Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Baymule]

Nose knocker!

 

[Ridgetop]

We have those to, but don't seem to need them much even going in the pen with all 4 rams.

 

[Mike CHS]

I think he has finally figured out our status. In his first couple of years, he was pretty much let in with the ewes and that was about the limit. of attention

 

[Baymule]

Oshi lived a life of deprivation, no friendly Mike handing animal crackers. No scratches, no attention. He has landed in Utopia!

 

[Mike CHS]

We have had thunder storms in the forecast for the last five days but I didn't agree with the weather guessers and left the sheep in unsheltered paddocks. I got to watching it today and they were again calling for scattered rain but no storms and again, my experience told me not to believe them and I moved both herds into paddocks that had shelter. It started with a stormy rain about 8:00 tonight and it's still going. Our Border Collie, Lance, weighs in at 50 pounds and will stand nose to nose with a 1100 pound steer but he is terrified of thunder so he is spending the night in the bedroom on the floor rather than the closed in porch.

 

[Baymule]

Poor Lance. You can’t explain to a dog that Thunder Monsters are not going to hurt them.

 

[SageHill]

I didn't agree with the weather guessers

OMG - that is the best!!! Weather Guessers -- LOVE it!! (adding it to my vocabulary).

 

[Mike CHS]

We had a pair of 7 pound (ram/ewe) lambs born around 9:00 this morning so evidently, we aren't completely finished with the OOPs lambs and this was another ewe that didn't look ready to lamb but expected her bred. We did narrow down which ram lamb was the culprit so there is the possibility of more within the next two weeks. We obviously need to change our approach as to when to get ram lambs out of the herd. The only possibility is a three month old ram lamb that was sold exactly at the three month mark so he was breeding at 2 1/2 months old. He was one those lambs that gained almost a pound a day but we have always believed (until now) that they weren't capable of breeding at three months old. From here on, they will be banded or gone after weaning unless they are going to be registered. One of the ram lambs born last week is showing all the signs of possibly being a herd sire. He is only a week old but is already posing like a big boy.

 

[Baymule]

I had a little stinker like that. At less than a week old, he was leaving his momma and following the ewes with his nose all up in their lady parts. Under 2 months old, he was breeding the ewes! I snatched him out of there, but I think he popped them all. Saving grace was he wasn’t fertile yet. I waited 2 months before I put the ewes with Cooper. April was the month the ewes would have lambed, it’s past, whew! They are obviously bred, to Cooper!

When I first started in sheep, I weaned at 4 months. Now I wean at 2-3 for rams, mostly 2 months. Sneaky little stinkers!

Y’all might have to keep Oshi an extra year, for these ewes that he hasn’t had a chance at yet!

 

[Mike CHS]

But this boy was obviously fertile. The lambs are healthy and thriving so that's what it is all about even if it isn't on our schedule. What is funny is that our most trusting ewes are the ones that have lambed and their lambs are as tame as lambs get because they have no reason to fear. I'm not sure how the sheep arrange it but the three ewes that have lambed, come up to the stall about the time I go down to feed the dogs so they get their separate feeding time and the rest of the lambs stay out in the field.