High Desert Cowboy- How far is it up north?

[Ridgetop]

Most of us have been vaccinated against livestock diseases at one time or another. lol Sounds like you had a great time. It is funny how we can do stuff that is excruciating work and have such a good time doing it with the right bunch of friends.

It's too bad that you had such a disappointing lambing season. However, your plans to keep one or 2 of your homebred lambs this year is a good ne You can keep your ram, or one of the ram lambs another year if you want and breed them. Breeding sister brother, father daughter will be ok if it is a terminal cross for your freezer. That will give you a little time to redo your pens and shelters for when you get your Polypays.

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

I finally got to test my new shears and I’ll put my review elsewhere. But it was quite the experience. It started off a little frustrating I have Bellwether in the small pen where I needed to put the rest of my sheep so that we could get to shearing. And of course I made the gates so that they work as an alley which works great if there isn’t already sheep in both pens. I told my son to stand in the way so that Bellwether wouldn’t escape and he stood there with his hands in his pockets figuring that his presence would be enough. Nope! Bellwether blows by him and she’s off to the races. So I go get Bella and tell her to get after it and she stops Bellwether but a Bellwether plays her dumb game where she just stands there and won’t move anywhere. And you can’t drag her that far so I had to pick her up in my arms and carry her all the way back to the corrals. Not happy. Then I had Bella bring the rest of the sheep to the small corral and we got em all done. For my first time with these shears it’s not awful but I definitely need a lot more practice.

Here’s the twins ebony and ivory they’re doing great

Gus Gus all sheared. You can see Dotty in the background. I think she Still looks big and is carrying low on the right side. Maybe, maybe not I dunno anymore. I’ll just accept whatever at this rate. Now to rest from my labors.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Not bad....that is something that does take practice and each time something is learned for the next time.....ya sure get "kudos" for getting a "start" and it won't be long and ya will be a pro....

 

[Baymule]

Branding time is always hard work, but fun in a tough way. I used the branding fire after the branding was done to burn my cast iron skillets. I just buried them in the coals and got them out the next day. All the crusty crud was burned off, they were gray and new again. Then I seasoned them and started over building the black crunchy crud on them again. LOL

It sucks when the darn ewes don't adhere to your plans, what makes them think they can veer off on their own and be lousy mothers, anyway? Navaho dinner, here they come!

I think you did a good shearing job. @Ridgetop brought her shears last summer and gave me lessons. We had a great time and I got sore ribs from getting kicked by a ewe that did not go along with our diabolical plans.

 

[Ridgetop]

They look excellent to me with a new clippers and no experience. No giant bleeding wounds, no missing parts - on the sheep at least. LOL You did a nice job.

Don't worry about cleaning off the wool around the faces and legs. The professionals don't bother with that either. You only bother to slick all that away for the show ring or a special show sale. Sorry, I should have told you to leave the wool on Bellweather if you were going to sell her. If she is aready sold to the Navajos it wont matter. I never bother to shear anything I am taking to auction. No point, and the price is often better if they are in wool.

How did you like the clippers? Dogs are much better workers than unwilling children!

Our 2nd grandson doesn't like to touch the sheep, so he will try to restrain a lamb with just 2 fingers of one hand! You can imagine the language heard in the barn! His older brother and younger sister will gladly tackle the lambs and get dragged through the manure though, so 2 out of 3 isn't bad. He is also good worker as long s it doesn't involve animals.

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

The hiatus is over and Bella can get back to training! And she loves it! With her wool all gone it’s easier to see Hearts condition and it would appear the twins are taking a lot out of her so I’ve started to give her a little something on the side to help her start regaining her condition for next year. I may have bellwether sold so we’ll see what happens there. They want her lamb as well so we’ll see how it all plays out

 

[Ridgetop]

Selling her lamb with her is probably a good thing, since often lambs take after their parents in temperament. Heart does look a bit thin, has she been wormed? Once lambs are born, the worm load, if any, can really bloom. You might try worming with Privermectin - a cheaper version of Ivermectin. It takes a lot, but if it will hel her. Then a ltte grain with her hay to help her regain some fat. suck the very life out of the ewes. She looks like she is giving them everything she has so that is good mothering. I use rolled barleycorn, it is cheap and the corn can helo ut on the weight. It it still doesn't do the job, there are some commercial lamb grow feeds that can be fed to mom and lambs together. Too high a protein content can result in thin looking ewes though so make sure it is not too high in protein and not high enough in carbs and fats.

When we had our dairy herd, we bought our hay by the field. First cut was all under contract to the dairies, but we got second cut which was just as good. We fed it to our horses too, but couldn't figure out why they looked like bags of bones! They were realy. Worming did nothing, finally someone suggested we put them on grade 2 hay and BOOM! They put on condition again! Too much protein was just like putting athletes on a high protein-low fat diet. The weight rolled off!

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

So updates for around here. @Ridgetop Heart is so named because she is a sweet heart and I’ve been able to pull her aside every day and give her some extra protein feed out of a bucket to help her start putting the weight back on and everyone is getting wormed in a few days, I’m still waiting for it to get here. Looking at her babies I think She’s just a milking machine.
I finally got something of a garden in, the next step is keeping it all alive my cucumber plants look pretty sad but my raspberries and strawberry plants look great. We also finally had our chicks arrive and I’ll need to post some pics. Maybe someone can help me with identification. We have 8 Rhode Island reds,4 barred rocks, then my wife had fun and there’s one austrolorpe, one golden polish, one buff laced polish that I’ve named Q-tip, and the hatchery threw in a gift surprise chick of unknown type or gender which I assume means a rooster from a batch of chickens nobody wanted. Maybe I’ll be wrong but I couldnt even tell you what kind it is. It took some detective work to figure out which was the austrolorpe because they’re very similar to the barred rocks.
Dotty still looks big, and even bigger last night but she’s probably just teasing me. I haven’t heard back from that potential buyer for bellwether but maybe I’ll just donate her. Currently in Utah they’re buying up seed and sheep to donate to the Navajo reservation as they’re getting hit pretty hard with this coronavirus.

 

[Baymule]

Donating bellwether to the Navajo reservation would be a generous thing to do. Their predicament even made national news.

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

Chicks! I am 90% certain that my mystery surprise chick is a white polish, the little top knot has become more pronounced.
Dotty keeps getting bigger, Heart is still getting treated to her side protein and I’ve also been giving some to bellwether. For some reason it won’t let me post a picture of Dotty so I’ll try again later. But she’s wide.