Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Mike CHS]

We had already worked it out about a ram. They can pick one out but not take it home until the lambs are mature enough to breed.

 

[Baymule]

We had already worked it out about a ram. They can pick one out but not take it home until the lambs are mature enough to breed.

Then that leaves you with 2 rams and you don’t like having 2 rams. They need to have a ram pen anyway, so maybe they need to build one?

 

[Ridgetop]

Having 2 rams in one pen is ok as long as the older ram (Oshi) does not try to kill the younger one. Our 3 rams live together except when one goes to a breeding pen. This time we have 3 nice little ram lambs we are keeping either for ourselves or to sell. They will be penned together until they are big enough to go in with the stud rams. Yes, another pen.

 

[Mike CHS]

Having 2 rams in one pen is ok as long as the older ram (Oshi) does not try to kill the younger one. Our 3 rams live together except when one goes to a breeding pen. This time we have 3 nice little ram lambs we are keeping either for ourselves or to sell. They will be penned together until they are big enough to go in with the stud rams. Yes, another pen.

We really aren't new to sheep.

 

[Mike CHS]

We picked up our taxes this morning and talked to the book keeper about next year. It look like the majority of items being depreciated are about all to expire so we need to increase our withholding.

Teresa just sent me a picture of Oshi and Pete the wether that I'm attaching. Spell check keeps changing the spelling on wether.

 

[rachels.haven]

Beautiful guy.

 

[Ridgetop]

You may have to buy some more equipment!

 

[Mike CHS]

The video in the link is also on UTube but I don't expect it to be up for very long. The video to me, is definitely worth watching but it is about 120 minutes long. I actually had some contact with a couple of the scientists in the video when I was working with the scientists in Antarctica on their ice mass tracking program.

Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth) - Martin Durkin

Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth) - Martin Durkin . This film exposes the climate alarm as an invented scare without any basis in science. It shows that mainstream studies and official data do not s

rumble.com

 

[Baymule]

Mike, you had a lot of triplets and I’m having triplets. Both of us went through drought last summer. I started feeding alfalfa in addition to the feed and hay I was giving the sheep. It wasn’t a lot, because it costs so much. But I felt sorry for the girls and they loved the alfalfa.

On TEG, I’ve been posting about my sheep and @Rammy jokingly teased me about trying to keep up with Mike. I’ve been giving credit for my rush of triplets to the alfalfa, but her question made me go back and ponder on what was happening last fall. Realization came to me and I copied my post and I’m posting it here. See if you agree.



Rammy said:
You trying to keep up with Mike's triplet run?
I figured out why all the triplets. Had terrible heat and drought last summer. 100+ temperatures for weeks and weeks. I had to dry lot the sheep so they didn’t damage and kill the grass. They went through a round bale of hay a week for almost 3 months. Once we got rain, I still couldn’t let them out, had to give the grass time to grow. While they were dry lotted, I started giving them alfalfa hay in addition to the grass hay and feed. Alfalfa is costly here, they didn’t get a lot, but they got a little twice a day.

I put this group of ewes with the ram on October 31, 2023. The grass had sprouted back out, fresh green grass, new growth, full of nutrition. The winter grass started growing about the time frost killed back the summer grass in November . Again, fresh, new growth. Plus I was still giving alfalfa twice daily.

So even in the horrible heat and drought, my girls didn’t lose condition, they were well fed. I stretched tarps for extra shade and that gave them heat relief. They got fresh cold water 3 times a day.

My poor livestock guard dogs couldn’t find a cool place, so I brought them to the front yard where they could go under the front porch. Sheba and Buford took the front yard, Sentry came in the house to a dog crate because he hates Carson, my farm dog. So 2 in the yard, 2 in the house. If I had to go to town, I went early so I could be back by 11 AM to water sheep again and move dogs.

Mike on BYH (in Tennessee) got rain before I did and it was a tad bit cooler there. So his sheep also got that new grass growing after being dormant all summer. Mike said they did nothing different, so it has to be the new grass after the summer drought.

@Rammy your question made me really consider what was going on last fall. I believe it was a combination of the alfalfa giving the ewes a little extra boost of nutrition, me feeding them through the heat and drought, then the flush of new summer grasses trying to come back to life followed by the winter grasses coming in. I had already given the alfalfa credit for more nutrition but I really had to ponder on this.

I don’t want another drought where I have to dry lot the sheep for almost 3 months, in order to have new growth of grasses. Even if it does bring on the triplets!
Thank you for asking your question! I know you meant it as a joke, but it really made me think on conditions last fall. Now I gotta go tell Mike-and I bet he doesn’t want extreme drought again either!

 

[Mike CHS]

We never had the extremes that you did but it's definitely something to think about.