Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[RollingAcres]

Poor Bubba, sorry to hear about his left eye.

 

[Ridgetop]

The vet ophthalmologist said that she did not want to remove the eye unless it really bothered him or started causing a problem - infections etc. She wants to see him again in November and at that time depending on what is going on with it we can address the issue. Eventually, after getting him OFAed (scheduled for next Monday) and collected - Erick prefers to collect in fall or spring - we will have him neutered. If we decide to have the eye removed I think I will arrange to have it done at the same time. Anatolians are sensitive to anesthesia - I need to remind the vet that they are like Greyhounds - so the less he has to go under the better it would be for him and us.

His eye doesn't bother him at the moment so we will see how it goes. I am wondering now how long the cataract was affecting his sight before he finally lost all sight from the retina detaching. Of course, he couldn't tell us anything poor boy. It doesn't seem to make any difference to him in his activities - playing with the other dogs, working, guarding, etc. I imagine that with the cataract the loss of sight may have come on gradually and he just adjusted to it over time.

It does take the pressure to try showing him again off me though! He didn't like the judge trying to look in his mouth and I really don't want him DQed with a reputation for a bad temperament! Erick told me that when we collect him I should have some straws collected for myself as well, since there are many breeders on the west coast who would like to have the Lucky Hit genetics. I was shocked when he told me how much to charge for 1 straw! I will certainly collect some for myself, especially since Erick will do the work of okaying any bitch whose owner wants a breeding. I really am not interested in breeding dogs anymore, although looove puppies! I prefer buying them already whelped, introduced to livestock, and their working abilities checked out by Erick! LOL Angel is a case in point. Excellent guarding ability and as soon as she outgrows her desire to chew everything she sees she will be perfect. Hopefully she lives that long since she tried to chew Black Dragon's running board the other day! DH2 was not amused. Luckily the running board retracts so she avoided premature death. LOL

Poor sweet Bubba. Such a good boy. You can't even tell about his eye by looking at him. He is as beautiful and impressive as ever. He'll be around a long time. We were lucky.

 

[Baymule]

Oh NOOOOOOO!!!!!! Not the Black Dragon!!! BAD ANGEL!! Whew! She narrowly avoided the death penalty or incarceration for life!

I'm glad that Bubba is adjusting to his blind eye, hope he does ok with it.

 

[AmberLops]

Oh NOOOOOOO!!!!!! Not the Black Dragon!!! BAD ANGEL!! Whew! She narrowly avoided the death penalty or incarceration for life!

I'm glad that Bubba is adjusting to his blind eye, hope he does ok with it.

 

[Ridgetop]

 

[Ridgetop]

I got out the clippers, blades, lube, etc. Luckily I don't have to go into the Connex (which I would have had to unload until I found the correct box). I had moved the hand shears into the large blade box. Here are doe photos of them. The brands of large electric clippers are Andis and Heinigger - both German made clippers. Our small clippers are Andis and Oster. We have had about 6-8 sets of them over the years. The 2 in the photo are Oster and Andis variable speed clippers with interchangeable blades. I have another one in the house that I used to cut my boys' hair when the old human hair clipper broke. No sense buying one just for humans when I have heavier duty ones that will do the job.

These are only some of the clippers and blades we have.

These are the hand shears with leather scabbards. They are spring formed and back in the day would have been what you would hire lots of shearers to shear your flock with. These haven't ben used to completely shear wool sheep since the invention of the electric clippers - blessings on the head of that person! Years ago when we first showed breeding sheep in the wool, these were used to "sculpt" the sheep. In other words, after the basic wash and shear to leave about 4-6" of wool, you would feather shear the wool to hide faults and improve good points. Again, blessings on the sheep industry when they decided that breeding sheep should be shown slick shorn. Back in the day a good fitter could and did make a poor animal look great.

This is DS2's Hoeniger clipper with the sheep head on it. The cutting blades attach to the prongs. The large head to the right rear is a cattle head which he used to body clip the 30-50 goats we would take to shows. It took weeks to shave them all, and DS2 decided to speed up the clipping by doing the bodies with the larger clipper with wider blades and then finish them off with the smaller clippers. The 2 toothy thing in front are the come (top) and the cutter (bottom). Thee 2 pieces work together to cut the wool. Blades - combs and cutters - come in different sizes. The ones shown here are for basic shearing of long wool. The bottle of oil is to oil the clipper motor to keep it cool, not the blades. The black box to the left is a blade box to keep your blades in They are expensive and dropping them can snap off teeth making for a ragged cut. I prefer to keep my just sharpened blades wrapped in a paper towel soaked in oil. This keeps them from rusting. You want several sets of combs and cutters since you need to replace them as they dull while shearing.

This is an Andis shears belonging to DS1 then DS3. It has only the sheep head on it since DS1 did not do dairy goats after he realized he hated milking! I have several sets of blades shown here ranging from the basic shearing blade for sheep in wool through slick shearing for market lambs. You will notice that the teeth are closer together as they make a closer shear. For the tighter shear for market lambs and showing stock you wash the lambs first in dish soap to removed as much of the lanolin and dirt as possible. This makes for a smoother shear for the show ring.

These are smaller hand clippers for doing legs, heads, faces, and goats. They are an Oster and an Andis with interchangeable blades. The blades for these are one piece and I have shown a wider body blade, a medium blade, and a surgical blade that is used for udders. The boys were not allowed to use the surgical blade until they were very proficient in shaving since the surgical blade can easily cut skin. The round plastic box in the back is for holding blades. Protecting blades is paramount since they run from $10 a set to $25 a set 20 years ago and are more now. These clippers also need to have the motors occasionally oiled. The 2 cans to the rear are spray blade disinfectant and spray Kool Lube. I didn't have any blade wash so will have to get some.

With the number of goats the boys were exhibiting, we used to have to replace 1 or 2 of these smaller hand clippers annually. I also used them to clean up the horses' fetlocks and bridle paths when the kids were in a parade. Very useful, but not enough power to cut through lanolin enriched wool. Using an under powered clipper on sheep will burn out the motor.

I am posting this now, then I will post pix of the stanchion.

 

[Ridgetop]

Here is a picture of our first stanchion. It is a double so we could put both of our first milkers in at once. They were star milkers and gave huge amounts of mill all season b were not super god show goats. They were not bad, just not terrific. We gradually built up the quality. They had extremely good attachments though which was necessary since they were such prolific milkers.

As you can see, this stanchion used 4x4s as legs and corner posts for the framework of each stanchion. 2x4s were the framework for the platform. The side bars were 1x6. The lower side piece was the side support for the grain box. There was a hinged top for the grain box that we shut after milking so rats didn't get in the feeding box and pee on the grain. The platform was cut from a sheet of plywood and formed a seat between the 2 stanchions for milking ease. The drawback of this plywood platform is obvious. We had to hose it off frequently due to pee and poop that couldn't fall through. On the other hand, it was economical to build and very sturdy. If you want a permanent stanchion this worked beautifully, although you will have to switch the animal from side to side when shearing since you can't reach more than one side of the goat or sheep. We had 2 of these side by side in the milkshed by the time our younger boys were running goat herds since DS2 milked our 12-18 milkers with a machine am and pm year round.

This is a portable metal stanchion that folds up for storage or transport to shows. The left picture is the stanchion with a sheep head. The head locks the sheep into position for fitting so it can't move around. I don't like this head since it is too narrow for larger rams. I had an adjustable one that I sold. My bad. the center picture is the same stanchion with the goat head piece and the hoop below for holding a grain bucket. We found that a plastic 5 quart ice cream bucket fit perfectly so didn't need to replace any buckets after that. (4 kids - figure it out!) Notice that the support of both headpieces is square tubing and they both fit into the same square tubing holder with a turn screw to hold them firm. Also note that there are 4 additional square tubing pieces welded to the platform. These are used for side bars that slide into them to keep the sheep from falling or stepping off the side of the stanchion and strangling themselves. NEVER leave the animal unattended on the stanchion, since this is a sheep's favorite hobby - causing heart failure in the owner as you struggle to lift 100-300 lbs of struggling sheep back onto the stanchion. The only thing they like more is if they are soaking wet! The pictures below is the stanchion folded up for storage or transport, and the stanchion and lambing jugs folded and disassembled for storage until needed.

These folding stanchions are really nice since you can fold them up store them until needed. Some companies are even making them in lightweight versions of aluminum. However, unless your animals are trained to this stanchion, they can fall (or try to jump)off pulling the stanchion over on themselves. Even more heart stopping. There are various other types, including crank up ones where you walk the larger breeds on then crank the stanchion into a higher position. DS1 had one but it was too much for me to crank so only he could actually use it.

Can't load any more files so will post and go on to the next one.

 

[Ridgetop]

???OOPS!!!

Oh well, to continue. Here is a picture f DS2 showng a younger boy how to shear one of our Dorsets.

They are using a general shearing blade since this yearling ewe is wearing a full year's fleece. I am too old to get down like that any more. Or rather once I am down I can't get up and once I am up I can't walk!

The next 2 pix are old ones from DS1's 4-H record book. The left one shows him shearing his yearling market production flock sire using the stanchion and head piece. That was a great market sire DS1 saved up and bought from a lovely breeder in Bakersfield. She brought that lamb's sire in from a top breeder in Indiana or Iowa and saved the best ram lamb for DS1. He produced top quality market show lambs. The right hand picture is the finished product.

The final picture is DS1 placing 1st in Sr. Market Lamb Showmanship at the fair with a properly fitted lamb. Have to get in a little bragging on my boy. The picture is from 23 years ago. I just love looking through their old record books and seeing them looking so young and remembering all the fun we had. When DS1 was 11 he decided to enter the 4-H horse show. He polished his boots for hours. After the show his chestnut paint horse had black horizontal stripes where DS1 had not got all the boot polish off his boots!

Anyway, hope these long posts help. Please excuse the bragging.

 

[Mike CHS]

There is a big difference between bragging and showing a Mom's pride.

 

[Baymule]

What great memories! haha, I can't squat down anymore and durn sure can't kneel-it hurts too bad! I'd just have to set on my butt and scoot around to shear a sheep like that. LOL Stanchions are looking better and better. That I can manage. Thanks for the stanchion pictures, it gives me ideas. We can use the sorting gate to either let them go or to direct them to a stanchion. I just have to come up with one.

That is a shears collection that anybody would be proud of. I sure do appreciate you getting them out, taking pics to show me. I really appreciate you bringing some and teaching me how to shear. Dunno how that is going to go-I have no stanchion yet and as mentioned above, can't kneel or squat. I hope it doesn't come down to me and you sprawled out on the dirt, rolling a sheep around and scooting on our butts after it. That would make a good America's Funniest Home Video.

This is going to be fun!