Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Latestarter]

Oh, that's right, I completely forgot the other chicken coop Teresa made. I have to assume that it's working out well for you and the birds. Maybe you can get Jay to do the gate manufacture for you so you don't have to put additional stress on the bad shoulder? So I believe I recollect that you said this time around you're going to let the butcher lambs grow out longer for more meat. So when are you anticipating that they'll be ready to go? Fall some time?

 

[Mike CHS]

We are going to have to sell all or most of the new meat lambs by 5 months at the latest so they should be 100 lbs before that. We will creep feed for the 1st month and then go to straight grass for the rest of the time. Since we aren't banding they will have to be sold before they get to breeding age.

 

[Mike CHS]

We went into Lewisburg and was gone for about an hour. Looked down to the shop shelter and one of the ewes is cleaning off a set of just born twins. I'll get the other info later when I go down to feed the dogs.

 

[Mike CHS]

Just let us know Fred but I'm keeping all of the ewe lambs.

A few minutes ago I looked down at the shop stall and could see my girl Notag cleaning off her single lamb. We went down to check sex and get a couple of pictures and she has a big ewe lamb. We will weigh her after they get some bonding time but I'm guessing 10-11 pounds.

Notags ewe lamb is 10.7 lbs

The twins that were just born belong to our 3 year old 7 with one being a ram lamb and the other a ewe lamb.

 

[Mike CHS]

WARNING
One of the pictures is a bit graphic if that kind of thing bothers you.

Here are a few pictures of 7's ram and ewe lambs. Mom wasn't quite finished cleaning them up yet.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Oh how Sweet!!....love the 2nd pic....they are trying to figure it out...and the one in the back is wanting to see too!!.....

 

[Baymule]

Nice lambs! I am not cutting my ram lambs either. I’ll put them in a separate pasture to wean them. The ewe lambs will go in another pasture.

How many ewes do you have now?

 

[Mike CHS]

We have 18 ewes that are bred and 2 that were younger/smaller that I didn't breed.

 

[Baymule]

10 ewes is my target. I have 4 breeding ewes, 3 that are ready to breed and I am keeping the 2 ewe lambs from this year. That will give me 9 ewes. I have another ewe lamb from this year and she is a single from a ewe that always has singles and her daughter that I kept just had her second single. So the new little ewe lamb will be for sale.

 

[Mike CHS]

I think our base flock will stay around 25. I'm just trying to stay at a size where I have plenty of grass. There seemed no end to it when I was the one cutting the grass but the sheep are a whole lot more efficient. So far the ewe lambs that have been born are keepers and I'm going to sell three of the 2 & 3 year old ewes.

A surprise for us is our ram Ringo is throwing lambs with some color and I'm liking their size.