Misfitmorgan's Journal - That Summer Dust

[Baymule]

I miss him too. We visited back and forth. Although he was a good cook in his own right, he sure liked coming here, cause I always cooked a big dinner. His antics, successes and failures, freely posted on his journal, always kept us in stitches. Flying pigs indeed! You know, he never did get another pig!

 

[misfitmorgan]

I think LS just loved people and enjoyed your company more then your food. I don't at all mean your not a good cook just mean he likely would have come over for a glass of water if you invited him.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Well we finally seem to have some cold weather, It was -6F a couple nights ago and 14F when i woke up this am. So we all know what that means!!

Kids/lambs should be coming soon. I mean it's been pretty nice all winter until now so I'm sure they will be popping soon. Forecast shows next week is all teens for the high until friday.

Honestly everyone waits. We did separate the rams for breeding so hopefully there was no fence line breeding. We tried to plan for march babies for the sheep.

The goats are kind of whenever, and look pretty heavy. Ivy, Espresso and PB should be prego, Ivy's white daughter I saw standing by the buck pen doing the come hither stuff so she may not even be bred.

 

[Bruce]

Are you expecting the super cold temps next week or is that running south of you?

 

[misfitmorgan]

Are you expecting the super cold temps next week or is that running south of you?

Pretty cold temps, been overnight in the negatives since saturday night and highs in the teens.

I called the cold snap = lambs.
We had one lamb born thursday night and one born saturday night. They are still alive so far and are outside. I did put sweatshirt sleeve coats on them but thats about all I can do besides make them bottle babies which I dont want too. They do have bedding, a roof and a wind break. The ewes are being very good moms. If the lambs can make it through monday we will be staying back into the mid to upper 20s for a week then back into the 30s. Last thrusday was 42F, this winter is odd.

Both lambs are rams...of course. So far we have just been trying to put hay in the shelter as well to encourage some of the sheep to stand around inside and provide some body warmth.

With the sucess of the hoop house we are planning a hoop barn built this summer. As long as there is any sun at all it stays noticable warmer inside. There are vents on both ends above the doors which takes care of condensation for the most part and we can use shade cloth that snaps into the same wiggle wire channels for summer.

The hoop barn would have the bottom 4ft pony walls, and the ends walls would be either all or mostly all wood. With our current bender we are limited to 12ft wide, we will either stick with that or get a 16ft bender, DH wants to just buy a pipe bender.

 

[Baymule]

It is amazing to me that newborns survive in such cold. Your ewes ARE good mommas to keep care of their babies.

Your hoop barn sounds interesting, got any pictures? I built a hoop chicken coop with bent over cow panels. I attached used tin to it with wood 1x4 slats on the inside.

 

[misfitmorgan]

It is amazing to me that newborns survive in such cold. Your ewes ARE good mommas to keep care of their babies.

Your hoop barn sounds interesting, got any pictures? I built a hoop chicken coop with bent over cow panels. I attached used tin to it with wood 1x4 slats on the inside.

Honestly I'm pretty amazed to, I didnt think they would. I'm highly tempted to put heatlamps up but there is just no way to do it safely in their current shelter. The highest part of the roof is only 6.3" feet tall down the center peak. I could in theory hang a light or two down the middle but since the tallest ewe which is mom to one is right around 4ft tall I wouldnt feel safe hanging them more then 5ft off the ground. So the small amount of heat that got to the lambs would likely end up with the ewes laying under it.

I thought about a hotbox like we did for the lambs and kids in the past but the problem there is we have the two should have been butchered ram lambs who jump on top of everything. So it would have to be more of a permanent box to be strong enough to support the potential 200+lbs on top of it. I also proposed a pallet A-frame idea to DH which he is shaky on, he is worried the adult ram lambs would climb on it and the heat lamp would end up against the wood, straw or hay.

There is also the fact that last year we put up a heated area only the kids and lambs could get too. They wouldnt go in it. We left it up and running for a month and finally took it down because the straw was dry and fresh with no sign of any bathroom usage. I caught the adult goats with their head in it a few times but thats it.

So one half of me is wanting to give them a warmer place and the other half is like but the electric bill if they wont even use it. As near as I can figure each heatlamp costs us around $32/month to run so putting a couple in the sheep shed is a significant ding to our power bill. There is also the concern of our power going out and the heat lamp dependent lambs dying. So I dunno I'm really torn.


DH has pics of the hoop house, I will ask him to send me them.

 

[Baymule]

We certainly don't get your cold temps, but it has been right at freezing and next week it will be in the 20's and teens. I was worried over the ewes dropping lambs in the cold, but it hasn't fazed them one bit. I have a large lot attached to the barn (which is really just a lean-to roof coming off the side of the portable building-3 sides are open). One ewe lambed in the lot, twins, one small, a few days ago and she kept them there for two cold nights.

These little guys are tougher than we think.

A neighbor was worried about all my lambs and wanted to set up a heat lamb in the barn, I said no. He was surprised by my refusal. Haha, he puts one in his chicken coop, despite me saying they really don't need it.

 

[misfitmorgan]

As many horror stories I've heard about barns burning down I'm super paranoid about heat lamps. I triple secure them all. The clamp is clamped on something, the little hoop on top is tied up to something else and the cord is then tied up to something else. So unless all 3 fail it should be safe. I still worry though.

Last year a local pig barn went up and all approx 60 pigs but 2 died. Around 3 years ago a local sheep barn burned to the ground, they lost about 20 sheep in the fire because they were in jugs. The ones in the loafing area got out but they lost another 10 over the following week or two from effects of the fire. Both of those fires were from heat lamps.

 

[B&B Happy goats]

As many horror stories I've heard about barns burning down I'm super paranoid about heat lamps. I triple secure them all. The clamp is clamped on something, the little hoop on top is tied up to something else and the cord is then tied up to something else. So unless all 3 fail it should be safe. I still worry though.

Last year a local pig barn went up and all approx 60 pigs but 2 died. Around 3 years ago a local sheep barn burned to the ground, they lost about 20 sheep in the fire because they were in jugs. The ones in the loafing area got out but they lost another 10 over the following week or two from effects of the fire. Both of those fires were from heat lamps.

I feel the same way about the heat lamps,... the horror and guilt that I would feel having them trapped in a fire sure outweighs the thought of the frigid weather killing them, ...I guess I would rather nature being their demise than by human error...
We use them.. but secure them like, crazy, and I can't wait to turn them off and put them away....