High Desert Cowboy- How far is it up north?

[High Desert Cowboy]

Well it snowed again Wednesday and it was gone by the end of the day. Then it snowed for a minutes yesterday and was gone again. Today it’s snowing again and I doubt it’ll be there by noon. At this rate can we just get rain? Either way it’s gonna turn everything muddy. My paints are now one solid color though.

 

[Ridgetop]

Just got through catching up on your thread. I hadn't been able to find it. I often lose these threads and can't find my way back to them!

If you are planning to sell your sheep commercially you might as well go to what is desired by the buyers. No point in raising sheep that are not going to sell. Granted the larger Hamps and Suffolks will give you a larger carcass. It will have more bone, thus more weight, but will also cost more to put the meat on. Smaller framed and boned Dorpers are coming into favor among commercial breeders and packers because they put meat on smaller frames producing meatier market lamb in less time on less feed. However, since the Hamp and Suffolk breeds and speckle face crosses are what your customers want that is what you have to provide. Using your Polypay ram on your Hamp and Suffolk style ewes will hopefully put more meat on the frames and help them gain better. Eventually, once you have built your flock up a bit you can look into Texels as terminal sires. When crossed with other breeds they have the reputation of putting huge amounts of meat into the lambs. You don't want to keep any breeding stock out of those crosses though. All the Texel sired crosses should go to slaughter. Texels are only used as terminal sires to produce cross bred market lambs, or with purebred Texel ewes to produce breeding stock. Where are you planning to market your lambs?

If you plan to increase your flock of woolies though, you might want to look into getting a used electric shears. If you have a good heavy duty horse clipper with a removable head, check if the manufacturer makes a sheep head for it. Buying a sheep head for a heavy duty large Oster type horse clipper will be much cheaper. A sheep head is heavier than a standard cattle/horse/goat head. It will take the larger and coarser blades you will need for shearing. The fleece on sheep is thick with grease and the clipper has a hard time cutting through it. Trying to shear sheep with a standard horse/cattle clipper will burn it out PDQ. Clippers come in all different price ranges and grades. If you can find an older Oster sheep shears they can be rehabbed. The older clippers are very good although heavy. Once you find a clipper and buy blades learn how to sharpen your own blades. It will save you tons of money. Be very careful with those shearing blades though. They can take off a man's finger along with a ewe's teats, and a ram's dingus. That will ruin the value of your breeding stock for sure! LOL just remember to keep the blades sharpened You will dull a set of blades every 3-4 sheep depending on the dirt in the fleece. You will need several sets of blades even if you can sharpen them yourself If you send them out for sharpening look to pay $5 to $10 per blade (2 blades per set) to have them sharpened. Using Kool Lube on the blades while shearing will help. The shears below are 20-25 years old, but in good shape and still cutting beautifully.

Andis electric clipper & blades - these are about 20 years old
Hoenigger electric clipper, detachable head, & blades - about 25 years old
Hand shears - great for small jobs but for big ones OUCH! - about 50 years old

Since you have made the acquaintance of the Polypay breeder, see if you can go over to his place during shearing and learn how to use the big electric shears. They will probably be happy for the help and you can get tips on doing it yourself. Your crutching job with the hand shears was great, but shearing a whole flock with those hand shears will make you think your hand is crippled! The Polypay breeder might even have an old set of shears he will sell you, or know of someone with one. If you have wool sheep and are able to shear yourself, they are worth the money.
So glad I found your journal. Can't wait to see your new lambs. GusGus is hoping they are all ewes.

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

The polypay breeder I bought GusGus from doesn’t shear his flock. Apparently there is a textile plant in Parowan where you can haul your stock to and they’ll charge you a certain amount to do it in house. I have my hand shears that I used last year to shear 4 ewes. After the first two ewes and lots of time I had my mom bring her scissor sharpening setup and she fixed me up so that the next 2 were a breeze. Ideally as I have more finances available I’ll buy a set of clippers. Right now I can’t justify the cost so my handshears will do just fine. It’s not the prettiest shear job, but it works. I just take it slower and maybe leave the wool a tad longer to insure there are no nicks. One thing I learned as a farrier, taking it as short as possible is what gets you into trouble. And anytime I clip around sensitive areas I double check every cut. Speed comes with experience, and if your experience is only a handful of ewes a year speeds a little slower in coming.
Looking long term my goal is to provide maternal replacements, utilizing finances made from terminal cross lambs to purchase polypay ewes and slowly over the next few years make that transition. As I sat and penciled out between selling breeding rams or ewes I came to the conclusion that ewes would be a better option. For Suffolks or Hampshires I needed more money up front for a quality animal, and prolificacy would be lower. Polypays would be more affordable to get into and we’re looking at more babies a year. They are also more gregarious than paternal breeds so for training sheep dogs they also made more sense. At the end of the day I got sheep for dog training. Making a little cash on the side is just bonus.

 

[Ridgetop]

Very sensible. Always look at the bottom line. I like the idea of the Polypay ewes. You are also right about selling breeding ewes once you have enough Polypays for production. Like I said, good rams are easy to come by, but everyone is always buying replacement ewes. They are always in demand. You always need more ewes than rams, and even when producing your own replacements, the point will come where you want to add a couple other bloodlines to your flock. Sometimes just bringing in another ram won't fit your plans. Selling all the ram lambs for meat is the way to go. I don't ever keep one of my own ram lambs as a breeder. I prefer bringing in a new ram and keeping my replacement ewe lambs from dams that are prolific, easy lambers, good mothers, and that produce a lot of milk so the lambs grow well. I like my lambs to make 100 lbs. around 4 months old. Today we weighed lambs, and an 8 week old single ram lamb out of a yearling first freshener weighed 66.3 lbs! What a wonderful surprise - no creep either!

Assuming Parowan is close to you, and as long as you don't have more sheep to shear than you can fit in your stock trailer the textile plant would be the way to go. You don't have to shear your ewes until they are a year old (baby wool) and usually they will lamb by 14 months. So you will just have to crutch the yearlings before they lamb and then have them shorn the following year.

Sounds like you have your plan lined out.. You have to like what you raise, and be able to sell them. No sense having hair sheep if no one will buy them. I was interested in Polypays when I started out years ago but they were still a fairly new breed, and none available anywhere near me. Polypays are a good dual purpose breed, combining 4 breeds to get the qualities they want. it is exciting that you have decided on your breed and business plan. Can't wait to hear how your sheep business develops.

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

Sadly @Ridgetop i have a bad case of DIY. Or as my wife likes to call it, I’m too cheap to take the easy way. Parowan isn’t terribly far but I figure shearing a sheep can be one more pointless talent I can add to my repertoire. Besides you never know what could happen, at this rate coronavirus might destroy society as we know it and I’ll have to blade shear my sheep to have wool to clothe my family as the poor city folk shank each other with broken cell phones for the last pair of Levi’s in the store.
In all honestly I really like to do things myself. Especially something new or difficult as it gives me something to learn.
Snapped a picture of Heart today, shes looking uncomfortable. Her udder is really dangling anymore

 

[Ridgetop]

Do not discount your "pointless" talents! You never know what might come in handy in life. Having accumulated many, many "pointless" talents, I cannot tell you the number of times I have ended up using them!

If Coronavirus destroys life as we know it , consider that you own a set of wicked shears, and know how to sharpen them yourself. In dire necessity if you need an alternate profession you could set up as a barber.

Heart's udder is definitely starting to dangle. As soon as it starts to fill out from side to side you will know your lambs are on their way. Not knowing how large your ewes' udders get, it looks like a couple more weeks at least. The crutching on the back of that ewe looks pretty good to me. I don't like to take ewes down to the skin anyway unless the weather has definitely changed for the better. Shearing before lambing is designed to make the ewes seek shelter with their lambs so the ewes and lambs don't freeze. If you don't have shelter for the ewes in a barn, the sudden removal of their wool can lead to pneumonia if the weather drops super cold again. Hair sheep carry a covering of hair under the wool so you don't have to worry about them freezing even when their wool sheds out. Hair breeds like Dorpers were not designed to live in extreme cold like some of the wool breeds. Leaving some wool on their delicate parts helps protect udders and vaginas in very cold weather

 

[Ridgetop]

By the way - cheap is good. These days we can afford to have people do stuff for us, but it never occurs to us to go that route.
First, when you do it yourself, you do it the way you want.
Second if you decide halfway through that it would be better to change your plan, there is no "plan change overage" charge.
Third, DIY is more fun! Think of all the great stores you have to tell. And it is very fulfilling.

I love DIY. And cheap. I really love cheap!

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

Today marks the earliest possible day that any lambs could come. 147 days ago I put Shaun in with the ewes, and with 8 feet of distance between the pens I know he didn’t get access before then.
Today I started to move the chicken coop, but in the end I tore it apart as I have a plan to better it and nows a good time as we don’t have chickens at the moment. I’m hoping to pick some up this week. I also managed to get Jack trimmed today. I’m holding off on shoes for another month probably. Around here I don’t really need shoes and we won’t be doing any serious riding until mid to late April. So a semi productive day I’d say

 

[Baymule]

Besides you never know what could happen, at this rate coronavirus might destroy society as we know it and I’ll have to blade shear my sheep to have wool to clothe my family as the poor city folk shank each other with broken cell phones for the last pair of Levi’s in the store.

That made me laugh out loud! Too funny!

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

So I got home today and noticed hearts udder was huge! I took a picture to show you good folk intending to discus how it would be any day now. About an hour later I looked outside and noticed Heart was off by herself which is something she never does. I told my wife I was heading outside because we probably had lambs on the ground and I got there about two minutes before the second hit the ground. The little white one came second and is a ewe lamb, Heart was so absorbed in the first I helped a little to make sure the little girl had a clear airway and then let Heart take over. It’s a good way to start the season!