Ohiogoatgirl's Escapades & Adventures- Pulse check! pg14

[ohiogoatgirl]

Do you have any idea what percentage Shetland she is? Who old is she?

If she were mine, I'd feed her up well (not an excessive amount during late pregnancy) and see where she is next fall for breeding. If she handles lambing and raising baby(s) well this year and bounces back health wise, I see no problem keeping as long as she fits into your breeding plans.

I also wouldn't stress about the Valbazen. I was told by my vet that you don't want to use it just in the first 45 days of pregnancy. I've never heard anything about not using it in rams during breeding.

nope no idea what amount of anything is mixed in there. she was born feb/march 2015.

thanks I will just keep reading up on lambing and things I would be able to watch for and help with if needed.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

ok I managed to rig a weigh sling with an old towel. She weighs about 37# and at the shoulder she is 22 inches tall. from rump to chest she is about 23 inches, give or take she wouldn't stay still for me. Did manage to get these two quickly of Midgets girly-bits. Pigpigs are swollen etc the same, maybe even more so.
so the question is, in heat or preggo?

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

They don't seem to be preggo. it's up in the air until april but I am extremely doubting it. still keepin an eye on them though, just in case. it appears they went into heat. midget seems to be over it but pigpigs girly bits are still holding out being a tad swollen looking and pink. not as pink as they were but still hanging in there. it looks rather funny going from her rather dark ebony-like skin around her rear and then PINK! Hahaha.

Had several really nice days here with really warm weather. still pretty warm now but cool and been raining off and on all day. mud all over. ugh. they are going through quite a lot more hay on rainy days and when the snow was here than on the nicer days. Once I have the pastures fixed up nice things will go a lot smoother with much more forage!

the one nice day that it didn't rain and wasn't miserably muddy I went out with an old garden hoe and was knocking down the remaining standing weedy stuff in paddock 1. now that they are in paddock 2. can already see where they have been making a difference.

paddock 1 is getting overseeded soon as I get the weedy stuff knocked down and all. maybe by next month if it doesn't snow again or continue with the rain. ordered a few pounds of several things to overseed in there.

paddock 2 is still crazy overgrown. It will get overseeded as well but not until I get my helper out to work with me and chop a lot down. gonna be a hell of a long day when that happens. thankfully the sheep are workin a good size area pretty well that got pushed to the ground under the last snow we got.

I talked to the farm woman who I got my two ewes from. I am probably going to go out there and help her out around the place. she is going to take off the price of the sheep for me working with her. I am really excited!

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

This first pic is the current set up. two small paddocks and one big 5(ish) acre mess. white dots are the main spots to fix. the yellow squiggle section is completely overrun with multi flora rose. wasn't even going to think about attempting to climb through it.

This second pic is how I am planning to have the big pasture divided. The yellow is where gates will go at. the black and white squares are where buildings are at/will be at. some of the funky fence lines is due to the hillside shape.
Already have water piped to where the center building will be at. The little section there will be a decent little 'yard' area to easily have access to water and the building and yet easily open or shut the gates to give them access to different paddocks.
I am still fiddling with this so it's not set in stone but this is pretty close to how the paddocks will be divided. give or take a few feet here and there really. This division of things will give me paddocks with lots of grass and also paddocks with woods and brush that can be grazed at their own time intervals. That way I don't have them just in the grass and not touching the wooded area or just hanging in the wooded area and not touching the grass!

*down trees to roll down the valley
*crappy trees need cut down
*standing dead need cut and hauled to the wood shed
*building to plan
*building to repair
*brush to mow
*fence to repair
*posts and fence to put in
*posts and gates to put in

geez I am certainly gonna be busy!

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

The ewes were shorn November 25, 2015. Finally got things settled with a shearer and got lucky that someone is going to be by this way tomorrow and not late next week at best. So this is about 7months wool growth on them. I think I need to get things figured out and have them sheared closer to 6 months. The wool is lovely but with the heat I really need a better timing for it. Because now I would think shearing in spring like April/May time.. except now 6 months away is December and April is 10 months away. With how the weather usually is I am hoping I can get away with early March would be 8 months plus some. Then after that if I sheared say.. early March then early Sept.. then that would be pretty much even split. I would just have to hope that we don't get crazy cold in March. Here though February will hit us hard if nothing else but other than the odd real cool year it's been fair for spring weather.

In other news.. I bough a 2y/o Shetland ewe (black) and her ram lamb (chocolate brown with a white forehead, born march 2016). The sire was quite nice looking so for now he keeps his nuggets and I will see what lambs he can make. He is a lovely color and they both have nice dual coated fleeces. so neat to see how they are similar and yet different than Icelandic fleece with the dual coat.

Didn't end up with any lambs from Pigpig or Midget. I think it was mainly me worrying just in case to be ready for any. Pigpig still doesn't like me and can only touch her if she has her head in the feed. Midget warmed up to me but with the new ewe (named her Millie) she decided I couldn't be trusted and no longer lets me give her some scratches or pets on her face. I think it is because Midget used to be the sort of leader, Pigpig would follow her around. But with Millie and the ram lamb Pigpig follows them half the time and Midget lost her 'powers' or something haha. Its amusing because for the first several days Pigpig would keep checking on the lamb as if it were hers. I wonder that she took to him and not Midget because Pigpig has lambed before and got a bit mother-y instincts.

Speaking of mother-y I am hoping to get a chance to setup to look at the Shetland sheep farm (woman in the spinners guild) and see her flock. She has all very fine wool shetlands and I am very interested to buy a young ram from her towards the fall.
Right now I am thinking if I put in the ram the second or third week of October then they should lamb about early March through mid April. And that would work with my shearing in early March? Maybe? I am going to have to see if I can find again I thought people like to shear a month before lambing.. crap.. I need to think on this more..

 

[Latestarter]

You know, it has been said: "the best laid plans of..." Always more variables... Hope you get it sorted through

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

If I put in the ram on the first of November then lambing could be soon as the end of March. And if I'm right about shearing the month before then I'd need to shear end of Feb/very early March at the latest.

The two ewes were shorn this morning. Went well and the guy who sheared was (*swoons*) like nice looking model guy meets cowboy shearer. Hahahaha.

So needless to say I have been up since just after 6am, chores, getting the area ready for shearing, the shearing, picking fleece, help dad with baling the little field (50-odd sq bales), back to picking fleece,... and now I am finally giving in to my stomach growling like sasquatch and making some food!

Midget's fleece was 3+ lbs. Skirted to 2lbs.
Last year it was 1+ lb. I am very glad to see how she is looking under all the wool. she has gained a good amount of size but I think she is just going to always be little.

Pigpig's fleece was 5+ lbs. Skirted to 3+ lbs.
Last year it was pretty much the same but I couldn't use it at all last year because it was all felted at the tips and had sooooo much VM in it PLUS there was a break in the wool. So I didn't even bother with it at all So I am very excited to work with this fleece from her.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

UPDATE

I have done the math and if by my averaging I will need 50 sheep to be able to sustain myself with an income. With my current setup and starting amount of sheep I should be able to breed up to that many animals by spring of 2019 while selling off extra rams and bringing in some unrelated ewes. From this point I will need to maintain this number of stock, get rid of the lesser animals, keep better lambs, make sure my pastures are handling the amount of stock on it, and hopefully really have my rotation and stocking and fencing nailed down.

I have a sales idea started and if all goes well I will be able to have some of these ready by April, spring 2017.

Small fiber box:
-8oz fibers
-mix of: batts, locks, rolags, washed fibers, etc.
-$22 plus shipping

Large fiber box:
-16oz fibers
-mix of: batts, locks, rolags, washed fibers, etc.
-$37 plus shipping

Small Flock Box:
-8oz fibers
-mix of amounts raw fibers
-$16 plus shipping

Large Flock Box:
-16oz fibers
-mix of amounts raw fibers
-$32 plus shipping

I also have an idea for a small and large 'yarn box' but do not have the particulars figured out for that yet.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

It's been a long time. Mostly been kept too crazy with work and some family drama.
I Millie to shepherds error, very sad about it and hope to avoid all these problems next year by having all the fence and paddocks up and going.
So now I have:
Pythagoras- year old shetland ram
big ram- (yet unnamed) about 4 y/o cormo/shetland ram who looks mostly cormo
Midget- dual coated fleece and getting more grey/silver by the day, about 2 y/o
Pigpig- lovely blue grey fleece about 4 y/o
Midget and Pigpig last shearing (summer 2016) was quite lovely and I am looking forward even more to their fleeces this spring! You wouldn't believe the length on Midget's wool. And with the longer time between summer shearing and now Pigpig's wool has a real nice length to it as well.

I had been freaking out. I was searching and searching, asking questions on all the facebook groups, asking the people I know with sheep,... No one could tell me if sheep stop the appearance of cycling (ie, I'm looking at their girly bits and they appear to be cycling and coming into heats) after being bred.
With goats if you know what you are looking at they usually show coming into heat, slight variation with the few days of standing heat, and then fades out. If not bred they cycle back into it and repeats.
I have been checking the ewes at least once a week, and for some periods every day for three weeks straight. They appeared to be cycling. Right now. They appear to be cycling.
EXCEPT. I hadn't checking in probably nearly two weeks. If they were goats I would have told you 110% they were not bred. BUT now both ewes have udder development! WHAT?! So I am going with the assumption of them being bred about the time I got the big ram (Nov 1). Which gives me an estimated due date of March 28. So they could pop anytime between next week and next month.

So of course, three days ago I got the ok from a friend in the spinners guild that she already is shearing for someone not far from me and could shear mine that afternoon. So shearing will be saturday (march 11) and the weather says 60% chance of rain last I looked :/ Darn. So I'll be trying to convince them all to go into the shed instead of standing out in the rain!

I don't have much for updated pics right now. If anyone wants to check out my instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/girlwalkswithgoats/

 

[Latestarter]

Just an observation but both screen names are centered on goats and yet you seem to have more to do with sheep... Hope the breeding thing gets straightened out for you.