Baymule’s Journal

[Baymule]

Been a crazy week! 10 ewes had 25 lambs. 6 sets of triplets, 3 sets of twins and 1 single. Still 4 more to lamb.

I slaughtered 25 chickens, packed on ice. Got 14 in the freezer, 11 more to do and 12 still out there that needs slaughter. Got to get them finished. Chasing my tail trying to catch up.

 

[Baymule]

I finished processing chickens, still have to package the livers, hearts and gizzards. And the feet. The lady buying chicken wants all the feet for broth. I’m parting out the rest of the chickens, my DD likes skinless boneless breast and thighs. So I’m giving customer lady all the bones too. She wants 20, got 15 for her so far, parted out 10. Still 12 in the coop. I think I’m going to do them next week. Supposed to rain this week and I’m going to TexKats field day this weekend. Gonna have to get Chase and family to take care of my bottle babies for me.

Chase wants Pinto when I wean her babies. I told him I was selling some ewes, as I get daughters and grade up and he wanted Pinto. Daughter of Ewenique and Ringo, she is a nice ewe. Ewenique is still going strong at 10 years old, so Pinto will have longevity and production. I am giving her to him. He wanted to pay for her, but I told him he is always helping me and I can’t take his money. Case in point, babysitting 3 bottle babies. He dropped what he was doing to come hold a ewe so I could give her 2 shots a few days ago.

Today I have to go to town between bottle feedings to get Depends for the babies. @Mike CHS and Teresa used small Depends with a clothespin pinched together at the top for their bottle baby. Great idea. Also get milk from 2 different stores. One brand had red plastic cap, my milk, other brand has purple plastic cap, lamb milk. And more buttermilk and evaporated milk.

I took Patches outside yesterday evening while I did chores. When she got hungry she started following me yelling her little lungs out. I got to come up with names for the other two. Patches is second generation, other 2 are from registered parents. I’ll keep them in the house this week, it’s supposed to be raining for 3 days. I’ll work on them going outside next week.

 

[Baymule]

Got 4 1/2” of rain, half of that this morning. My road is flooded, but should drain off, leaving puddles.

I named the two registerable ewes, red and white one is Ruby, her sister, white with a couple of brown spots is Pearl.

My hoop shelter for ewes and lambs is muddy inside but water is not flowing through it. I put a bale of pine shavings down.

 

[Baymule]

I’m here In Gatesville for the TexKats sheep field day tomorrow. Unloaded the ewe @Margali wants. She’s about 40 minutes out, and we’ll get her sheep unloaded. Let the fun begin!

 

[Ridgetop]

Excited to hear about the field day!

 

[farmerjan]

Oh Brother... next year it will be three of you meeting up at things like this... that's a scary thought

 

[Baymule]

Yall should have seen us SHE-WOMAN ladies dragging screaming lambs to their pens! Hahaha! We got comments like, They aren’t halter broke? And answered, Yes they are! They just forgot how!

@Margali brought her two younger kids, grandparents were going to meet her there and pick them up for the weekend. Cassandra ran to me, arms open, for a big hug. Dominic was told to stay in car so he yelled out, Hi Miss Dana! It’s been so long since I’ve SEEN you! Adorable happy kids. After we got sheep in their pens, then Dominic was allowed to “help”. We settled in the sheep, hay, feed and water. Cassandra was so cute, asking me if I was going to change Cinnamons name. I told her no, Cinnamon was a lovely name and I liked it. She asked the black ewes name and I told her she had naming rights. Can’t wait to see what she names the ewe.

Then we waited on grandparents. Dominic was full of energy. There was a long chute so I told the kids they were wild cows, cowboys on horses were trying to rope them, so run down that chute. MOO! MOO! MOO! They ran through the chute, around and back down the chute again. I don’t know if we ran them down some or just juiced them up some more, but that soon didn’t matter because grandparents showed up, all smiles and whisked the kids away.

Friday night was as an ice cream social, homemade ice cream and lots of talking and visiting. Fun!

Saturday morning we were up early, filled up the truck for return home, and got breakfast at McDonalds. I was proud of myself for finding my way around, until @Margali pointed out it helped that all locations were on the same highway in a straight line.

Seminar was great. Good speakers, lots of information to take in. Margali sold her ewe before the seminar even started. I was asked about the black ewe and met a nice couple from central Texas. They have commercial ewes, so I explained the breed up program to them.

Howard and Susan Covington brought the most perfect specimen of a ram I’ve ever seen, for display. Bred by Buckeye Acres, just drop dead gorgeous. I’m going to get a ram out of him next year.

I won the bid on silent auction for a microscope with TWO eye pieces! Brand new in the box, it looks fancy! I got an aluminum sign for TexKats recognizing me as a charter member. They called out charter members names and handed out the signs.

We loaded up, again a screaming, dragging, sheep abuse. Margali just picked them up and carried them. We got them loaded up, cleaned pens and started home.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Sounds like ya'll had a good time and had some good networking opportunities!

 

[Ridgetop]

I won the bid on silent auction for a microscope with TWO eye pieces! Brand new in the box, it looks fancy!

 

[Baymule]

I’ve done some preliminary looking up on the microscope, trying to find a value. It’s blowing my tiny little brain away. Prices are several thousands of dollars. I’ve got to get it out of the box, really look at it and see if I can match it up exactly.