Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Ridgetop]

Thursday made 20 lbs. of ground meat (beef, chicken, pork, goat) into meat loaves for the freezer. I made 4 large loaves - 3+ lbs. each for when the larger family is here, and 7 smaller loaves - 2 1/2 lbs. each for the family of 5 adults living here. I still have another 20 lbs. of assorted ground meat waiting in the freezer to make up another day and freeze in loaves. I like to cook in bulk and freeze it for meals since meat loaf, spaghetti sauce, meatballs, chicken divan, chili verde, etc. takes a lot of time. By prepping in bulk, it is easier to spend the entire day making multiples than spending several hours a day making individual meatloaf, spaghetti, etc. I am a good cook, and I like to cook, but have a lot of other stuff to do than spending all my time cooking individual meals. I baked a meatloaf with gravy last night but DS2 and girlfriend were going to dinner with a friend. She told me today that he was annoyed that on the day we had meatloaf they had to go to dinner with their friends! LOL Leftovers tonight, but not large servings. That will teach DS2 to go out instead of helping separate the lambs, and divide up the flock for breeding!

Anyway, DS1 and I decided to do it this morning. I did not realize DS2 was working so no help there either. However, DS2's girlfriend helped in the barn with the sorting and weighing. I am going to buy her a pair of farm muck boots for Christmas or her birthday! She is becoming a good farm girl.

Weighed the lambs and they weighed 111, 107, and 113 lbs. at 4.7, 4.7, and 4.5 months. Based on the rate of gain, they w=should weigh 116, 113, and 119 lbs. when they go to slaughter in 8 days. Nice long, wide loins and heavy meat down into the twist. Anxious to hear what my butcher grades them as.

Next, we caught and vaccinated the bucks and dressed them in their snazzy, red, breeding harnesses. Both bucks are very gentle (compared to the Hampshire buck we had years ago that would as soon kill you as look at you). He was a really mean ram. We sorted the lambs out and put them in another pen. Ran the ewes for the first ram out of their pen, separated and ran the ram for them out, then moved all of them to the new front pasture. One set done. Next, we ran the other ewes and last ram out to the main field.

A couple hours of pandemonium and deafening bleating in the barn. I didn't remember it being that loud when we did the same job with 30 ewes and lambs. Of course, we had 4 kids helping so I might not have heard the sheep over the kids shouting back and forth to their siblings! LOL

One ewe is already marked, but the young ram might be over enthusiastic so will have to see if she remarks in 3 weeks. We locked up Bubba who gets underfoot and in the way since the loud bleating worries him. On the other hand Angel was a perfect, well, Angel. She watched and stayed completely calm. Then she calmly went to the front pasture with her new flock. What a good girl!

 

[Mike CHS]

It sounds like a rewarding day and the helpers are actually being helpers.

 

[Ridgetop]

So the young ram has now marked all 3 Dorper ewes. I have a feeling he was just being over with his new harem. However, I have marked the dates on the calendar. We will see in a week or 2 when I change the crayon color out. If they remark in 3 weeks, we will know whether he was just being friendly!

We need to make a proper dog opening into the front pasture to protect the sheep down there now. Especially since all 3 of my new Dorper ewes and young Dorper ram are there. Sure don't want to lost them with 3 LGDs n the property. The dogs can't protect them if they can't get into the pen! The sheep come up at night for their grain and seem to stay in the upper pen but we have no way to lock them in that small upper pen near the house yet. DS1 needs to set up a gate of some sort. Brenda Negri's book had a picture of a type of fence opening the sheep will not go through but that LGDs can go through. I will look it up and put it in place at one of the old gates on the side of the field so the Anatolians can get in and run off coyotes quickly. We patched up all the places the dogs had access through so the sheep couldn't get out, but now I am afraid the dogs can't get in easily. Time can be of the essence in a coyote attack and the forage and mustard is so high that you can't see what is in the field. Need to get it done today.

Found another 3 or 4 quarts of blueberries in the freezer! Got to make jam again. With all the rain strawberries will be late this year - once they come in prices will drop and I will make strawberry jam for DS2 - his favorite!

Work, work, work = fun, fun, fun! Do I need therapy?

 

[Mike CHS]

I use different versions of the attached jump gate. Those out in the fields are made from full 2x4's so I can run rubber tubing to keep the hot wire away from it. They work fine for Maisy but she is only 85 pounds. It would have to be a lot bigger for some of the large LGDs. For the BIG dogs there wouldn't be much fence left.

 

[Ridgetop]

That is the gate I was describing to DS1. Bubba weighs 150-160 lbs., Rika weighs 125 lbs., Angel at 5 months weighs 89 lbs. and will be larger than Rika but smaller than Bubba when grown. DS1 is afraid to let them learn they could jump from field to field since we need to keep them inside our perimeter fencing.

Bill Turnquist (longtime sheep/Boer breeder and judge) used to put "doggie doors" in his wire fencing for his Pyrs. 2 plywood panels side by side swinging on a hinge in a wooden fence or attached to the wire in a wire fence. One panel swung in the other swung out. They were cut larger than the hole so they did not swing freely back and forth. Maybe it was so they wouldn't blow open in the wind to show the sheep they could get through. We might be able to fix bungees to the fence and plywood to keep them from flapping around.

Yay!!!

DS1 just called me out to look at the old wood gate leading to the pasture from the front patio. He thinks he can remove the 3rd crosspiece up and cut it in half then V it on like Mike's jump gate. From the bottom coming up from the field it will be about 24" up and about 12" going down into the pasture. He also saw another type of LGD pasture access gate that he says he thinks he can put on the walk through gate between the min field and the front pasture. That one is made like an upside down stanchion head piece. Two vertical bars are attached in the opening, one moves free on the bottom, and one is stationary. The dogs can push through the bars for access, and a bungee cord keeps the vertical bars in place after the dogs go through. Very excited about this. He is building the one on the wooden gate right now!

First picture is of 2 gates from patio, one on right goes to old Doughboy pool deck which we tore out. Left gate is old wood gate to original ram and buck pen below the pole butt fence around old pool deck and area. The old pool area is where the night grain and water is. Not able to close it off from pasture yet.
Second picture is close up of old wooden gate - needs to be rebuilt, but we are going to try the jump gate first. The gate is still usable although about 25 years old or more.
3rd picture is gate from pasture side. Pasture slopes down away from gate.

 

[Ridgetop]

Thanks Mike!

DS1 did first prototype, ugly but old gate boards split on him and we wanted to see if it worked. DS1 will get new lumber and redo it. The bottom is higher from the pasture side, about 28", even though it looks like it is only 12" up on the patio side. Bubba and Angel were not interested in entering pasture from patio side. I went into pasture and called them into pasture, then we shut them into the pasture and tried to call them out. They just looked at us then went around to the other gate and asked us to open it for them.

First picture is prototype jump gate. It is just cobbled together to see if dogs will use it. Second picture is Bubba waiting for some one to open the other gate after declining to go through jump gate. ????

Obviously Rika is the brains of this outfit. She will have to be shown the gate and taught how to use it. Once should do it for her. Once she goes through it, her minions will follow. Sometimes I see her looking a Bubba and Angel and can almost hear her thinking - "What a couple of dorks! Why did my humans bother getting these dummies. Well, at least they might be trainable." She was on duty in the rear pasture so we will show it to her this evening.

DS1 is going to get some lumber to build the other type of access gate - it is a type of squeeze gate. We will have to show that one to Rika first too. It Bubba lies that type better, we can use it in the wooden gate in place of the jump gate. So picky!!!

Also need to see if sheep figure out how to come through this gate. Luckily the Dorpers are short sheep. The rams are burly for their height so hopefully won't come through. If the sheep try, maybe we can hang some dangle sticks or chains in the opening to fool them. Otherwise, I think the squeeze gate might work. It all else fails, we can try Bill Turnquist's in fence "doggie doors".

According to DS1, here are too many places where the sheep can squeeze through the pole butt openings to be able to lock the sheep in the upper pool pen at night. This heavy red clay and shale ground has a lot of movement, and the pole butts are no longer set tightly together after 35 years. We will have to put wire around the pole butts as well as put in a gate if we want to use the upper pool yard as a night fold. All things to work on eventually since it is a nice large area to move the ewes and young lambs to while running another breeding bunch on the main field.

Hopefully, Rika will teach Bubba and Angel to use the gate this evening. There is lot of predator action around the front fence line at night so hopefully they will go in and out several times this evening.

Thanks again Mike!

 

[Ridgetop]

Hope everyone out there had a Happy Easter or a Blessed Passover. Know what they call the Easter bunny down on the farm? Dinner!

We all got a lot of work done in the past week here. I made 2 batches of blueberry jam with the blueberries I found in the freezer. Then made 2 batches of strawberry jam for DS2 since that is his favorite. Jam and pickles are my favorite thing to can. I need to go to Sunland Produce to see if I can get some slightly over ripe cucumbers for my special sweet cinnamon rings. Everyone was very upset when I had to tell them that we were out of them. Had to make do with pickled peaches for Easter dinner.

DS1 cut a 3' wide path around the inside perimeter of the fence so we could reach the fence to raise the wire on it. The brush was well over 5-6' high and some of the stems had to be cut with a saw! If we got a lot of water through the year, we could grow a jungle! As soon as DS1 started cutting the sheep fell in behind him and grazed on the cut brush. LOL So much easer when it is served up. You can see the lower half of the fence is still hidden under slough. The extension posts added 4' of wire on to the top of the existing fence.

While DS1 cut a path for working on the fence, DH weeded, turned up the soil, and put amendments into the raised beds we use for a garden. Now I can set out the veggie plants. We will be gone most of the summer, probably for the most of the harvest because - We are finally coming to Texas to look around at ranch property this summer!

DS3, DIL, and 2 grandsons are caravanning with us to sightsee in Texas. DS3 and DIL wants to check out the rental property they bought this year in Ft. Worth. They plan to buy another rental house in Ft. Worth too. Maybe they will like Texas so much he will consider moving with us. This is the son that loves to hunt pigs so you never know. While we are gone, DS2's girlfriend (soon to be fiancé) will be taking care of the garden and picking the veggies for her family to use. DS2 has already said that if we move to Texas he will sign the books to work in Texas for a couple months and see if he likes it. We are wearing them down slowly. Both DS2 and DS3 are electrical power linemen. DS3 and DIL have horses and want to put their kids in 4-H. DS2 will do the same if he has property. No liberals in our immediate family so hopefully we should be welcome in Texas. LOL

Anyway, DS1 rebuilt the dog gate into the sheep pen since Bubba couldn't (or wouldn't) get through it. Even wth Rika and Angel going back and forth several ties he was still a big wimp. Hopefully the design will keep the sheep in while allowing the dogs access. He took off another lower horizontal and made the opening larger for Bubba. If the sheep figure out how to come through, he will add another piece across the bottom and possibly a small vertical strip on the 2 side triangles. Bubba goes back and forth through the new design just fine.
We still need to build dog access gate on the other side of the pasture at the bottom of the property so the dogs can get through from there instead of having to come up to the patio to access the pasture. We hear the dogs working in that pasture at night so the ewes and ram are safe. Then DS1 built another sheep shelter in that pasture. We thought they would just go under the trampoline if it was raining, but as soon as the shelter was up they recognized it and ran inside. LOL We will have to put some sort of metal capping on the ridge to cover where the 2 panels are clamped together. The other shelter leaked so much in the rainstorms that it flooded. think we will se our pallets to floor the shelters.


We hired some day laborers to help us put up the 4' welded wire. We used welded wire because of the price since it was going on top of the existing 5' fence. The reason we needed to extend the fence up is that the inside slope had sloughed down to where the fence was only about 3-4 feet high on the inside of the pasture. I did not want the dogs going over the fence after any coyotes that decided to come in after lambs. Coyotes can jump a 6' fence from a standing position. My dogs might have gone over the fence after them to teach them a lesson and I don't want my dogs earning that they cn jump over our fences. Especially with the new puppy. Anyway, we needed more people to hold the wire up in the air as it was stretched from post to post and attached. We put up 300' and ran out of wire and posts. We have the posts but need to attach them to the fence. That side of the property fence has not got as much slough on it and is still about 5' high. We will attach those posts this weekend and then have the men come back out and finish putting up the wire. We need to buy more wire too. I will sleep a lot easier once this is done. Although having the access gate for the dogs to guard the pasture makes me much happier.

After they finished with stringing the fence extension wire, we had them remove and carry up the old chain link fencing from the area where we want to put the new pasture. NEVER USE CHAIN LINK FOR LIVESTOCK!!! We did not know that 30 years ago and now are having to remove the 6' chain link wire that was stretched out and ruined by our goats and horses. Some of the pipes are still good, others have been bent and broken by the horses. The wire is ok enough to finish attaching to the bottom of the perimeter fencing and laying it out along the ground a few feet inside the fence to keep dogs in and coyotes out.

We will have the workers dig the post holes for the new pasture fence 200' out and down that we have to clear for fire clearance. That fence will be woven wire and up 6" off the ground so the slough will not damage it. Hopefully the 2nd flock of sheep can then be locked in there and clear that area. That pasture is totally inside the perimeter fence so it does not need to be higher than 4' and we can worry about dog access to it later. It will make a good mama and lamb pen too since it is totally inside the perimeter. We will put a shelter and creep inside it later. We have a bunch of cross arms (4"x5" treated posts used for the cross arms on electrical poles) to use for fence posts. We brought them home when the DWP climbing center changed locations and were dumping them. They are 10' and 12' long so we will cut them in half and use them for fence posts. We already have them so the only cost will be the wire and staples. We will probably not move for another 2 years , so might as well do what we can here to make our operation work better. I have wanted cross fenced pastures for the past 15 years.

Angel is coming along and spends any time she is not in the pastures with the sheep following Bubba around. He plays with her while Rika scolds her. She is very big now, weighing about 90 lbs. and will be 6 months old May 9. I have to be alert to catch her in season so I can lock her up.

The wind is picking up again. The rain predicted last week never materialized. Probably not going to get anymore since it is now almost May. Hills are starting to brown off since it has been warming up - temperature about 80 degrees. The dried forage will be ok for the sheep to eat, just not as nourishing. We will probably have to start supplementing late this summer or early fall. We will have to buy hay at the end of the summer when the prices are low to lay in a supply for the winter. One of the Dorsets (No Tag) has marked now. Waiting for the rest of them to mark and to see if they remark. By the time we leave for Texas all should be bred and settled. Hoping for November lambs again.

 

[Mike CHS]

I got tired reading that post but congratulations on getting so much work done.

 

[Bruce]

DS2's girlfriend (soon to be fiancé)

You THINK! He has to ask and she has to say yes first

DS2 has already said that if we move to Texas he will sign the books to work in Texas for a couple months and see if he likes it.

Hmmm, what if the soon to be fiancée isn't interested in moving to TX?

 

[Ridgetop]

I got tired reading that post but congratulations on getting so much work done.

Take a nap - that is what DH did afterwards!

You THINK! He has to ask and she has to say yes first

I know but we all love her!
He said he would come out, visit and work for a few months, not necessarily move to Texas yet. I am just hopeful that my children will move close to us if we go to Texas.