It’s been in the high 80’s the last couple of days.
I think it’s time to put away the winter clothing.
We Missed Spring
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Author Archives: Robin
Donkey Diet
I have learned that a donkey is probably not the best choice as a guardian animal for sheep that graze irrigated pasture in the summer and eat alfalfa in the winter. My sheep eat a rather rich diet compared to what a donkey needs. So Amaryllis was put on a diet. For the last 6 weeks or so I have fed her grass hay, but to do that I have had to keep her separate from the sheep. As many of you know, Amaryllis doesn’t care much about the sheep, but she really likes Stephanie, the goat (although the feeling is not mutual). So Stephanie and Amaryllis have been in a stall at night and I have put Amaryllis in an outside pen during the day.
I found a potential solution at my local feed store.
This is a grazing muzzle. There are holes that allow the wearer to drink and to eat little amounts of grass that poke through the holes. If Amaryllis wears the muzzle I can put her back in the pasture with the sheep (and Stephanie). I did that yesterday and today and put her back in her stall at night to eat grass hay. I will have to experiment with the amount of time she wears the muzzle and stays in the pasture. Maybe some horses wear it full-time.
I don’t know if the sheep were more interested in welcoming Amaryllis back or wanted to investigate her new muzzle.
They were happy to accompany her back to the pasture.
Before…
After. I think I can tell a little difference.
Color Wheel in Fiber
I taught Exploring the Fiber Color Wheel this week. Here are some photos.
We used the three primary colors to create secondary and tertiary colors and complete a 12-color color wheel. Dona’s wheel has some other blends in it as well.
Mary used printer’s primaries (cyan, magenta, yellow) to create her color wheel.
Jean also used printer’s primaries and spun her fiber.
We made tints by carding with white.
Here is the left-overs from the floor and the carders blended together.
Today I had a chance to card my own colors. I will spin this tomorrow night at Spinners Night Out. What will I weave???
You can find out more about this class by clicking here.
Ouch!
I have been vigilant in trying to watch for mastitis in the ewes. It’s not easy to spot until you see a ewe that doesn’t want to get up or is lame. Lame? Yes, the infected side of the udder becomes extremely painful and the ewe doesn’t want any pressure against it so she limps. Have any of you women ever had a breast infection? Then you know what I’m talking about.
I am learning that mastitis in sheep can progress so quickly that you often don’t see any signs until it is too late. Prevention or early detection is the answer. (Do I sound like a health care ad?) I noticed a lopsided udder a couple of weeks ago. I caught the ewe and her lambs. It was obvious that the ewe was not letting the lambs nurse on one side. I found a scab at the top of the teat–maybe something that started from vigorous lambs with sharp teeth (nursing moms can relate to that too). I used an udder cream to help soften the scab and I milked her out. Fortunately the milk still looked good–not starting to get chunky or cheesy. I kept that ewe in for a few days, milking her some, but mainly making sure that she let the lambs nurse–which she did when I used the cream on her udder. She is fine now.
Today in the pasture I saw Athena from the rear and thought that she looked a little lopsided, but not too much. I was able to sneak up on her and feel the udder. Hard. Immediate response needed. I brought all the ewes in so I could catch her and her lambs. Here is what her teat looked like:
It is hard and inflexible. A normal teat is squishy so you can actually get milk out. The good news is that the milk is still OK and I can get milk out if I milk her by squeezing the lower part of the udder and the upper part of the teat. The bad news is that it is very painful for her and she will get mastitis if I can’t keep the milk flowing or unless I dry her off so that there is no milk production at all. You can’t stimulate milk production on one side and not the other.
Here is what her lambs look like right now:
They are 50 & 55 pounds. Although normally I would have let them continue to nurse, at that weight and 2 months old they can be weaned. So they are on their own now and Athena is in a stall with a wether (with whom she is extremely annoyed) on no feed or water for a little while to help with the drying off process (discouraging milk production). Her udder will continue to fill with milk, but that in itself inhibits milk production. I will give her banamine as a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory and LA 200 as a prophylactic aid to prevent infection (not normally done when drying off). Hopefully without the stimulus to produce more milk she won’t get mastitis and hopefully the teat will heal without damage that might inhibit next year’s milk production. Athena is a really nice ewe and I’d hate to lose her for this.
It’s been a week since Meet the Sheep, our spring open house. My internet service has been sketchy and every time I started to add photos it was too slow and I gave up. I think technology has been upgraded and hopefully all is well with our internet tower. I can see that tower on the mountain several miles away (one of many–I don’t really know which it is–do you think they could put a ribbon on it so I can pick it out?) and if I can see it, shouldn’t the little thing on the roof be able to pick up the signal?
The Saturday of Meet the Sheep we had gorgeous weather and I know that was one reason we seemed to be so popular. Dozens of people came and enjoyed the sheep, the goats, fiber, fresh air, and a wonderfully sunny (dry) day. As always Farm Club members were a huge help.
Paulette always enjoys a good scratch.
This is an Angora kid owned by my friend, Julie, of Black Oak Ranch.
Julie brought kids and a bottle lamb, all of which were very popular.
She also did a dying demonstration.
Shelby brought her tame chickens.
Jackie demonstrated carding and…
…Alison taught a visitors how to spin.
First handspun yarn.
Photo opportunities
Fashion footwear
Checking out chickens
Fresh yarn
Of course it was all about Meeting the Sheep:
The grass really IS greener on the other side
Faulkner, the BFL ram lives with his buddy, Jerry, because I don’t want to put him up against the adult Jacob rams with horns. He lives in what used to be the pig pen back in our 4-H and FFA days. I have been meaning to expand his pen ever since last year and finally got to it (with the help of son, Chris) yesterday.
Hey, Jerry, where are those bars? I can't see them.
Jerry: Dude, I don't see them either. I think there is some invisible force-field though. I wouldn't go any further.
What do we do now?
Faulkner: There is that annoying dog. Let's pretend we don't notice him.
Jerry: Hey, dude, the dog's power corrupted the forcefield and now we can get through.
Happy Sheep.
Barn chores
Today I decided to clean the ram pen. Over the last few months the rams have broken a few bars out of the feeder. I didn’t realize until a few days ago that they had been pulling most of the hay through the broken area, so there was a big build up of wasted hay.
Rusty moved the rams to the back and I had him keep an eye on them while I worked. (You can read Rusty’s blog post about this.)
This shed that the rams have for shelter is an old concrete building that has barbed wire instead of rebar for reinforcement (there is a hole where you can see that). I have reinforced the end of this wall with wood and this is where the gate hangs. That is also where I throw the hay into the feeder and hadn’t noticed how it had built up. I was filling up the wheelbarrow and then I noticed this:
This pen had flooded a month or so ago and all that old straw was wet. Look at all those mushrooms. I was glad that my friend, Jackie, was coming over in a little while because I knew that she would be excited about mushrooms.
Jackie has been doing some natural dyeing so we scooped up a lot of these mushrooms and she is going to experiment with them.
Jackie’s daughter and her boyfriend are visiting from New York. While her daughter visited with the sheep, Jackie and Mark pitched in and helped me finish cleaning the ram pen. That’s my kind of visitors!
Pretty faces
I think I am procrastinating, but I like looking at pretty sheep photos…especially when it’s dreary and raining outside.
This is a ram lamb but he doesn’t look so tough when he still has little tufts of hair on his horns.
Hot Lips
Rosie
Faulkner’s lamb
Nap Time
BFL x Jacob
Several people are anxiously waiting for the black BFL (Blue face Leicester) x Jacob lambs to grow up so that we can evaluate their fleeces. The BFL is a long-wool breed (but with a finer fiber diameter compared to other long-wool breeds) and Jacob wool is in the fine-medium range. Crossing these two doesn’t mean that you get a fiber in the middle range of fleeces. Here are some photos of the BFL X fleeces and lambs.
The photos below are of the youngest lambs. You can see quite a difference in their fleeces.
By the way, I did not cross these breeds with the idea of keeping sheep for fleece. My goal was to produce a larger lamb and be able to market them more quickly at a higher weight.
Meridian Jacobs' Blog 