Heel Low ^^ ^^ ^~~^ Doggone It

Ferguson K · Aug 3, 2016

I just love your writing style!

I also love the ACD. Had mine for 14 years. Agree that she was the spawn of satan ay times, but she would herd anything I asked her to. My best friend. My partner. Haven't had a chance to find a replacement.

JACB Dorper · May 26, 2017

Heel low:

So two of my Dorper ewes are getting ready to bust out.

August 23, 2016 - my newest ewes

I am thinking Peanut, she'll likely have two large twins or three smaller triplets...and Snickers, another single like her daughter D'Arcy or two small twins... :idunno

May 23 2017
Peanut on left / Snickers on right

Anyone wanna guess and you better be quick like...busting days are June eight for Peanut and the twelfth for Snickers... :clap

Other doing the HAPPY bird DANCE news. Got a deposit placed on a very special ram lamb coming here by August 2018. He will be out of Australian genetics again like my current Boss Man, but WOW have they ever made some incredible progress...and at three times the price I paid for Boss Man; bloomin' worth it too... I am just mesmorized on how some of these Aussies and the South Africans have worked magic on the breed. I liked Mickey Phillips alot, but now the new Dorpers I am seeing around the world are all that and then some. Not just buns of steel (meaty!), but lots more bone and the whole package just oozes magnificent. I am just tickled to be alive in these times...where I could actually be talking about getting a ram lamb built from Down Under methodology here in the Great White North! Pinch me perfection!

I have asked to be able to view the dam and ram lambs twice before we choose our ram lamb. I will be looking to the ewe for full shedding, basic structure, twinning or better and mothering instincts (milk, care, etc.) as the ram will be semen and not observable past pedigree and a profile photo. They do alot of testing too, so likely have his "Australian Sheep Breeding Values" on hand (that's weight, carcass fatness/muscling, worm egg count and maternal carcase production index) which is a way to measure the animal's genetic potential independent of environment influences that may affect physical appearances. What did I say about living in the best of times, eh. :lol:

January 2017 - Boss Man
Funny smirk on his face...well he's got two girls with him...for a visit, eh!!

Snickers, Boss Man and Peanut
January 2017

Since the ram is half the flock & the ewe half the lamb...I am expecting GREAT progress over the next few generations.

Duro - May 23, that last patch of covering is gone now...
she sheds fully and deliciously!

I chose to bring Duro home because she blew my mind as a ewe lamb. The breeders knew her dam, but the kids let the ram lambs out one August and she was born Jan 2 in 2016...sire unknown and the ram lambs had been shipped to the knackers the fall prior. No DNA to compare...so got told, she was unregisterable with sire unknown. $:\$

She's a real sweety and certainly knows who to suck up too!!

I found out I can register Duro's female progeny in the F4 generation (15/16 purebred or 93.75%) as full domestic purebreds with the Canadian Livestock Registry Association since Dorpers are one of the few sheep breeds allowed to be graded up. Rams require one more cross on a purebred registered Dorper, so 31/32 pure to be domestic purebred. Very

I am really happy to try this out. Not sure the hurdles I may face or the costs, but what the hay...no further behind than when I had her thinking she could not be able to be registered then. Good enough.

So I asked this question a few times on BYC and got no takers... :idunno

So question...for years, years...pondered, why the >< walls?

Tis a barn...yup, but heck...why...what for...gotta be more work to make than straight siders??? Makes hay mangers inside or ????

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

Latestarter · May 26, 2017

Congrats on your new to be ram! Sounds awesome. You have beautiful animals all... feathered and furred. Thanks for the pics. That barn is just plain weird <scratching head> :idunno

Baymule · May 26, 2017

BEE-YOO-TEE-FULL Dorpers!! I can't wait to see your new ram! Your ewes look like they are going to pop! Hope they both have twins.

Baymule · May 26, 2017

Have no idea on the barn walls.

JACB Dorper · Jun 2, 2017

Heel low:

Latestarter said:
Congrats on your new to be ram! Sounds awesome. You have beautiful animals all... feathered and furred. Thanks for the pics. That barn is just plain weird <scratching head>

Thank you for your kind words Joe. :hugs

The ram arrival is more than a year away...be like Christmas in the summer time...seems a long way off but not. Time flies when you're having TOO much fun.

Baymule said:
BEE-YOO-TEE-FULL Dorpers!! I can't wait to see your new ram! Your ewes look like they are going to pop! Hope they both have twins.

Thank for yet more kind words! :hugs

Got less than a week to be ready for when the first one is ready to pop. I am hoping for twins and, and rams would be most welcome as the ewes are all from different sires so mixing up where I can go with the ram a lambs would be fine as I do have 2018 lambing date season to work upon before the new genetics come as a ram lamb in Aug of 2018. I can hold off breeding any suitable ewe lambs directly out of Boss Man and get them lined up with the new ram lamb (he's already named..."Ferdinand" after the code name used for the Australian Coastwatchers in World War II) for the 2019 lambing season. I have had up to 27 ruminants on the place but that meant we were feeding more mouths thru winter (and the compost...oh the compost to be tilled into the pastures) and this is suppose to be fun, not another JOB or anything but a hobby for "no expectation of profit!" The ruminants cannot keep up with the green flush in May to begin of August but the heat slows that down to a dull roar and then we are cleaning up all the rag tag sometimes too tall greened areas before white covers it up and ends that plan.

Jul 13 2016 mowing the ditch fire preventative IMGP0106.jpg

July 13, 2016 - Grazing shelterbelt and the ditch thanks to two strands of ele netting
Pinky BTU is looking down his nose..."Not more of you SHEEPS!"
The sheep looking back going, "Whatever ARE you?"

Pending how the actual lambing goes, I will be repeating this breeding and lambing in June again...maybe a tad earlier, say middle of May. I am delighted with the available grass crop and the sheep just cannot keep up on all the areas they need to be trimming down. Timing too of when the full shedding Dorpers shed works nicely too. What could be more timely than to have your ewes shedding off winter coverings timed to when they lamb. Got two kinds of shedders shown below...Snickers is a hairy Dorper and she seems to shed in a mosaic pattern. Down her back, around her legs and belly...I like that her udder is unimpeded by her thick (and now brittle) hair. Lambs first colostrum drink is gonna not be made more difficult. The "lunch room" dairy area is OPEN for service...bwa ha ha.

The other full shedder is Duro and she just blows coat earlier than all of them and gets back to covering up for when winter roars down on us ... we joke and say we get maybe three four months of summer...and eight to nine months of WHITE...LOL

Peanut is a terrible full shedder BUT she does shed out on belly and around her udder. So to me, I won't be clipping her (a whole new skill I had to learn and buy equipment for...I have all I need to SHEAR...but nothing for CLIPPING hair...agh!) now that I have done that set up last year...won't clip her till after she lambs. She is too big and I don't need to overly stress her. I did however trim toes. Soft good grass growing ground we have composed and tilled to get that way. Does NOT wear toes down whatsoever. So I trim toes and am thankful the grass grows so fine.

View attachment 1028447
May 31, 2017 - Pear-A-Dice goose, swan and shelduck yard
D'Arcy in the background, Peanut, Duro and Snickers in the foreground
Good sheeps...GOOD mowers!
Hear the "Hmmmm....??"

Got my sitting and observing chair in the bald spot where another waterfowl kiddy pool is now located fulla H2O--I put down a river sand base to inhibit waterfowl mucking about...har har! If I locate the lawn (read that LAWN) chair where there is even a smidgen of grass, it gets tossed unceremoniously by the Dorps... Made that error a few days back. The ram was out on pasture and I see he's tossed another lawn chair signing me, "How RUDE!...locate a chair on half an acre of grass...right where a ram wants to eat...indignant of moi!" I am a work in progress that forgets, eh. But I am getting learned, that or my chairs pay the price and are more busted up that it is virtually UNsafe to seat my ample butt in the chair for fear of breakage & impending skewering...good gack!

Anyhoo...what could be better for building (and soon feeding) babes than new grown of greens! LOL

My hope though it that I have not allowed the lambs to get too big by upping their nutritional intake. You can get lambs too big and then have to assist when otherwise, they would have not needed help. We shall see now won't we!

I packed away 80 fifty-five pound bags of poultry rations yesterday (two heavy tons of the four we hauled home), so that today I would be able to seriously get on getting the two lambing jugs set up. It seems like forever ago the last time I had lambs. I laughed because I mentioned I was setting up the jugs to Rick and he just scratched his head. He cannot for the life of him recall what he did for the jugs and I have had the main divider in the ewe barn. That was, wait for it, back in 2005 the last time we lambed. I lambed for the first time in 2003 (got one Jacob ewe still doing just fine with all her teeth!) and second time was in 2005 and have a Jacob ewe (all teethies too!) from then too. Call them MY lambs and that is truly insane talk!

What I have found is the Dorpers are a more pushy breed of sheep. My Jacobs where quite forward about confidence too, but the Dorpers are quick to charge something or push on a panel and really test its tenacity. More so that the Jacobs, they will actually harm themselves physically getting to an objective. That just means when I secure a gate, I double up strength so they don't even bother to test it much. Get lax or slack and watch out...end up with a vet visit if I don't stay diligent.

So that said, I picked up some hardware I think I will need (missing links, safety latches, heavy duty screw eyes, etc.) and already have some welded wire panels of the correct size in the barn for installing. One load of oat straw in one jug and many more to come. Rick built the ewe barn and put in puckboard (the white plastic sheet material that lines hockey rinks to protect the plywood sides)...he was SO cute about telling me how the corners were curved so the sheep would not cast themselves in a corner and be unable to GET UP (WAKE UP...you lazy ewes...out of the barn NOW...oh there they are...all cast in a pile in the corners...Blighme!

). He can be SO silly at times trying his very best to do right by our critters.

2013 - Jacob ewes; Five horn Nascor and Six horn Regina - note the rounded barn corner, eh....
These are the two geriatric gals I have of the Jacobs still going strong!

Because the corners in the ewe barn are rounded on two sides...when I divide the barn in quarters (or is it thirds?) for the lambing jugs...I have to make sure the bedding starts out very deeply or there will be an opportunity for a lamb to slide down and get lost under the rounded wall corners. Only time ever the rounded corners are a disadvantage but because we now bring in the vast majority of our oat straw in round bales instead of smaller squares, WE GOT STRAW! LOL

Blooming sheep...I will put down oat straw as BEDDING...yes, I said BEDDING...and the dangle things will turn up their noses at alfalfa hay for oat straw bedding. Grrrrr....I am not even done throwing the oat straw abouts and the whole ewe flock is IN THE BARN...eating oat straw over alfalfa hay...dang sheeps!

Now we ALL know if'n I gave them oat straw IN their hay feeders--they would turn up their precious noses to the STRAW ("We're dialing 1-800 ABUSERS of wooled things...report her for offering ONLY straw as forage for us! ABUSE!").

Hay and Straw barn...what is left of the second oat straw round

So between the two ewes Peanut & Snickers who actually NEED oat straw for lambing on...and the rest of the ewes...I'll be thinking about scheduling Rick and I to bring home four more rounds for topping up our straw supplies this fall. Got two rounds un opened but that will soon change...change like the weather.

I have a whole messa taters to plant...fifteen varieties now from blue to all red fingerlings, etc. Last year the sheep helped me by grazing the edges of my one potato plot, devoid of grass BEFORE I planted and because I used wider boxed welded wire panels, the ruminants can slip heads inside to trim the other side of the fence...we all KNOW the best grass is on the OTHER side of the fence...not where THEY happen to be placed...always the abuse of animals...by the would be good meaning shepherdess & shepherd! Like WHAT would we know, eh??

sheep tv on potato plot Jun 01 2016 IMGP4592.jpg

Sheep TV - Jun 1 2016

Might do that again this year since the girl dogs enjoyed it SO much.

June 4 2016 - Tater day...no little Red Hen Scenario...everyone is a helper here!
Whether wanted or not!!

Jun 04 2016 planting potatoes IMGP4929.jpg

Are those edible? Must be precious; she's loaded it all in a cart and seems important...tasters??

Sheep remind me way too much of dogs...always inspecting. You can't do nuthin' round them without being mobbed..."what you doing?" The one Jacob ewe I had Lego, she would even use her horns to come find me. I had a sliding alley gate used to block off an area and I was trimming trees in the forest and suddenly--there she was beside me. She had used her horns to hold the gate up, slip under & come find me. Made me laugh...using tools. God given equipment comes in handy dandy and anyone that figures a sheep is dumb...is totally clueless themselves. $:\$

Baymule said:
Have no idea on the barn walls.

Well there are three barns like that, that I know of. Different features installed into the design...three all close enough that last weekend I got to see all three during our loser lap round to the city to enjoy one of Rick's hobby, vintage vehicle restorations! :D =D

View attachment 1028382
Rick's 49th B-day gift from moi...he did her up rather fine eh fur an "old farm truck"

Two sides

My contribution to this project...I did the cream etching on the canopy.

Back window

During one of our get out loser laps...we can see three of these outbuildings.

View attachment 1028383

This one below, from its location, likely houses machinery and the farm is a HUGE one.

View attachment 1028386

Oh well, if I keep showing the barns/buildings and asking...one day, some day, some one will explain it to me...perhaps?

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

JACB Dorper · Jun 2, 2017

Hmmmm....Not sure where the photos went...post them here I guess...kinda annoying that, eh

???? View attachment 1028447 ????

May 31, 2017 - Pear-A-Dice goose, swan and shelduck yard
D'Arcy in the background, Peanut, Duro and Snickers in the foreground
Good sheeps...GOOD mowers!
Hear the "Hmmmm....??"

View attachment 1028382 ?????

Rick's 49th B-day gift from moi...he did her up rather fine eh fur an "old farm truck"

View attachment 1028383 ????????????????????

View attachment 1028386 ???????????????

The photos were there and then not...so hope that works better?

Tara

JACB Dorper · Jun 3, 2017

Heel low:

Turned out to be a magnificent day...

Little windy but made the flags fly, eh. :lol:

Course there were more episodes of welcomed Sheep TV...

But now one has to wonder...is there not also a channel the sheep watch...

Dog TV??

Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence for some.

The girls did a rather fine job on an often tedious area to mow.

You can weed eat it but you also tend to use up alot of line snapping it against the welded wire panels.

I'll see about adding a bit more compost to the farthest end section and till that in, perhaps tomorrow. Then because the girls did such a fine job prepping the area...I can get started on planting taters... Put the furrow attachment on the tiller and get the potatoes in the dirt, first week of June. Right on schedule! Sweet.