Beekissed
Herd Master
...and loving it! Getting back into sheep in a small way and need a place to journal about it all.
Starting again with Katahdins, my fave breed, and will keep a very small herd of one full time ram, a wether and a few ewes until I see what my pasture can support. Won't have the wether until my first lambs, so for now it will be three.
Doing all this on a very low budget, as that's the way I love to live. No fences yet but I live in a unique situation that sort of creates fencing around our meadow for now...surrounded by forest, no near neighbors and none with any livestock for over a mile. One LGD that will not likely bond with the sheep at all until we have lambs...I can see him wanting to nurture those. Right now these two old biddies I bought would rather stomp him into the ground rather than bond. They've never been worked with much by humans and never had a LGD at all..they had a llama.
So, will be working on fences, have put up a temporary penning situation until I can build a permanent sheep barn of sorts. Will likely be a pole shed situation, as we have plenty of trees on the land for use. Only three acres of grass/pasture right now and would like to just keep that much, though we have 20 acres in total here.
Have collected free enormous pallets for use in fencing....six large stacks of them. These have 3x3 and 4x4 framing and are 10-12 ft. in length. Were used to move metal sheeting. Will put these back into the woods to give the sheep plenty of browse along with their pasture...we have a lot of stuff they love to eat in those woods~honeysuckle, multiflora rose, greenbrier, saplings and evergreens of all sorts. Then we'll fence the pasture side of each paddock with regular woven wire sheep fencing with wooden posts harvested here on the land.
Hope to milk these few ewes if possible, just enough for Mom and I to use for making cheese and such. Both ewes have passable udders, nice and even, small but well placed teats...not huge udders but we'll see what the ram can add to the mix~his dam has a huge udder and regularly feeds twins and triplets with ease. Could be I'll be able to breed upwards with him.
These ewes were from a flock someone was getting out of...no longer wanted to do sheep, was switching to horses. Supposedly these sheep were from strains of Katahdins bred by a fellow in OH who worked with OU on the improvement program but eventually got out of sheep altogether.
I picked out the two most likely to succeed, though I still felt like they were a tad small for Katahdins~both short and short bodied. Both had just weaned lambs, both had twins but the elder had also nursed and weaned another bum lamb along with her twins. I liked that and felt she may come in handy, though she's already an old lady in sheep years at 7 yrs of age. The other is 3.
Shine, 3 yrs, is on the left and Rose, 7 yrs, is on the right. They were both about 2-2.5 conditioning upon arrival but are starting to fill out a little on good graze and browse. I should have them where I need them to be by Nov. breeding.
So, will try to record successes and failures here so I can learn as I go. Will only be using grains for training purposes, would really like to keep them on grass based nutrition as much as possible.
Just starting to get the feel of sheep again and remembering how much I love sheep. I hope to get to the place where I can use them for milk, meat and for keeping the meadow mowed, but also for the bond between sheep and shepherd. I really love that part of it.
My grandgirls are loving my having sheep also and I can't wait until spring when they get to experience the lambs.
So far I have square bales of first cut hay but will be getting a couple round bales of second cut here in a week or so. Will set them up on a self feeding style, using cattle panel placed tight against the hay to prevent too much waste.
Experimenting around with some nipple waterers retrofitted to insulated drink coolers so I can keep water cool and fresh in the summer but try to use an aquarium heater in them this winter as a heated waterer...don't know if that will work, but it's worth a shot. Already had the coolers on hand and the fittings are cheap. Since all water has to be carried and comes from a well, I'm interested in better watering solutions than buckets.
Starting again with Katahdins, my fave breed, and will keep a very small herd of one full time ram, a wether and a few ewes until I see what my pasture can support. Won't have the wether until my first lambs, so for now it will be three.
Doing all this on a very low budget, as that's the way I love to live. No fences yet but I live in a unique situation that sort of creates fencing around our meadow for now...surrounded by forest, no near neighbors and none with any livestock for over a mile. One LGD that will not likely bond with the sheep at all until we have lambs...I can see him wanting to nurture those. Right now these two old biddies I bought would rather stomp him into the ground rather than bond. They've never been worked with much by humans and never had a LGD at all..they had a llama.
So, will be working on fences, have put up a temporary penning situation until I can build a permanent sheep barn of sorts. Will likely be a pole shed situation, as we have plenty of trees on the land for use. Only three acres of grass/pasture right now and would like to just keep that much, though we have 20 acres in total here.
Have collected free enormous pallets for use in fencing....six large stacks of them. These have 3x3 and 4x4 framing and are 10-12 ft. in length. Were used to move metal sheeting. Will put these back into the woods to give the sheep plenty of browse along with their pasture...we have a lot of stuff they love to eat in those woods~honeysuckle, multiflora rose, greenbrier, saplings and evergreens of all sorts. Then we'll fence the pasture side of each paddock with regular woven wire sheep fencing with wooden posts harvested here on the land.
Hope to milk these few ewes if possible, just enough for Mom and I to use for making cheese and such. Both ewes have passable udders, nice and even, small but well placed teats...not huge udders but we'll see what the ram can add to the mix~his dam has a huge udder and regularly feeds twins and triplets with ease. Could be I'll be able to breed upwards with him.
These ewes were from a flock someone was getting out of...no longer wanted to do sheep, was switching to horses. Supposedly these sheep were from strains of Katahdins bred by a fellow in OH who worked with OU on the improvement program but eventually got out of sheep altogether.
I picked out the two most likely to succeed, though I still felt like they were a tad small for Katahdins~both short and short bodied. Both had just weaned lambs, both had twins but the elder had also nursed and weaned another bum lamb along with her twins. I liked that and felt she may come in handy, though she's already an old lady in sheep years at 7 yrs of age. The other is 3.
Shine, 3 yrs, is on the left and Rose, 7 yrs, is on the right. They were both about 2-2.5 conditioning upon arrival but are starting to fill out a little on good graze and browse. I should have them where I need them to be by Nov. breeding.
So, will try to record successes and failures here so I can learn as I go. Will only be using grains for training purposes, would really like to keep them on grass based nutrition as much as possible.
Just starting to get the feel of sheep again and remembering how much I love sheep. I hope to get to the place where I can use them for milk, meat and for keeping the meadow mowed, but also for the bond between sheep and shepherd. I really love that part of it.
My grandgirls are loving my having sheep also and I can't wait until spring when they get to experience the lambs.
So far I have square bales of first cut hay but will be getting a couple round bales of second cut here in a week or so. Will set them up on a self feeding style, using cattle panel placed tight against the hay to prevent too much waste.
Experimenting around with some nipple waterers retrofitted to insulated drink coolers so I can keep water cool and fresh in the summer but try to use an aquarium heater in them this winter as a heated waterer...don't know if that will work, but it's worth a shot. Already had the coolers on hand and the fittings are cheap. Since all water has to be carried and comes from a well, I'm interested in better watering solutions than buckets.
I grin every time I hear them "baaa!" at me...it's worth all the hassle of getting started and all just to have another reason to smile in this world. 
They had been chewing down all my roses and eating our apples, but no more deer problems with the sheep in the yard. Funny, huh? 
