Spring Shearing in a Big Way

Posted on March 24, 2014 by Robin

A couple of friends and I went to see shearing on a commercial sheep ranch about 30 miles south of here. We got there in just enough time to see the last part of shearing 3000 sheep in 2 1/2 days.The original flock was made up of Corriedale sheep and over the years was crossed with Targhee and other commercial white-faced sheep. Sheep going into shearing trailer The sheep are gathered at the back of a trailer that is hauled from ranch to ranch with all the gear. They go up the chute with the encouragement of……Border Collies as well as people.Here is a view from the other end of the trailer. That sheep in front hangs out for awhile in that position because the other sheep are more likely to go forward if they see a sheep in front of them. Notice how the sheep walk on a raised alleyway while the freshly shorn fleeces are shoved out of the trailer below them.Here is a photo of the inside of the trailer. There are seven shearers at work. The sheep walk forward on the raised alley. Fleeces are pushed out beneath.When the shearer is ready for the next sheep he pulls the door down with his foot and flips the sheep off the alleyway into position for shearing.

After the sheep are shorn they are sent out the doors on the other side of the trailer.

The fleeces are scooped from the trailer and quickly examined by a sorter/classer who determines where they end up. The fleeces are thrown into the appropriate pile. My friends who owns the ranch had requested that the finer fleeces shorn on that day be put aside for us to look at. It turns out that even the not-so-fine fleeces seemed just as nice to us. Last year’s core samples indicated that most of this flock’s wool graded in the mid-20’s (microns) and the finer fleeces were in the low 20’s. For reference Jacob fleece ranges from about 25-35 microns and most of mine is probably about 28 to 29 microns. So all of this wool is finer than what I am used to using. The fine fleece pile is the one nearest the table. The pile to the left are tender fleeces (fleeces that have a weak place usually due to nutritional stress or illness). The pile just barely visible behind the plywood is the “not as fine” pile. We chose our fleeces (all of the fine pile and a lot of the one behind the plywood) and the remaining wool was quickly baled. The wool is shoved into this wool press…

…and compacted… …and sealed into bales that are marked with the pertinent information. I forgot to ask how much these weigh but on-line sources say they would hold 240 to 450 pounds each. Before we left the shearing trailer was pulling out and everyone was getting ready to go to the next job.Freshly shorn sheep turned out to graze.

In about six months I hope to have blankets woven from this wool. They will be available at the Artery and the Fibershed Marketplace.

Fifty Lambs So Far

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Robin

I talked to a friend of mine today and she asked what has happened since I wrote about Marilyn’s fleece in the post about a week ago. Hmmm. I guess it’s been about 40 more lambs here for a total of 50. I think there are about a dozen still to lamb. Here are some photos and you can go to YouTube for videos of lambing and lambs playing. Meridian Loretta x Meridian Hendrix Meridian Jane x Meridian Miller Twin to the last one.Meridian Jazz with triplets sired by Meridian Miller.I’m not sure what happened here. This is less than half a lamb at 3.8 pounds. This lamb was up and nursing when I found it and hasn’t needed any help. It’s the smallest lamb I’ve ever had here. These are 5 of the 6 yearlings that I kept from last year’s lamb crop. They sure look different than a year ago.

Loretta’s lambs

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Robin

This lamb is missing his Jacob facial markings, but I still like these photos. He was on his feet and walking in less than 10 minutes. The twin has all the right spots. You can watch their birth in this video.

Mary Had a Little Lamb…and then Another

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Robin

I have been anxiously awaiting lambs. Athena started us off early by lambing last week, but there has been nothing since. Mary was calling for lambs all morning and she finally got her wish. Others came to investigate. I moved Mary and her ewe lamb inside where she had her second lamb, a big ram. It will be a busy few weeks.

Anytime Now!

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Robin

Lambs are due in about a week. This is Sparkle. Sweetie Spring

Jazz. Bella.

Lambs Grow Up

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Robin

Lambs will be here at the end of February and I have been thinking about how fast they grow. Here are some of the 2013 favorite lambs as they grew up.

This is Marilyn with her mom, Hot Lips. 2 1/2 weeks old. First in her class at Black Sheep Gathering, 4 months old. Marilyn at 8 months old. Isn’t she pretty? Santana at 10 days old. About a month old. Not quite two months old. 5 1/2 months old with a great horn spread. Santana with his ewes 7 1/2 months old. That’s Alex on the right at about 10 days old. Not much color on that side. Fortunately he has more on the other. 019 About 4 months old. About 8 months old.Alex after shearing, 9 months.This is Cascade at 10 days old.Two months old. 022 Here she is at 7 1/2 months.

Fall Grazing

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Robin

Hendrix and his group of ewes have been in the back pasture since breeding season started and they have been at the north end of that pasture for a couple of weeks. Since hardly anything is growing (start the rain dance please) I figured that they couldn’t do too much damage leaving them that long. I thought that maybe that could take down the dallisgrass and they actually did a pretty good job of it in most of the pasture. It is still a challenge however along the ditch and the fence-line. (If you search dallis in the blog search you’ll see several posts about my attempts to conquer it.)

This is the north end of the property. Notice the blackberries on the north fence. I cut these away in the spring to uncover the electric fence wire on the inside of the field fence. The sheep could help in that job except that this time of year the dallis grass growing in and around the ditch keeps them from going over there. It may seem hard to believe that a grass keeps sheep from something, but this stuff is so coarse and strong it’s like hacking your way through a jungle. And it’s very sticky now from a fungus that grows on the seed head. Several years ago I found a ewe whose horns were so tangled in it that she was stuck upside down in this ditch. The only reason that I knew she was there was that she was baaing. The sheep in the photo above are in the ditch because I trampled some of the grass and put alfalfa there. This photo shows that they are making progress. Now I can actually see a ditch and the sheep can get through it to the side with the blackberries. They are finding the hay in the blackberries and it makes it worth their while to work their way through the grass.

After about a week we have worked our way through the ditch and I’m putting the hay near the fence. Then I moved beyond the blackberries and had them trample the dallisgrass along the rest of the fenceline.This is the east fence and it looked almost as full of grass before I started this project. It is more overrun with blackberries. The sheep have eaten some of the leaves off. I think I have to get in there with clippers now though. There is an electric fence hiding in there somewhere.

Red & Green in October

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Robin

I put the rams in with the ewes on October 1. This is Day 16 so it’s time to change the marker. The ewe’s heat cycle averages 17 days. If one of the previously marked ewes is remarked then I know that she wasn’t bred in the first cycle. If multiple ewes are remarked I may have a ram fertility problem. I changed the markers for all four rams from red to green. Hendrix was not very happy about being tied up.

All he wanted was to get back to the ewe in heat. The young ram, now named Santana, (second from right) wasn’t put in with the ewes until October 7 but several ewes have been marked. As I was working with the sheep I heard geese honking. It’s that time of year.And here is the gorgeous evening sky.

Breeding Season

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Robin

It’s time to think ahead five months to lambs. But that won’t happen if I don’t do something about it now. What with events and classes the last few weeks it was hard to get all the rams and ewes sorted into the right places but they are there now. Faulkner’s ewes were first to sort because at least I knew where I would put them. They are staying in Faulkner’s pen. He has 7 ewes. Hendrix, with 18 ewes, tried to get started right away. He didn’t choose the right ewe. Miller, with 9 ewes, had no problem figuring it out. Each ram wears a marking harness so that I know when each ewe is bred. I will change the markers to another color after two weeks. If the ewes are marked again then there may be a problem with ram fertility. Presley is another adult ram but I don’t plan to use him because he is closely related to the others. (He is for sale.) He was hopeful when I moved him to another pen, but he gave up after finding that there were only ram lambs. I wanted to use one of this year’s ram lambs for the fourth group of ewes. I had a hard time choosing among the rams I have saved. My first choice was a four-horn ram lamb who I think has promise and also placed well at the summer shows. Unfortunately, he was very sick with bluetongue (insect transmitted virus common in the fall) a few weeks ago. He pulled through (I lost two others) but with the 106+ temperature I can not be sure that he is fertile. He may have his chance next year, but this year I needed to find another ram. I chose a two-horn ram whose wool I like. He wasn’t happy about the whole thing. The ewes were a little rough on him the first day. I could just hear the comments under their breaths “little pipsqueak”, “a lot of gall thinking he can handle us”, “take that” (rib-bashing)There were times when I thought that this ram would do OK, but most of the time I found him lying down away from the ewes. I started to wonder if he also had bluetongue because he acted so depressed and showed no interest in food or the ewes. I finally removed him and chose a second ram. Now I think that he just wasn’t ready to breed and the ewes knew that and beat him up. Most Jacob rams are ready to breed at six months, but not always. This guy seems to be interested and ready to go. 13022 He weighs less than all these ewes but that doesn’t seem to bother him (or the ewes). Hendrix has been with his ewes for a week and seven are marked.Miller has five marked.Poor Amaryllis is exiled for the moment. I don’t want the rams fighting through the fence so they are all in areas with no fence-line contact. Besides the four ram groups there are the non-breeding ewes (spring lambs, summer-lambing ewes, cull lambs) and non-breeding rams. That doesn’t leave much space for Amaryllis since she has to be on a grass hay diet without pasture (she broke the grazing muzzle) or alfalfa. So she has her own corral for the moment.

Sheepy Morning

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Robin

The sheep follow me, always hopeful that I’ll switch them to a new paddock. They are in luck this morning. The young lambs don’t always figure out going around the post. Now they’re going the right way. Sheep aren’t the only thing in the pasture.Can you tell what I’m looking at?The mosquitoes haven’t been too bad this year, but that has changed now. The pasture mosquitoes are out in force. I don’t go out in the pasture without my long sleeved “mosquito shirt”.