Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[farmerjan]

Lepto? Don't know if that is in the CDT you give the sheep? We are going to get a blood test on the 2nd cow that had a dead calf, because she calved about a month early...3 days after the first cow that had the dead calf and got so mean.... trying to get her to take the calf we had originally gotten for the other cow. Cow does not have much milk. She's not mean but not really wanting the calf either... won't stand still unless in the chute, dances all around... the poor calf... I am supplementing a bottle a day, hoping he would get her to come into her milk more by nursing but he is getting discouraged with her unwillingness to stand for him.
There have been 3 live new calves born since,,,, so maybe it is just a coincidence....
Will be testing for lepto as well as the theileria....plus anything the vet thinks would be worth checking into...

 

[fuzzi]

Auction next Saturday. At least two ewes, one ram lamb, and a couple of ewe lambs from last May will be going. Got several of the ear numbers on the lambs. The Texas scrapie tags are too small to read, so will have to check those when we confine the lambs. I still need the rest of the ear numbers, especially on the ones I might want to keep for sale as registered ram lambs. I have several rm lambs that are out of top bloodline ewes sired by the AU embryo ram. I would ie tp put together a cople of starter flocks and advertise them. A selling point would be the ram's bloodlines.

I got more wallpaper down today. First picture is the bathroom with the paper and paint. Second is the wall that I got down.
View attachment 114881 View attachment 114882 Got it down all the way to the shower an around the corner of the bathroom to the mirror over the sink. Stil have to use the hot water andvinegar to cleanup the walls and remove the last bits of paper. it will takeanother cole days till I can prime the walls and woodwork. I have to fill the holes in the cabinet doors and drawers. Original holes were for pulls, then they drilled a third hole for knobs and covered the other holes with a brass plate. I have new pulls bought on sale a year ago. I'll fill the center hole with wood putty before painting. Coming along!

The pictures everyone has been waiting for:
TAA DAH!
View attachment 114880 Big barn with second light up.
View attachment 114879 Side barn with second light up.
View attachment 114876 Tack room is now a feed room instead of a dark scary hole. It ony needs more shelves to hold the equipment. The feed barrels are around the corner to the right. The door has a rack where we keep horse halters, sheep halters, etc.
AND A REAL LIVE OUTLET AND LIGHT SWITCH! Now we can turn the lights on and off instead of having to disconnect the electrical wires. And we have an outlet to plug in the shears and Hoof Boss.
View attachment 114878 View attachment 114877
Only thing missing is a sexy farmhand - Oh wait! I have DH.

DH has taken over the bottle feeding of the 2 lambs. They are each eating about 8-10 ounces per feeding. They are fed 3X daily. I am feeding the homemade formula recipe mixed half and half with Land O Lakes formula. They are doing well.

Every night when DS1, DH and I go out to feed DS1 puts the grain in the side barn before letting in the ewes. They rush madly in followed by their lambs. Then the lambs turn around and rush madly out and run in circles from the hay bales around the 5th wheel and back. It is apparently a grand game for them. Very annoying for us tryng to put them into the side barn for the night. As soon as we open the gate for some to go in others run out!
Soooo much fun. For them.

I took animal crackers out to my girls tonight. They all came up to me and nuzzled looking for treats. Not animal crackers apparently. One of them actually bit off a piece of one. I was excited but she did not want more. I crushed the crackers up and mixed them in with sweet feed tried hand feeding them. Finally I had DS1 sprinkle them over the feed in the feeders. We'll see if they want them tomorrow.

Tomorrow more wallpaper comes down. Also need to get the creep gates set up and move the alfalfa into the side barn and put it in the jug I had for the loose hay. Also need a can for the grain. Maybe two cans.

Love, LOVE the lights, and other improvements!

 

[Ridgetop]

We don't vaccinate the sheep for Lepto, just the dogs. We have not seen much in the way of rats or mice around the feed room either. If w hav another lamb born dead I will see about taking it for a necropsy. Not sure if there is room in the freezer right now. I took the rest of the Land O Lakes replacement powder out yesterday to make room. Brooshires had another sale on Blue Bell ice cream and DH went mad. LOL Hoping we are just about at the end of lambing season.

DS1 took his measurements and is planning on cutting out the damaged tin between the main barn and the side barn and putting in a doorway with a gate. It will make it easier to move feed from one side to the other when graining the sheep. When that is done he will move all the alfalfa (about 5-6 bales) into the rear of the side barn and redo the fencing in that end of the side barn. Then put up the creep gates. He looked at the Sydell catalog yesterday and we called Kyle for more information about some of the newer panels, They have an expandable panel and I am considering buying one of them since it would be invaluable when dividing up spaces where the panels fall short a foot or so. We need some more of the lightweight basic panels and there is a 10% off sale right now ending Friday. Free deliveryto several shows as well as the big Dorper National in Duncan OK in April. Take the stock trailer to transport the equipment and in case I buy a new ram. You know my history! Need to go over the order with DS1. Thy also have "quad posts" which have attachment loops on 4 sides. These are super useful when attaching the panels as gates since you can't swing the panels when 3 of them are attached together. We have 3 of the quad psts and they are really handy. We never used them in CA but here we have more room and can use them with the portable panels to make more useful/useable jug/pen designs.

 

[Mini Horses]

Buy, buy, buy.....

 

[Margali]

We don't vaccinate the sheep for Lepto, just the dogs. We have not seen much in the way of rats or mice around the feed room either. If w hav another lamb born dead I will see about taking it for a necropsy. Not sure if there is room in the freezer right now.

Needs to be refrigerated not frozen.

 

[Ridgetop]

Another dead lamb this afternoon but this is the one whose mama had the long dead and decomposing almost full term lamb inside her. Her tiny ram lamb that was born alive has not been really active or healthy looking since birth. He never looked like he was getting enough to eat but just slept for the most part. Pretty sure that he got poisoned in utero by the dead lamb. I had to give the mama 2 injections 1.5cc Oxytocin before she delivered the dead lamb. I also gave her several doses of Penn. She is doing well and will get another chance.

We loaded 123, 332, GR41, and 2 stunted looking lambs to go to the auction tomorrow. 332 has improved and is up eating, etc, so have decided to dispse of her now. She has given me 2 ewe lambs and a nice ram lamb. The ram lamb is a bottle lamb which is nt wht I like to keep for breeding, but he is a nice fellow and with her bloodlines and the sire's should be a good prospect. 123 is her mother and has not settled for 2 years. She should bring a good price since she is large and wll filled out She has a good udder although empty. She is only 5 years old and I have another daughter from her. GR41 was already going to be a cull since she had a really lopsided ugly udder. She lambed a dead lamb so no point feeding her another 8 months. One of the lambs from last year is really tiny. Thw other one that is going is also small for her age although not bad looking. We had more yearlings than I thought and some of them are nicely grown out so they stayed and I took @Bay's advice to let some of the smaller ones grow out longer and breed them. After the terrible parasite and Coccy spring last year they look surprisingly healthy. One of the smaller Moyboysired ewe lambs is pretty shaggy and I was going to send her too but when DS1 grabbed her to put hwe in the pen, he said she was surprisingly heavy. Heavier in fact than a couple of the larger lambs so we checked her over and she has a wide loin and a terrific leg. She can stay and we will see what she develops into. These yearlings are actually 8 months old so can still grow a good bit. We will keep them on a grain ration in addition to the hay and pasture. I won't breed them until they are over a year old.

Tomorrow I have to check ear tags and write down the numbers for the auction. Then I have to try to read ear tags on the remaining 2024 lambs to make sure that I sort out the papers belonging to the ones that died.

DH and DS1 talked about the Sydell order with e and decided that we will get th 10 pack of hinged 5' panels. DS1 did the math and said that the footage of those was a better buy than single panels. Since we have 10 or 12 5' single panels already, the hinged 5' panels will make up easily into jugs. DS1 likes the hinged sides for gates. Also getting a couple 4-way posts, and 1 expandable panel. That panel is expensive but will be much handier than DS1 or DH realizes. Right now we want to set up the creeppanels but have to angle them with a longer panel since we need 11'. This is 1' more than 2 of our 5' panels OR 1' less that ne of our 7' panels and the 5' creep. Doable but much easier with an expandable panel. The creep is not the only place that an expandable panel would come in handy when constructing pens. The 10 pack saves about $100+ and theere is a 10% off salw until February 14. They will deliver to the National Dorper Show in Duncan OK so no delivery fee. And we can go to the National as well! Win, win! I have saved all our Best Western points from our trips back and forth so we should be able to stay in Duncan free too! And I will pick up another Axtell ram from Travis at the same time.