Baymule’s Journal

[Baymule]

@Simpleterrier Yes, I must have scrapie tags in their ear to sell them. As long as they went to slaughter, I didn’t have to tag them. But to take them to auction, I do.

Your wethers can’t pass it on, but might have inherited scrapie from their parents. So that is their reasoning I suppose.

I don’t have farm ear tags yet, but started getting a lot of white lambs, so the scrapie tags serve to identify them for me.

 

[Baymule]

Funny story from yesterday, a neighbor came over to help me load the lambs. For just 2, we put the camper on the truck, not worth taking the trailer. Plan was for me to catch them, hand over the cow panel, and neighbor to put them in back of truck.

Neighbor felt something funny on his leg. He was wearing shorts. He looked down and 2 month old Dainty had her head stuck through the cow panel, nibbling on the hair on his legs! Yank! Ouch! LOL

Doesn’t she look all innocent? She nibbles my blue jeans too. She bites the seat of my pants. Only problem is my butt is in them and her little teeth pack quite a PINCH!

 

[Margali]

Got email yesterday stating tags will be here this week we are picking up wethers for 4h this Saturday so should have them in time.

The tags need an applicator. You can buy one for ~$35 or see if someone in your 4H group will tag the wethers for you.

 

[Baymule]

I put up my Premiere1 electro netting today. There are 2 acres here, sheep get about an acre and we have “stuff” and the house on the front part. There is some real nice clover, rye grass, Bahia grass, hawksbill, Poor Joe, dock, various weeds and forbs. I’ve been wanting to put up the netting, but kept having to drive through where it would go across the yard.

First I put a coat of paint on the boards I’m going to trim windows with.

Then I got the netting out of the box and read the directions. I read them again and again. Huh? Why are those people in the pictures smiling? I have no idea what they are talking about. The first part, untie the string that held it in a bundle was simple enough. It went down hill from there.

On any project I spend large amounts of time wandering aimlessly about looking for a particular tool. Any tool, I can’t find anything. I have a 8’x16’ storage building stuffed full and in disarray. Not one but TWO 40’ shipping containers full of the accoutrements of farm living. Plus tools in the house. I wander from treasure trove to treasure cove, confused. I feel like a poster for MISSING! SILVER ALERT! Yeah, just slap my picture on up there. I’m lost. Can’t find a hammer. Can’t find zip ties. Where’s those alligator clip things? What did I do with the grounding rod?

Instructions show unrolling the net. Better with two people. We’ll I ain’t got 2 people, so I tangle it up and drag it across the yard. Detailed instructions by those same smiling people on how to join 2 electro nets together. Nothing on what to do with this wad of leftover netting. Not supposed to lean it against the side fence. Something about not connecting the netting to a fence because it may electrify that fence….. I look at the instructions. It’s futile, stupid people in pictures are laughing at me. If tall grass impedes the flow of electricity, I guess laying the leftover roll on the ground is a bad idea. Gotta do SOMETHING with it!

AHHHA! Plastic lawn chair! It’s nonconductive!

I got some plastic step in posts and put several on each end to attach the flimsy netting posts to. I pus some of the step in posts along the span of netting to camouflage my lousy stretching job. It was up!

Now to connect it to the charger and figure out WTH to do with it. Extension cord out the window for starters. Go find that voltage tester so I don’t have to touch it to see if it works.

I plug in the charger, attach alligator clips to netting and VOILA! nothing. The light is flashing on the charger, something is wrong. Voltage thing must not have batteries in it. I go on a safari search for a screwdriver small enough to take the back off the voltage thingy. It crosses my mind that I might be destroying it…..NAH! How else am I going to put batteries in it? Besides I actually found batteries on my first try! We’ll crap. It already has a battery, a 9 volt and I don’t have one of those anyway.

Ok, so something else is wrong. I read instructions again. People in illustrations are sneering, gone is that friendly smile. It’s been replaced by a smirk. OOOOHHHHHH…… the GROUNDING ROD! Now where is it? Found it! I pounded it in with the hammer I found and looked at charger instructions for maybe the 40th time. I connected it to the charger. Voltage thingy said 0.2 That can’t be good. Ponder on ground rod. I go through the repair kit included with the netting and find some twine stuff that matches the bottom string on the netting. Somewhere in the dim parts of my mind, I remember something about the bottom being the ground line. I wrapped it around the ground rod, alligator clip to the ground rod, tied end of twine to bottom twine on netting. Plug charger back in. Test with voltage doo-dad and it’s hittng 9-8 bolts.
I think I did it!

I let Ringo and his girls out to graze.

I feel accomplished. I never fooled with what little hot wire we did in Lindale. That was a BJ and Neighbor Robert job. Manly stuff.

I learned something today and the sheep get more grass to graze.

 

[messybun]

I put up my Premiere1 electro netting today. There are 2 acres here, sheep get about an acre and we have “stuff” and the house on the front part. There is some real nice clover, rye grass, Bahia grass, hawksbill, Poor Joe, dock, various weeds and forbs. I’ve been wanting to put up the netting, but kept having to drive through where it would go across the yard.

First I put a coat of paint on the boards I’m going to trim windows with.

Then I got the netting out of the box and read the directions. I read them again and again. Huh? Why are those people in the pictures smiling? I have no idea what they are talking about. The first part, untie the string that held it in a bundle was simple enough. It went down hill from there.

On any project I spend large amounts of time wandering aimlessly about looking for a particular tool. Any tool, I can’t find anything. I have a 8’x16’ storage building stuffed full and in disarray. Not one but TWO 40’ shipping containers full of the accoutrements of farm living. Plus tools in the house. I wander from treasure trove to treasure cove, confused. I feel like a poster for MISSING! SILVER ALERT! Yeah, just slap my picture on up there. I’m lost. Can’t find a hammer. Can’t find zip ties. Where’s those alligator clip things? What did I do with the grounding rod?

Instructions show unrolling the net. Better with two people. We’ll I ain’t got 2 people, so I tangle it up and drag it across the yard. Detailed instructions by those same smiling people on how to join 2 electro nets together. Nothing on what to do with this wad of leftover netting. Not supposed to lean it against the side fence. Something about not connecting the netting to a fence because it may electrify that fence….. I look at the instructions. It’s futile, stupid people in pictures are laughing at me. If tall grass impedes the flow of electricity, I guess laying the leftover roll on the ground is a bad idea. Gotta do SOMETHING with it!

AHHHA! Plastic lawn chair! It’s nonconductive!

View attachment 91235

I got some plastic step in posts and put several on each end to attach the flimsy netting posts to. I pus some of the step in posts along the span of netting to camouflage my lousy stretching job. It was up!

Now to connect it to the charger and figure out WTH to do with it. Extension cord out the window for starters. Go find that voltage tester so I don’t have to touch it to see if it works.

View attachment 91236

I plug in the charger, attach alligator clips to netting and VOILA! nothing. The light is flashing on the charger, something is wrong. Voltage thing must not have batteries in it. I go on a safari search for a screwdriver small enough to take the back off the voltage thingy. It crosses my mind that I might be destroying it…..NAH! How else am I going to put batteries in it? Besides I actually found batteries on my first try! We’ll crap. It already has a battery, a 9 volt and I don’t have one of those anyway.

Ok, so something else is wrong. I read instructions again. People in illustrations are sneering, gone is that friendly smile. It’s been replaced by a smirk. OOOOHHHHHH…… the GROUNDING ROD! Now where is it? Found it! I pounded it in with the hammer I found and looked at charger instructions for maybe the 40th time. I connected it to the charger. Voltage thingy said 0.2 That can’t be good. Ponder on ground rod. I go through the repair kit included with the netting and find some twine stuff that matches the bottom string on the netting. Somewhere in the dim parts of my mind, I remember something about the bottom being the ground line. I wrapped it around the ground rod, alligator clip to the ground rod, tied end of twine to bottom twine on netting. Plug charger back in. Test with voltage doo-dad and it’s hittng 9-8 bolts.
I think I did it!

I let Ringo and his girls out to graze.

View attachment 91237

View attachment 91238

View attachment 91239

View attachment 91240

I feel accomplished. I never fooled with what little hot wire we did in Lindale. That was a BJ and Neighbor Robert job. Manly stuff.

I learned something today and the sheep get more grass to graze.

Good for you and congratulations. I personally hate all forms of hot wire and can’t get most of it to work. I stand impressed by your one woman show.

 

[farmerjan]

To the scrapies thing... it is Federal, not state. Many of the stockyards would just tag them when you brought them in when all this came about. Now, you do have to have a premise ID and they have to be tagged. Yes, your wethers could pass it on. It is believed to be able to be passed through saliva of infected animals and through urine. It is similar to the type prions that causes Mad Cow disease.. Supposedly humans cannot contract it like they found the link to Cruetz-Jacob disease... CJD ..... in humans from the cattle disease... but now there are rumors that it could possibly be linked... the BSE prion that causes the problem has a long activation period so that anything killed before 18-24 months will not have it in a state that people can get it... that is the WHY on the 30 month slaughter rule on cattle ... no backbones, or anything that is in contact with the brain or spinal column after 30 months... same basic thing as CWD in deer... And somewhere down the line I think they are going to find a link to Johnes disease too....

We bought a bull and after about 6-8 months he started losing weight... didn't act right... he was being used for breeding... We had the vet do blood samples and he said that he wasn't sure but that we needed to ship him... We did... got the blood tests back and he had Johnes... vet said NO PREG ANIMALS in that field for at least 2 years... We have not had another case of it... We had Johnes in a sheep years ago... he would lay on his side and still eat... but was so weak.....
Have not had scrapies in the flock and they do get a metal scrapies tag before they go to the stockyard....

 

[Baymule]

I am afflicted. I'm missing my horses soooooo bad! I found this horse on a kill pen site, he is $1850. What do y'all think? I'm looking at another one on the same site. I'll see if I can post his info and pictures too. The second horse is $2500. Kill pen prices sure have gone up! I know I'm going for knee surgery, and I'll have to winter them over. I know I'm an idiot. Close on the farm Thursday. Seriously considering hooking up the trailer and heading north 3 hours on Saturday. I know the chances on a kill pen horse, but I also know that a lot of nice horses go to slaughter. Heck, I had 2 horses from kill pens.

Amos is a 6 yr old Tennessee Walking Horse Pony Gelding who stands 14 hands tall. Very sweet and gentle. Calm quiet and super easy to handle. Stands good for everything. Loves attention and to be loved on. Very soft eyes and loving personality. Broke to ride and has a very smooth gait. And this little dude can get it down the trail. Has been used for trail riding and has been ridden on several trail rides. Fancy little mover and lots of fun to be around. Love this little fella !!!!

https://www.facebook.com/LoneStarHo...KrHanLymiVln41CXnUuncUh4lN8QtwT4&__tn__=*bH-R

 

[Baymule]

Too many pictures, Had to delete a bunch of them. I'll try again!

Tandy is a 13 yr old Pintaloosa Gelding who stands 15.1 hands tall. Extremely sweet and gentle. Calm quiet and super easy to handle. Stands perfect for everything. Very easy to get along with. Very well broke to ride and has been ridden on trails his whole life. More whoa than go but moves out when asked. He is sound in every way and really smooth . Loves to be with you and follows you everywhere. Very loving personality. Very soft eyes !!! Love this guy !!!

 

[Show Sebright]

y’all I attended a sheep auction yesterday. Show lambs went for over 1000 each! This a crazy. I’m just trying to get a sheep for this years fair. How much do you sell you sheep for? I don’t thing 1000 is a normal price.

 

[Baymule]

It's my understanding that kids get their heads ripped off on show sheep. Show sheep couldn't make it in a real life situation. Grass fed? Not hardly. Pampered, fed to a "T" that no producer would or could sustain. I get it that show ring and pasture are 2 very different things, but come on, these are KIDS wanting to buy a sheep to show. Ridiculous.