Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Mike CHS]

I'm getting ready to crash after watching the NFL draft. I have not figured out why I enjoy watching that but I guess the reason doesn't matter since I enjoy it. Depending on weather tomorrow, we are going to call all of our sheep in to do the final shots and try harder to figure out who will be culled. We have a few ewes that are recorded but won't pass the hair sheep inspection so they are sure to go. This is another case where I wish we had more property so we could just put the culls on those acres since some of those that need to go are really good sheep and moms I would never make a good farmer if I had to do it for a living.

Our #5 ewe is going to get a break this season or possibly for the length of her life as she has been having a harder time each time recovering from lambing. She is the last of our first years lambs but has figured out how to beat the system. She knows that she will get an extra ration of feed if she just hangs out at the holding stall when I go down and she can come inside for more feed. We try to treat our sheep as a business but I can't let the last of our first lambs be sold as a cull ewe so she will spend all of her last years here.

Since we now have a new processor, we are going to band two of the current seasons lambs to be processed.

 

[Baymule]

What about Babs? I know she carries a wool thatch that a Dorper would be jealous of, but is a sweet darling. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes!

Because of attachment of the heart, I bred Lucy and Eve to Cooper and gave to my neighbor, Chase. I could not sell them. Lucy had triplets, Lucy had twins and they both are loved and spoiled.

Ewenique, the last of the 4 original ewes BJ and I bought, 10 years old, will die here.
Frimplepants gets a forever home because one of the last pictures I have of BJ is him petting her, talking baby talk, comforting her, while I hand shear the wooly mass off her back. Can’t sell her, can’t do it.

I guess I’m not doing so hot as a farmer business either.

 

[Mike CHS]

Babs is as much of a pet as the dogs so she is good right here and a plus is she makes some real pretty lambs.

 

[Baymule]

Babs is as much of a pet as the dogs so she is good right here and a plus is she makes some real pretty lambs.

 

[farmerjan]

I buried my old "Smokey" beef cow that I raised from a baby calf at about 15 or so. Buried the guernsey dairy cow "Tammy" that I was only her 2nd owner.... nothing wrong with understanding the difference between "she's been a good one and has a special place" and feeling sorry for ones that are just a drain on the whole system....

 

[Mike CHS]

Teresa got all of our records caught up and lists set up so we don't have to spend a lot of time figuring out which lamb belongs to which ewe tomorrow when we bring them in. We have a couple of lambs that have lost ear tags but I know who they belong to so we can retag them tomorrow.

It looks like our numbers are going back up but we will figure out tomorrow, how much that will be.

 

[Baymule]

As I build permanent infrastructure around here, I will do away with my old standby-cow panels. Sheep can get their heads through them and pop their ear tags off.

 

[Ridgetop]

That is why I don't like using them fir hay feeders. One year we built a hay feeder and used stock panels for the front for the sheep to eat through. When he was 12 DS1 had a flock of market sheep and had a beautiful pearl gray ewe born. He wanted to keep her for a breeder since she was very nice and he wanted to breed colored sheep for auction. She was about 6-8 months old and he came down to feed one afternoon and she caught herself with her head through the panel and strangled.

 

[Mike CHS]

We have been working sheep about all day so far but we took a break to come in and get some lunch. Our numbers have definitely gone up but still not sure. we have buyers coming next week and the week after so we are marking some of the registerable ewes as either/or. That is they can be sold since we can't keep all of them but we will keep them if they aren't sold early. That way we can go ahead and register them and sell as breeders once they are mature enough.

 

[Mike CHS]

We just finished up and It's a bit on the noisy side right now. We have seven ram lambs right at three months old. To avoid a repeat of last year's OOPs lambing cycle, they are no longer with the ewes. All except one can be registered so will let them grow out more and see how they do.