Category Archives: Jacob sheep

Sheep flipping

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Several years ago after my second back surgery I bought  a turning sheep squeeze chute. I used it for a few years and then stopped because I felt like I needed a second person to help with it. It seemed to work better if someone held the sheep’s head still. My theory is that sheep with horns struggle when their horns get stuck in the spaces between the expanded metal side (that’s what my husband says that mesh is called). The sheep with 4 horns that have stubby side horns don’t seem to have as much of a problem and I think it’s because they don’t panic as they would if they felt their heads trapped.

I’d been thinking of selling the chute, but then decided that maybe I could modify it. I started by securing cardboard over the side with the mesh. That will not be a long term solution because the cardboard is pretty much destroyed now. But its a start.

Shelby and Jackie were here to help take fleece samples from all the yearlings (19) and trim their feet.

After you squeeze the sides of the chute you can turn the whole thing on its side.

Then you drop the floor so that you can easily get to the feet.

There are a few bars on the side of the chute that you can release so that you can get to the side of the sheep. I take fleece samples of all the yearlings so that I have at least one micron measurement and it’s taken at a consistent age.

There are still some bugs to work out. I think that if I could make a space for the head that would accommodate the horns but that the sheep didn’t think it could climb through the whole thing might work better. We’ll have to work on it.  I think the last time I used the chute it was with a couple of teenagers who were called in to help and argued until one or the other left the scene and then the other sulked. This was much different and vastly more pleasant. I must say that Jackie and Shelby got along just fine–no whining heard. Thanks!

New experience for Stephanie

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When dairy cows or goats have their babies, the calves and kids are raised away from the mothers.

Stephanie gets a chance to raise her baby. Stephanie is one of Chris’ original goats and I bred her to kid at the State Fair Nursery. I’m not in the goat business and  don’t want to bottle-raise a kid,  so I’m letting Stephanie take care of her baby. Stephanie potentially will produce far more milk than her single kid can handle, so for her health and the health of the kid, I am monitoring her production. I didn’t feed grain prior to the birth and she is not getting grain now because I don’t want to encourage more milk production. So far it seems that the kid is nursing from just one side so I am milking the other side once/day.

This is Paulette who lambed at the fair with these nice twins.

State Fair Wrap-Up

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The CA State Fair is still open but the sheep show was just through yesterday. Between having sheep with horns, putting up a lot of signs and visuals, and demonstrating, our area is the busiest in the sheep barn. I think I talked to more people here than I talk to all the rest of the year.

Here are my  sheep pens. I was shorted one sheep pen so I couldn’t use all the large signs I had made. Small signs on the gates answer the most frequently asked questions: “Why are some of the sheep covered?”  “Is he normal?” (on the adult ram pen), “Are these sheep or goats?”, and “Where are the pigs?”

This is the other part of the display.

I truly appreciate help from friends. This year Joan came on Sunday and Monday and shared the task of Educating the Public.

On Sunday Shelby helped let people pet the sheep and helped me show. Jackie was there also, but I don’t have photos. She took all the show rings photos.

Shelby went out looking for deep fried Snickers or something like that but came back with chocolate-covered bacon. As weird as it sounds it actually wasn’t bad but just one bite made me incredibly thirsty.

Dan likes to avoid the show ring, but he was pressed into service this year, starting with the yearling ram show.

This is Shelby helping show the yearling ewes.

This is our flock entry–4 ewes and one ram.

I chose the young ram, Meridian Granite, for this entry because I think the judge liked him the best of my sheep. Granite placed third in his class, just behind the Tunis sheep. Those of us in this show have decided that 3rd is the new 1st. This year the “Primitive & American Breeds Show” entries were Tunis (meat breed) , Shetlands, Jacobs, Icelandics, and St. Croix (a hair sheep). That’s a tough class to judge and I don’t know if any of us will ever get to first or second as long as the Tunis breeder comes. Not only is the breed hard to compete against in a traditional show, but this breeder shows all over and has a very competitive flock.

Here is the champion Tunis ram. Hard to compete with that. The judge, however, said that he thought my fleeces were the nicest Jacob fleeces that he has seen. He commented several times about the fleeces, so I was pleased with that.

I know it’s going to be hard to win with my sheep so I’m trying very hard to win with my display.

I ended up with some fancy ribbons after all…and some good prize money. That’s Best Program and overall second in the Open Sheep Show Best Marketing Program,  second in Sheep Herdsman, and Best Educational Presentation over all the livestock exhibits at the fair this week. I put a lot of work into this and spent 10 -12 hours at my sheep exhibit each day but it paid off in these awards.

State Fair-Day 2

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This is Day 2 for the sheep show at the State Fair, but a couple of my ewes have been there longer. Mary lambed there a few days ago with this nice ram lamb.

Stephanie is also at the fair waiting to kid.

The longhorns are always at the fair white the sheep are there. There are not as many as previous years and that’s too bad. They’re sure fun to see.

I have been staying at my sheep area all day  because I have a large display and am competing for awards for that. So today I took my drum carder and my electric spinner. I also took a bag of odds and ends that I’ve been waiting to send to the mill to blend with other wool. I decided that I’d do it at the fair. So this is what I’m starting with. It includes all the little bits and pieces that are left over from classes, samples from breeders, old dye projects, etc. There is mohair, Angora bunny, alpaca, silk, glitz, and a huge variety of wool.

These are some of the carded batts. I started spinning it tonight at the fair. I think I’ll ply it with a gray yarn and weave a blanket.

More photos tomorrow.

Trying to get ram photos

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It’s State Fair time again. My pregnant ewes are already in the Nursery there;  in fact two have lambed. The sheep show starts Friday and once again I’m trying to plan for a large display. The CA State Fair offers a large award for displays that go along with your livestock exhibit. I was going to use what I already had, but then decided a few days ago that I should make some changes. I have spent ALL DAY at this, as well as a lot of time over the past week. One of the tasks today was to take photos of the two rams that sired the 2010 lambs.

Easier said than done. That’s Meridian Tioga in front and Kenleigh’s Savor in the rear.

They aren’t actually running at me. They are running along the fence line to go back in the barn. But they have a narrow paddock and it was hard to position myself to get decent photos, especially since they kept together. Besides I don’t really like kneeling down to take photos when I’m in there by myself.  With plenty of cropping I finally got photos that will do. Next time I need to allow more time!

Kenleigh’s Savor

Meridian Tioga

Halter breaking

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I’m getting ready for Black Sheep Gathering in Oregon followed by the Solano County Fair  the net week. Part of that is halter breaking.

Jackie has been helping. She has finished her Spinners Lead entry but now needs to make sure that one of the lambs will cooperate for the show.

These are two of the knitted, felted bowls that Jaci has made.

I’ll race you to breakfast!

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I’m pleased with the pasture this year, especially considering the number of sheep I have grazing. One 5-acre pasture is subdivided with electric fence (NZ spider fence) into 8 paddocks, each of which can be split in half using electric net fencing. There is one other 2-acre piece that I split in half. Here is the paddock the sheep went into yesterday.

If you go to the “prescribed burning” tag on the right you will see this same paddock (looking from the other direction). See all the dry grass? There was so much tall, rank dallis-grass that there was no green feed growing up through it. We burned it two years ago and with proper grazing I’m able to keep the dallis-grass in check and there is a lot of trefoil and other desirable plants. In the photo above it’s those clumps that are the dallis-grass. The sheep eat it readily if it’s kept in an early vegetative stage.

This is after I opened the net-fence at the end of this paddock and the sheep are going into the new one.

A few lambs who didn’t get all the way around the fence and then started following the ewes back up the fence line on the wrong side. Now Rusty gets to help.

You can easily see the difference between the paddock they were just on and the new one. A paddock is not overgrazed by putting a lot of animals on it; it’s overgrazed by time. Once a pasture is eaten low it needs to rest. If the animals continue to graze it as the new growth occurs, there will be negative impact on the root system and it will take much longer for the plants to recover. So the trick is to eat the paddock evenly and then move the sheep to a new paddock. By concentrating the sheep on a small area they eat all the plants, not just the ones they like best. This also helps with parasite control. right now with the lambs getting so big I’m moving the sheep every day or two. If I go through all the paddocks too quickly I may need to hold the sheep off and feed them in the barn for a little bit. I will probably try to coincide that with my next irrigation when I have to have sheep off the pasture anyway.

Another fence-line photo.

Entries for Solano County Fair were due this week so I needed to figure out who to enter. It was fun to separate out all my yearlings for a look. You get a different feel for the sheep when you get them out of the main group and I hadn’t had a look at the yearlings as a group since they were lambs last year.

This is most of the 19 yearlings in the flock. There are some really nice sheep with with great fleece in this group. I narrowed the field down more and more until I chose my show sheep. (drum roll please….) And the winners are…

…Dazzle and Spring. They both have nice conformation, good size, and consistent fleeces. I have entered these two, the two yearling rams, and 4 lambs. Does anyone want to come help me show? It’s June 22-24, a few days after Black Sheep Gathering.