Teresa and Mike Lambing Thread Winter 2019 Part2

[misfitmorgan]

They are so gorgeous

Bottle lambs are another experience that is nowhere near as hard as what you read about.

There was no getting up at night and they got fed on our schedule and they have done great. Your recipe for the milk worked great by the way and they are thriving.

Thats how we do ours too, the first few days can be noisy but they settle into the schedule quickly. We usually do one feeding at 5am, one at 3pm, and one at 10pm, and make sure they always have water, hay and grain.

 

[Mike CHS]

We went down to put ear tags on the latest 3 lambs but could only find two of them. Teresa started going through the list and then Pepper came up looking for a treat. I looked down to give her some scratches and also at a very wide body that obviously still had lamb(s) in there. We have two girls that are identical and somehow got them listed wrong on the note sheet so there is still one ewe left to lamb.

 

[B&B Happy goats]

Ahhhh and so lambing season continues .....

 

[Rammy]

 

[Ridgetop]

At least you found the missing lambs and they were safe! Of course ear tagging was harder . . . .

So, questions about your electric netting . . . Is the 1000' of electric net fencing from Premier? Do you like it? It is as easy to install as the video makes it look (our old netting was not that easy, but it did not have the extra stabilizing verticals. It was the original netting 30 years ago. Your ground is probably softer, more level, and and better land than our steep hard clay and shale too, so maybe it works better for you. Although the pos/neg and drive in posts (new to Premier since we bought our first netting) sound sturdier. We are super dry here and super hard rocky dirt. I was looking at the middle range temporary fencing, pos/neg with drive in posts, and using additional drive in support posts at the corners and ends of the runs to help support it. I would have to weed whack a path to put the fencing up on since the mustard is so tall - 5' in areas. I would need about 800 feet to enclose the entire 200' x 200' area we need grazed completely down along the field next to the buildings. That area is in the large field and we need to confine the sheep to eat everything otherwise they are picky and leave the area to get better stuff. LOL When they don't get it completely grazed down, we have to weed whack which is the reason we have the sheep! That would take 8 100' rolls to do the entire 4000sf at once. Too much money, so maybe get 4 rolls and do 100' X 100' at a time and move the fence 3 times. Shipping at the moment is free and we have an older Premier solar charger.

One side of the area is bordered by an old chain link fence so instead of running the netting in a complete rectangle maybe I could run 3 sides and connect the electricity in the fences by running standoffs and electric tape along the existing chain link fencing. The electric tape connected to the netting would complete the circuit, right?

 

[Baymule]

At least you found the missing lambs and they were safe! Of course ear tagging was harder . . . .

 

[Mike CHS]

Premier1 has a chart that shows a good rotation using 4 of their 162' nets but doing a quick search I didn't find it but I'll try again tomorrow. Their short rolls are 82' and the longer nets are 162'. We use more of the long nets and find the shorter sections give us a lot of flexibility. We also have several of their 21' netting gates (which we just bought) which you can also use with T-Posts. We ran a long section of poly rope last summer that even the cows respect but it is a pain to set up. The cows don't challenge the netting either so that works for us.

Our setup works fairly easy since we planned on using netting to start with and had hot wire above or low on all of our fences. The alligator clips makes any fence we want to be hot.

We have clay soil also and most of it is anything but flat. The posts go in fairly easy in most cases when you rock back and forth while it's going in. We use a BUNCH of the TSC step in post for angles and turns plus a little bailing twine to attach the netting corners.

 

[Mike CHS]

I consider you a good friend now so I won't comment on my counting error. We have more than 50 of those critters out there now so I can admit to memory loss.

 

[Baymule]

I consider you a good friend now so I won't comment on my counting error. We have more than 50 of those critters out there now so I can admit to memory loss.

I was laughing at the thought of you trying to ear tag unborn lambs.

 

[Ridgetop]

You would not believe my lambing and weighing chart - so many cross outs and corrections! I have to recopy and make new ones at least once during the season. God forbid the darn critters lose an ear tag! I have to round everybody up and write down all the remaining numbers to figure out which one will have to be retagged, or just listed as "No tag"! LOL