in a shocking turn of events- it turns out bale grazing actually is crowding out the sedge. Was clearing new fence line and every spot I fed hay there was no sedge and only actual forage (rye/what have you). I'll be doing that heavily this summer/autumn for sure
Honestly I am quite happy just being on 3acre. I cannot imagine having more than this and fighting invasives/trying to create pasture out of crap. I have been slowly just clearing patches of invasive things and throwing down cover rye/clover for the season. I dream of the days where I can see...
first it was Pennsylvania Sedge in the upper pasture. I will eventually tackle that. Now on top of random stinging nettle and wild parsnip, my lower pasture is FULL of GARLIC MUSTARD!!!!! I am trying to avoid going with glyphosate, I really don't like the idea of using it in areas where I am...
I think building a better perimeter fence will be my first step. My two rams are fenced in with just welded wire from Lowes and they were untouched and there was no disturbance to their fencing. This is a crappy lesson to learn but a lesson nonetheless
From more reading I've done, the sedge really dislikes healthy soils and will often die off /not thrive in amended soils that have been well fertilized. So I might dig up as much as I can before it's bulldozed and plant it in my small backyard since it seems to hold up to being trampled.... It...
Hello again.....To sum everything up, basically Wed 3/26 a large mastiff went over or through my electric fencing (4 strands, 5-6k voltage) and mauled my last pet doe and injured a lamb while I was at work. I have involved the police and animal control will be notified but that's an entirely...
of course it can't be anything easy..... Thankfully my neighbor is doing a lot of work on our properties and he is going to be pretty much tearing everything up and re-grading the hillside anyways. So once it's bare dirt I'll just do some heavy spring seeding, intensive management and cross my...
Long time no post, happy lambing season to those who participate.
(Zone 5b, upstate NY) I have been walking my pastures and preparing for some frost seeding these past few days. Now since moving here in 2021, we did a lot of tree clearing of primarily silver maples to make grazing pasture for...
I had a friend who is in large animal vet school come out to help ,she was eager for the practice : ) the hardest part is finding the vein to poke! It was much easier on my goats than the sheep tbh
I thought it was pricey as well. When I was doing my CAE/OPP/CL/Jones testing the $30 vet quoted me over $400 just to send out the samples, not including the price of the vet coming out and drawing the blood! I did it myself and got my whole herd testing for about $220 instead : )
Just an update :
I called around to multiple vets in my area and one quoted me $30/sample and would only do individual samples (so i would be paying about $240 for my whole herd), it seemed a bit expensive to me. Another vet quoted me $58 per sample but would do a composite (even sheep+goats...
My 2 does had a bald patch issue earlier this summer, 1x daily Zinc drops (like for humans) helped their coats tremendously! It was apple juice flavored so they loved it and had no problems giving it straight from the syringe
It makes sense to me that a sheep that has litters of lambs would need more to eat just to maintain weight letalone feed all the babies, I just wanted to be sure I wasn't doing anything wrong. I'll get on the fecal and triple up the hay for all !
I will ask the woman I bought the girls from, I don't have contact info for my rams anymore. My white finn had just weaned her lamb when I picked her up (so her being hollow in the hips wasn't a bother to me) and they were wormed earlier in the spring but I wormed again. I think I only wormed...
I chose the finns not because we share a name but because of their litters and boost in fertility when crossbred. But I have found that my 2 finn rams, 1 ewe and my one finn/X ewe are just constantly on the thin side or at least thinner than I'd like them to be, do the finn breeds need more food...
I would feel better about it if it wasnt completely overpowering everything else in the pasture! there is only so much I could possibly eat to battle this plant Lmao