One Season Ends, A New One Starts

Hello and Happy Eclipse Day!  I won’t be seeing it here, as we have a lovely spring snowstorm raging. 

Welcome to the new subscribers!  Thank you for joining us and I hope you enjoy your visit to the farm.  The sheep say hello!

It’s been another busy weekend here with sheep things.  Another spring storm coming in had us getting extra stuff done.  Moved a bale of hay up to the corral, stock tanks were scrubbed out and refilled, made sure the shop was locked down since this one was bringing a lot of wind with it, plus a more thorough cleaning out of the barn.  I am grateful for the moisture.  All told we got about 4” of very wet, heavy snow, and it’s still snowing as I write this on Monday.  Should end some time this afternoon.  The ground is warm here, so it's melting in and creating a lot of mud.

I had to work the off-farm job on Friday and after that and dinner, we went out to do more work on the south fence line.  I am making an attempt to keep the naughties in the pasture and coated this year. 

Since I don’t have the funds to buy acres worth of sheep fence, we are cutting down saplings and using them as a physical barrier in front of the existing fence.  This also helps in our quest to open more pasture space by cutting those saplings down. 

Hopefully between Friday and Saturday we got enough done to keep them from getting out, until they walk far enough up the fence line to see where we stopped.  Big shoutout to Michael’s friend Steve who donated his time and energy to help on Saturday!  Next weekend will mean more cutting and stacking at that end spot.   Ugh.

Saturday was also coating, hoof trimming and vaccinating the flock in the barn before we turn them back out day.  Another big shout out to my friend Sherry who helped with that process by being the step’n’fetch outside the two pens.  She got all the vaccine doses ready and handed us the right size coats.  We could not have done it without you!!

Coating the sheep is a big effort and expense for us here.  Coated fleeces sell better since they are cleaner and have far less vegetable matter in them for our customers.  The coats we have average about $25.00 a piece and there are around 100 coats here now.  I have been coating the sheep since we started this adventure.  Some of the coats are still in use from day one!!  I have sizes from 19” up to 45” and each sheep goes thru 3-5 coat changes a season as they grow more wool.  The coats are a light weight nylon that doesn’t felt the fleece tips, and I get them from a gentleman in Colorado and his business “Rocky Sheep Suits”.  I spend many hours fixing them in order to get as much use out of them before they just get too worn out.  At this time, some of them are more patch than original coat! I did end up having to do away with 3 coats last week since there was just nothing left to work with to patch.

This is why we are making such a huge effort to keep them in the pasture and not shredding them on the existing barbed wire fence.  Barbed wire works great for cows and horses, not so good for sheep.  Maybe some day I’ll be able to replace it all with sheep tight woven wire.  Some day. 

I do have a segment of sheep that are the toughest for us to catch during the year.  They just don’t like to be handled even though I have seen each of them born and have had hands on them as babies.  You would think they would like me but no.  Stinkers.  Getting coat changes and feet trims during the year is always a challenge.  During the winter months when they sheep are not moving around as much, they tend to grow some lovely long toes.  Our ground is mostly bentonite and as they walk around, they stay short.  Sorta like walking on an emery board 7-ish months a year. This confinement is my opportunity to give them a lovely pedicure.  Along with all the rest of course.

It's pretty back ache inducing work for us.  Michael catches and holds the sheep, I vaccinate, we coat, and then I trim.  I do my best not to cut the toes too short, and I only got 2 this time around the had some bleeding.  They do stop quickly. 

The trimming tools. The pair on the right are actually garden pruners.

I use Rob’s horse trimming nippers and they look very out of place in my much smaller hands.  They are the only ones that open up enough to get some these fat toes my sheep have.  I’ve had to learn to adapt by using my leg to hold them while I work both my hands up high enough to get the leverage needed to cut.  In Rob’s hands it was like watching a baton twirler spin them around and clip away with hardly any effort.  He had the size and strength to do this that I don’t.  The hardest part for him was the bending over constantly.  I’m built closer to the ground than he is. 

By the time we were done, my hands hurt like hell.  I have a lovely bruise on the inside of my left thumb for my efforts.

The vaccine I give is called C,D & T.  It works in two ways, one by combating Clostridium Perfringins which is an over eating disease, and two, Clostridium Tetani, which is tetanus.  On an old farm with lots of rusty bits of sharp stuff laying around, tetanus is always a concern.  Our vaccine routine is that pregnant ewes get a booster 6-8 weeks prior to birth to pass that on to the lamb.  The lambs get a booster at 4 weeks of age, and again at 10-12 weeks.  Everyone gets a yearly booster when we shear.  This is the only vaccine we give the sheep. 

I should be able to bring Douglas ram and his buddy Rudah back to their pen Tuesday evening when Michael gets home from work.  The remainder of the flock will go out Wednesday morning.  Weather permitting.  Early reports show rain again next weekend.  If the temps don’t go down into the freezing range, they should be ok outside.  I’ll be doing a coccidiosis treatment for the entire flock when they are out again. 

I’m not lambing this year, so our busiest part of the year is pretty much done.  Once they flock is outside, it’s back to the normal daily routine of turn out and run in, keeping a watchful eye on them, and basic daily chores.  Plus picking thru fleeces for sale. 

I’m pretty tired. 

Blessed Be!

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