Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[farmerjan]

@Ridgetop you do realize that both Cydectin and Zimectrin are in the same class of wormer.. so you basically wormed them with the same thing... sometimes the formulation is different, and sometimes a second drug may be added such as clorsulon(SP?) which is effective against liver flukes... You have to switch to Valbazen or Prohibit ... they are each a different class of wormer and will affect the sheep in a different manner.

 

[Baymule]

Keeping a bottle lamb for taming down weaned lambs is a good idea. My bottle wether, Spot, Granny’s reject is the ugliest lamb I’ve ever raised. Pot belly, hatchet blade shoulders, skinny neck and big head, he looks like he was assembled out of leftover parts. But he loves me, runs to me when I call, and the ram lambs I weaned with him are calming down.

 

[Ridgetop]

I have some Valbazen so will worm with that next time. Bought the Zimectrin for tapeworm. Maybe I wll return it - it was expensive and I haven't used all of it yet.

 

[Ridgetop]

Lost one of last year's ram lambs last night. It choked on something, went into convulsions, and died in front of us. We could feel the big lump in its throat from whatever it choked on. Upsetting. This morning DH took it out and dumped it the Outer Limits of the hay field. Whie he was out there he pcked up the skeletons of 3 of the sheep that died since last year's haying. He put them on one of the burn piles.

While he was doijg that, DS1 unloaded the feed and put t away. I duped the 100 lbs. of salt in the plastic trash can. The I mixed half and half mineral and salt and put some out for all 3 sheep pens. The rams were very excited when I brought the bucket of mineral salt in but after rushing to the bin where I poured the mineral and salt mix, they were not impressed. Oh well.

Finished painting DH's closet. Some water damage at the ceiling in one corner of the closet. I had to use joint compound to reattach the joint tape at one end. Took care of that yesterday but the mud had to dry overnight. Painted everything this am, including the shelves. Once the paint dries I will install the upper rod supports, cut the new rod, and replace the shelves. Then everything can go back in the closet and some extra stuff come out of the boxes under the bed. I will also go through the clothes and sort out for Good Will donations. Little by little things are getting accomplished.

Next project, sorting the lambs for the Saturday auction. DS1 and I will paint mark the ewes whose lambs go to the auction, to move into the open ewes pen. DS1 said he wants to do it Wednesday or Thursday. I would like to shear as well while we have the ewes in the pens. Then we can paint mark the ewes and their lambs for easy identification. If we mark the lambs that are going on Saturday in advance, on Friday night we can just grab the marked lambs and toss them into the trailer.

We are running into a time crunch because the tractor is finally finished! Just shy of 4 months in the shop and of course they want us to drop everything and come pick it up NOW. Can't do that because we have an appoitment with our new accountant in Quitman tomorrow, and having to sort lambs for the Saturday auction. DS1 said he would take the lambs to the auction but then remembered that we need the truck to pull the trailer to pick up the tractor. LOL We have an appointment on next Wednesday so will have to figure out when we can pick up the tractor. We'll figure it out.

Also I joined the Ladies Auxiliary (used t be Altar Society) at church yesterday. Next Sunday DH will be going to his first Knights of Columbus meeting at this church. They have an active KC and he is looking forward to it. This is a small congregation but they are very active - every month the Knights put on a breakfast. I signed up to supply a desert for the KC Friday Night Fish Fry at church for the next 3 weeks. The ladies' club is putting on a Palm Sunday brunch and a Tea Party in May. Unfortunately we won't be able to attend either of those since we wll be in Duncan at the Dorper National on Palm Sunday and on our way to California the day of the Tea. I would have volunteered to cook for those as well if we were going to be here. The church also is having a rummage sale in June but we will be on our ay back from California so I couldn't sign up to help then either. I love rummage sales. Sadly the Ladies' Auxiliary goes dormant during the summer. The last meeting would have fallen on Easter so it was cancelled. Nice group of ladies and there is always next year. We are making friends.

The pump shed is back on schedule. I am anxious to get it finished so I can move the holiday stuff out of the house into storage in there. We need to go to Costco again to get another set of heavy duty storage shelves for it.

Got to check the paint and see if i is dry enough to put up the rod supports.