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Tomorrow is the beginning of the MD State FFA Convention. I applied for my state degree, and I'm participating in Ag Quiz Bowl and FFA Knowledge. In August, I will be competing in Livestock Judging (last year I was 'on' the team, but the contest was the day we left for vacation...our team ended up going to nationals and because I didn't compete in the initial contest, I wasn't able to go 
hopefully we'll have the same luck this year!). I will be spending the night there until Thursday, so if you don't see me on here, it's 'cause I'm at the convention.
My brothers don't like sheep (or really any other animal except dogs and cats) so I will be nagging them everyday while I'm gone to make sure they feed my sheep. I made it simple for them--I picked 30 lbs of hay from the round bale (boy did that take forever!) and I put it in six trash bags--one for each pen for each day; there are three 7 lb bags for the ewes/wether and three 3 lb bags for my ram. It will take all of two minutes to throw the hay and grain in the feeders plus maybe up to five minutes to water them, depending on what the water level's at.
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Today I gave my lambs their first CD/T shot. I like to do my shots at 30 & 60 days old (even though today I was one day behind), and then ewe lambs will get a booster 30 days pre-breeding, and then everybody gets a booster 30 days pre-lambing.
While I was attempting to catch the lambs, Paulie thought I was going after him or something so he jumped over the water bucket and lattice (it's supposed to separate the pens above the water bucket so they don't jump over the water into the other pen) and somehow he managed to break the bottom off of the water bucket. (I'm not really sure exactly how it happened since he was behind me running away from me...I just heard a thud and then a rush of water and I turned around and he was in the ram pen with the bucket overturned and broken.) So I didn't want to go out and buy another bucket so I scrounged around our shed for the large bucket we keep our 'outdoor toys' in (like basketballs, squirtguns, tennis/badminton rackets, etc) and I washed that out and filled it up. Their 'new' bucket is at least 10 or 15 years old so I hope it holds up better than this bucket that we've only had for about a month.
I need to get myself a crook...they are sooo useful. My neighbor's crook worked great up until about a year ago when it snapped in half (it was an old wooden one). Better yet, I need to fence off one side of the steps so the sheep only have one 'exit' instead of two, on either side of the pole. I think that will be a major help in trying to catch sheep
hopefully we'll have the same luck this year!). I will be spending the night there until Thursday, so if you don't see me on here, it's 'cause I'm at the convention.My brothers don't like sheep (or really any other animal except dogs and cats) so I will be nagging them everyday while I'm gone to make sure they feed my sheep. I made it simple for them--I picked 30 lbs of hay from the round bale (boy did that take forever!) and I put it in six trash bags--one for each pen for each day; there are three 7 lb bags for the ewes/wether and three 3 lb bags for my ram. It will take all of two minutes to throw the hay and grain in the feeders plus maybe up to five minutes to water them, depending on what the water level's at.
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Today I gave my lambs their first CD/T shot. I like to do my shots at 30 & 60 days old (even though today I was one day behind), and then ewe lambs will get a booster 30 days pre-breeding, and then everybody gets a booster 30 days pre-lambing.
While I was attempting to catch the lambs, Paulie thought I was going after him or something so he jumped over the water bucket and lattice (it's supposed to separate the pens above the water bucket so they don't jump over the water into the other pen) and somehow he managed to break the bottom off of the water bucket. (I'm not really sure exactly how it happened since he was behind me running away from me...I just heard a thud and then a rush of water and I turned around and he was in the ram pen with the bucket overturned and broken.) So I didn't want to go out and buy another bucket so I scrounged around our shed for the large bucket we keep our 'outdoor toys' in (like basketballs, squirtguns, tennis/badminton rackets, etc) and I washed that out and filled it up. Their 'new' bucket is at least 10 or 15 years old so I hope it holds up better than this bucket that we've only had for about a month.
I need to get myself a crook...they are sooo useful. My neighbor's crook worked great up until about a year ago when it snapped in half (it was an old wooden one). Better yet, I need to fence off one side of the steps so the sheep only have one 'exit' instead of two, on either side of the pole. I think that will be a major help in trying to catch sheep
, but unfortunately it doesn't go anywhere. Our first round we won 65 to -10, the second round was a tie 45-45, but the other team answered the tiebreaker question wrong so we won and then our last round we really thought we were going to lose, because the other team kept buzzing in before any of us did. But the last five questions were soo easy (they dealt with animals) and I answered all of them, winning our team 25 points! So we won our final round 45-35. So we got to go up on stage during one of the sessions and shake the state officer's hands and get a plaque 
