So You Want to be a Farmer or Rancher: Chores

It's all about the timing!

Chores.

It’s what we do.

The never-ending daily cycle of caring for your farm or ranch. 

And it really is never-ending.  These are the things that must be done morning, noon, and evening, to keep your place going. 

In my case, it’s caring for the livestock mainly. 

Rob and I did our best to set things up so that chores are easy to do for one person in case one of us was incapacitated.  So far it’s still working that way for Michael and I.  The only exception is when we have to move hay around.  It can be done by me alone if needed, but it sure is easier when Michael is around to be the step’n’fetch so I don’t have to keep climbing down off the tractor.  I was always the step’n’fetch when Rob was here.

Once it’s light enough outside for me to see without falling on my face by tripping over someone’s frozen turd or an ill placed chunk of grass, it starts. 

I do have an alarm clock to let me know it is time in the form of the house wolf.  He lets me know in no uncertain terms that its time for him to go out and make his daily run thru the pasture.  He does not comprehend “its too dark outside, we have to wait a bit”

Oh no, he is all up in my face to get up and get going. 

The longer I procrastinate, the more insistent he becomes.  And vocal.  Yes, he gets right by my face and starts woofing at me.  Then comes the licking and trying to crawl into my lap. 

Ok ok, we will go, let me get some real clothes on.

Real clothes consist of whatever pair of sweatpants and shirt I wore the day before.  They are so styling with muck boots and Carhart coat.  Its not cold enough yet for the farmer pants. 

Here is my treatise on winter clothes for your reading pleasure. I would hate for you, dear readers, to have missed it!

Here’s where the timing part comes in. 

First thing I do is go up to the barn, feed and water Mr Tally the current barn resident, and give Miss Brandy her grain.  She also is quite insistent on getting her food and lets me know I am not moving fast enough for her pleasure. 

Yeah, more side eye and mare-itude.  Those of you with mares know exactly what I am talking about.

I do this feeding first so that Brandy does not have to compete with sheep horning in on her grain, which results in biting and kicking from said mare.  Plus, it keeps her occupied while I run house wolf and I can leave the drive gate open as she won’t leave her precious breakfast.

Now I down to the shop to get the 4-wheeler out, move down to the driveway and close that gate so the naughties don’t go walkabout, then to the house for house wolf.

Out we go into the pasture. 

I run doggo this way for a few reasons. 

1)     Burns off some of his energy making a calmer dog during the rest of the day.

2)     Gives me a chance to make sure there are no problems out in the pasture that the sheep may have to contend with.

3)     Let’s any lingering predators on the place know it’s time to move on because we are out and about now.

4)     I like to watch the sunrises.

Some days it’s one lap around the place, some it’s 1 ½ and some it’s 2.  It just depends on what else I need to do during the morning. 

Once a week I get the SD cards out of the game cams so I can see what else is moving around on the place that I may need to keep an eye on.

When the run is done, house wolf goes in, and I get Miss Lucy’s mash ready for her.  This time of year, I am adding hot water to her mash so she doesn’t get a cold breakfast.  I doubt she would mind it being cold, but it just seems nicer to me to give her something warm to eat. 

No, I don’t spoil my animals (much)

I take that out to her and let Blue dog out for his morning constitutional.   I don’t run him because he would make a beeline for places unknown and not come back. 

While he’s doing his business, Lucy gets her mash, I feed and check water for the rams in their pen and get the LGD’s food bowls prepositioned for their breakfast.

Blue goes back in.  This let’s Lucy eat without the naughties pushing her out of her breakfast. 

Timing!

Lucy is almost done with her gourmet breakfast of sweet feed and alfalfa pellets.

And I spend time in the corral with the sheepies. 

This is my time to look everyone over for any problems that may be brewing.  I’m looking for goopy eyes, snotty noses, odd breathing, limping, and anybody who looks like they may be sick, lethargic, and just not right.

I am also checking coats to see who has torn theirs or needs to go up a size.  Who needs a foot trim. If anybody is losing weight. Is anybody bleeding cus they did something stupid and got hurt.  And a whole host of other things going thru my head while I’m checking them over before they go out for the day. 

Plus, it’s fun to have them come up to me and give me a snotty sneeze, nibble, or wants a skitchy on their chins.

Sadly, I think they are just looking to see if I brought them treats and they really don’t care about me at all. 

Fickle beasts.

One nice thing, I have two of this year’s lambs who do come up for skitchies.  It’s always good when they want to seek you out instead of running away because they are convinced you are a monster and are going to eat them.

So out the main flock goes to score their breakfast at the big bale feeder. 

You have heard me lament about the naughties in the flock.  The ones who go thru the fence line on a regular basis and give me fits when they take off into the grasslands bordering my place. 

I usually do my best to lure them back into the corral by bribing them with treats to follow me back. 

Can you picture the “Child Catcher” from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?  That’s who I look like enticing them back to captivity.

I digress.

The naughties are so used to be brought back into the yard that they just head that way now.  Who says you can’t train a sheep???

In light of them actually sorta behaving, I have been leaving them in the side yard to graze for a few hours in the morning.  It sure saves on hay!! Plus, they are cleaning up the leaves that are falling and that saves me from having to rake them up!

That’s the extent of the morning chores.  Some days go smoothly, some days not so much.  Tuesday is the exception to this flow.  Since neither Michael nor I am home on Tuesday, the sheep get hay in the corral, and they stay in until I get home from work to let them out. 

They are not amused at all about Tuesdays.

However, it is safer for them, and it gives me peace of mind that I don’t have a problem at home with them being out that I am not there to deal with.

Around 1pm I go out and do afternoon chores.  This consists of refilling stock tanks, gathering up dog food bowls and refilling them for the next morning, and getting Lucy’s mash bucket set up.  This process saves me time the next morning.

I also go out and do a walk around with the flock to make sure nothing happened during the morning.  I do watch them from the house several times a day, sorta like a reverse peeping tom.  But having an up close and personal tour with the sheeps is always a good thing. 

Sometimes the big bale falls over and we get someone trapped in it.  It’s always fun to try to push and pull a 200+ pound sheep out from under a 900lb bale.  Needless to say, they are less than cooperative with that process. 

I have never lost one in that manner by the way.  Quite often they are contently eating while the bale sits on their heads.  They just can’t get back out.

Evening chores time!

These are usually pretty easy, but at times it can become a rodeo.

First, we get Tally set in the barn for the night.  He gets fresh hay, grain and water.  We close up the barn, so he is safe from any predator. Sometimes the remaining outside flock will come up at that point, thinking they are going to get something special.  Sometimes they just ignore us.

Then we try to round up the sheep to come in for the night.  This is where the rodeo part can come in. 

At times they are loath to leave the hay. Most of the time they will come in when I whistle for them.  Michael is pretty good at getting them to move down the hill in a group.  It’s actually quite fun to watch them jump around, headbutt, and in general act like lambs again when they come down.  Brandy horse has proven that she is a good sheep herder also and will run drag with Michael to get them going. 

Since she was a working cow horse for part of her career, it’s a built-in drive she still has.  It’s quite comical to see her reach out her long neck, ears back, and snort or nip at a sheep that is not moving as she thinks it should.  She doesn’t hurt them, and they get the message to move your ass.

Once everyone is in the corral, Brandy gets her second daily grain ration, the rams get another splop of hay, the shop gets closed, and the house dogs get let out for a bit of a run and potty time. 

By now it’s dark and once again, I cannot see any frozen turds or errant grass tufts trying to make me fall on my face. I make it a daily chore to look for trip hazards around here and clean that up to save me from biffing it.

Timing!

As far as frozen turds go, cow flop ones are the worst.  They lay in wait, pretending to be just a bit of a bump on the ground, then reach out and lay you to waste wallowing around on the ground. They are even more deadly when covered in snow.  Horse turds are much easier to avoid given their penchant for being a taller, more visible tower which can better be walked around vs over.  Course, sheep turd doesn’t cause much problem unless very wet, then it’s like walking on a skating rink.

Depending on the time of the year, the chore times vary and or are changed up.  This is what we are doing now with the colder weather and earlier sunsets.  It’s what works for us. 

I hope you enjoyed this look at the nitty gritty work of having a farm or ranch.

Blessed Be