside, the CRP, the creek and occasionally the chickens. Mouse had a thing for chasing the chickens today, I had to call him off three times. Zeke ratted him out every time by perking up his ears and slinking toward the sound of distressed chickens. Zeke either runs away or stays close, he never does anything halfway.

Mouse loaded up into the pickup a second time on the first jump. I had to talk him into it and make Zeke jump out and show him how it was done. He was a little light on the jump but managed to scramble in without assistance. I got the upper gate installed. I had to create a chain that is attached to hold it open so you can drive through. Otherwise the gate is angled such that it automatically closes. I managed to get the tractor to finally hold a roll of wire such that I can just walk away and it unrolls without any problems. I have been trying to figure out how to do this for four years. The trick is the bar has to touch both sides of the tractor bucket and the chains hold it level. The horseshoe is one of my gate latches. I am running out of them again. I usually have them welded ten at a time and I keep using them up. I didn’t get all the fencing done. I still have the lower gates to install. I had some gate posts hooks but they are too big for the ones already installed on the gate. So I will just buy smaller ones it is easier. I need to fill one rock crib, so three hours of hard labor with the mistress doing all the heavy lifting. I have one spot just to the right of the rock crib on the right side of the picture that needs a rigid panel installed to keep the animals from crawling through the gap. I am pretty sure I can use a piece of scrap from the horse enclosure that is still propped up in the front yard. I keep using those scraps in an attempt to get rid of them.

The sheep finished mowing the front yard! I will now have to get out a hose and wash down the sidewalk, bridge and our front porch in the morning before our Easter guests come for brunch. This takes care of mowing and fertilizing all at once. The only problem is we have to watch the dogs go potty for a week or two as they love to rub sheep poop all over themselves. I thought about this today as Annmarie kept hollering from the back porch to get my opinion on Iher attire for tonight. I enjoy doing this stuff, its hard to explain to people why I have a full time job that pays so I can have a full time job taking care of the farm. The farm is always there and forces you to constantly change and adapt. When you think you have it figured out, someone or something changes to prove that you do not. It keeps you moving, there is no time to sit around and be lazy. I get to work with animals and fix stuff. I love doing the 90% on projects and most farm projects are complete at 85%! Not the ones inside the house, I know dear. I love to reuse and cobble things together. The farm keeps me healthy and whole.

Some days life chooses your direction

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I came home on time today after picking up groceries for Easter brunch. The sheep are “mowing” the front lawn so you have to be very careful as you make your way down the steps, across the bridge and onto the stepping stones to the front porch, there are a lot of sheep bombs. I had two loads of stuff to bring in and on the first load I failed to latch the gate securely. This caused a mass exodus from the front yard out into the car area in front of both houses. I managed to spot it and stop about half the herd from leaving. So now we only need to get 40 sheep back in instead of 80. I told Annmarie I would be right back and took the dogs to get them back. We wandered out through the ram pasture. I have been popping thistles all week with my pocket knife and spotted a few I missed so I got those. As I walked by the bridge over the ditch I noticed that it was clogged with tumbleweeds so I waded in and pulled all those out and an old piece of tin I found. I slowly started heading to the barn. I let the horses out and closed the front barn lot off and left the main gate open so we could push the sheep into a secure area. This is when my phone rang, Annmarie wanted to know where I was as she was heading out to help and the sheep were now down at her mother’s house and she was trying to push them toward our house because the alpaca were herding the sheep.

We had to push them around her house and back up to ours. Just as we got all the gates shut and were headed back to the house Annmarie spotted a ewe that was stuck in the orchard and her baby was in our front yard. She went to go deal with that while I snuck off to take care of chickens. After grabbing my second egg the cell phone went off, it was Annmarie there were two separate babies separated and where was I? I left the eggs and went and helped corral the last two sheep. All the sheep were behind the barn and we were getting ready to go inside when Annmarie looked up on the hillside and spotted the Bull outside his area. He was on the open hillside which means he had to have pushed through the creek crossing after I tried booby trapping it. This contraption had lasted for almost three weeks without him thwarting it. I was able to go up to the hillside and have him follow me up and through the gate. I even managed to find a coffee cup out near the fence that I had forgotten when I was building my contraption. The bull ambled down toward the other cows and all was good with the world. We headed back to the house and just as we got to the hillside gate we spotted the bull going through the ram pasture. He had gone down and pushed through the creek crossing behind the house and then went straight to the creek crossing behind the barn he tore up last year and up to the fence next to the heifers. It looked like he had spent a large portion of the day alongside the fence. It was pushed over in areas and there was a beaten path alongside it. Annmarie tried to push the bull back out with the dogs but this went no where as the dogs kept circling around and pushing the bull the wrong way. Annmarie had to be in to town so I took over. It took me another hour of pushing him around to get him to go back down to the other cows.

It was painful for me, the bull and the dogs. I then had to go up to the incomplete fence line and wire up the upper gate and wire up the two bottom gates. I then went and redid the creek crossing behind the house. Then I went and got a heavy metal gate and wired and tied it in place over the ram pasture ditch crossing. I used a lot of bailing twine to get it to hold. There is no flex in that sucker now so he cannot shimmy under it. I also cleaned out the ditch for about 30 feet while I was here. I wear rubber boots all the time now when working outside. It works for me and I can easily clean them off. I need to get in here and rework this fence crossing. I have just about decided that I need to string cable across the bottoms of the ditch so I can clip in the panels during the summer so that the bull cannot lift them. I need to do five separate crossings this way to keep him in. I really need to build the bull enclosure inside the barn lot so we can keep him separate from the heifers when we want.

Tomorrow I will be completing the fence running up the back hill and installing all the gates in that fence permanently regardless of what the weather is doing. I need two fences between him and the heifers.

Gizmo and Bo, the cat were keeping Annmarie company while she worked until eh home office today. They were sucking up a little extra heat from each other and the freestanding heater.