Life on the Farm and at the Loom
A ram lamb with a nice horn spread.
Hudson surrounded by the young rams.
A ewe lamb.
Amaryllis
More amaryllis
Paulette and her lambs born at State Fair.
Just another pretty face.
Stephanie.
The youngest ram lamb born in the spring and Clint's only son. He would have gone to the State Fair except that he injured his mouth and lost three front teeth the week before.
Faulkner.
Black Sheep Gathering is coming up at the end of next week so it's time to halter break lambs. A few friends came to help.
The lambs behaved fairly well for their first time on halters.
Bottle-baby Nellie had other ideas.
She was a true drama queen. Halter breaking-Day 2 is today.
I sent an e-mail Friday to the Farm Club in which I said I was going to vaccinate lambs today and did anyone want to help? Dona and Tina were already planning on being here for a spinning class in the morning so they said that they would stay. Jacki, Shelby, and Allison came too. Wow! What great response with only 24 hours' notice. I bought a new tool. For years I have been vaccinating with single dose syringes. That means that you have to reload the syringe each time you give an injection.
I just never thought about doing it differently, but I was at Higby's Country Feed Store (my favorite store) and saw this syringe. There is a bit of a learning curve (remember to tighten needle, make sure you depress the handle part all the way, don't drop because the barrel is glass--OOPS!), but what a huge difference it will make after I replace the glass part that broke about a third of the way into the job.
I appreciate all the Farm Club members (who are now friends) who show up for projects like this. Shelby manned the camera, as well as caught lambs and played with the loose chicken.
Alison, Jackie, Tina, and Dona all helped catch and mark lambs and...
fill syringes (after the unfortunate incident with the new one).
Shelby took the following portraits.
After vaccinating I let all the sheep out but then needed to catch one more lamb.
So Rusty had a chance to get involved also.
Thanks to all of you for helping. Wait until you hear about the next unscheduled Farm Day. I think it's coming up soon.
I've written a lot of blog posts in my head, but none of them have made it to the computer. How about some photos?
After a very wet winter, we welcomed fabulous weather (and our first dry weekend) for Meet the Sheep, our annual Open House. Even with the great weather it would not have been such a success without all my friends helping.
Julie set up a dying and drum carding demo area and also brought...
her cute Pygora goats.
Colleen skipped Saturday at he Farmer's Market to bring her Fiber Confections booth here.
Jackie had her booth here and helped people learn to needle-felt.
I don't have photos of everyone but I am grateful to Farm Club members for helping as well as to my friend Chris who worked in the shop.
There were a lot of visitors.
This is Marissa who modeled her first sweater made of handspun yarn, from Jacob wool of course.
New weavers enjoyed the weather, their wine, and a new weaving book.
At the end of an exhausting day Laura finally decided it was time to lamb. Most of the Farm Club members were here watching.
There was relief after Laura delivered a healthy set of twins.
Because the grass was greener?
Farm Club members braved stormy weather to make the March Farm Day a fun and productive day. As usual I had more tasks on the list than we could hope to accomplish in the morning but we made good progress.
First on the list was a lesson on using a halter and tying a rope, using a knot that can be easily released. I didn't mean that the people had to wear halters, but Shelby is always ready for anything.
Everyone helped catch lambs and record the number of horns and whether or not there were any eyelid defects. (Split eyelids are not uncommon in 4-horn sheep.)
Next task: Empty this wagon that has been accumulating electric fence parts and who-knows-what-else for a could of years and sort it.
Good job, ladies! Now the trick is to throw out the true garbage and keep everything else sorted.
Tina, Shelby, and Lily cleaned lambing jugs.
Shelby volunteered to brave the lake and dump the loads.
Can you see the rain coming down in the background?
Shelby holding Shelby, the sheep's, lamb.
Tina's turn.
Dona holding her favorite.
Here is the crew ready to have lunch and spend the afternoon in visiting in the warm, dry shop.
Thanks to all of you for your help and cheerful attitude!
Are you tired of new lambs photos?
This is the wet butterfly look. The ears remind me of recently-emerged butterfly wings.
This is the "Jacobs come in all colors" look.
Weigh-in of new lambs. I don't usually weigh lambs, but to be able to answer the question, "How much do they weigh?", I'm weighing them all this year. My guess is an average of 7.5-8 pounds but I'll report back when it's all over.
Today Meridian Jacobs hosted a knitting class taught by superb knitter, Nancy Jane Campbell. The purpose of this class was to evaluate our current knitting habits and work to "Knit Better'. There was pre-class homework.
These are two garter stitch swatches. The difference is that one is the result of knitting every row and the other is knit by purling every row. There is a difference. Nancy pointed out that my purl sample is much more even than the knit sample. The stockinette sample (no photo) also showed that I knit and purl with different tensions, resulting in subtle ridges and uneven stitches.
Lunchtime. We went to the barn so I could feed Nellie. Yes, I named the bottle baby.
We found more lambs.
Soliloquy had twins--smallest lambs so far this year at 5-6 pounds and Victoria had triplets. I dealt with all of them and went back to the shop for the afternoon session of the class.
Before lunch we had measured and evaluated our samples. After lunch we started working on changing our habits and learning new techniques. The sample above may not be too impressive, but notice the very cool knitted cable cast-on edge. It looks much neater than my long-tail cast-on. And notice the inch or so closest to the needles. There is a a big difference in the knitting for that inch than the couple of inches below. At the risk of knitting too tightly I have been knitting way too loose. It's a lot easier to be consistent when there is a little more tension on the yarn and the added benefit is that the stitches aren't always falling off the needle. This was a great class and Nancy is going to come back and teach a color knitting class later in the year.
Babe lambed this morning.
Not the prettiest sight at this stage.
It gets better. This is one of Fran's twins, born last night.
Ebony and her lambs born a week ago.
I really didn't plan on a bottle baby, but I may have one. Here she is meeting the family.
When I went out this morning Paula had one live lamb and one dead one. As I was doing chores I noticed her pushing some more. I checked and there was a third lamb with the legs and head pointed down inside instead of out. I fished around inside and got everything straightened out and delivered the lamb. It was just about dead when I got it out--completely limp and not taking a breath. I got the lamb breathing but it remained completely flaccid and was losing body temperature quickly. Paula was still licking it so I left it with her covered in a towel while I warmed towels in the dryer. I wrapped up the lamb in the warm towels, tube fed it about an ounce of colostrum, and then brought it to the house and woke up my son so that the lamb could stay snuggled in bed with him while I finished chores. The lamb was still shivering and not trying to get up so I finally brought a crate and a heat lamp in the house.
All that was this morning. The lamb showed enough spunk to try and nurse earlier in the day and I took it back to the barn, but due to the the combination of inexperience on the lamb's part and Paula's increasing skepticism that she really had 2 lambs I finally gave up. The lamb is in the house tonight and I'm feeding it. So far it's not doing real well with the bottle and I've tube fed it a couple of times. I hope that at the next feeding it will have figured it out.
Zelda lambed last night with twins sired by Savor.
Look at the horns on this ram lamb!
Moon had twin ewe lambs this afternoon. This lamb was very striking after she was clean and dry--sparkling white and none of the coarser birth coat that Jacob lambs are often born with.
While waiting for Moon to deliver, Jackie and I first castrated the two lambs that were born in January and then we dealt with one of last night's twins that died. (If you don't want to read the details then skip to the pretty yellow flower photo below.) When the lamb was born last night I thought that the umbilical cord was unusually large in diameter. My iodine dip didn't dry this cord up like it did the other lamb's. This morning the lamb looked cold, but finally nursed and seemed to warm up. It was in the afternoon that I saw that she was very sick (near death). She was bloated and there was smelly brown fluid draining from the over-sized umbilical cord. I necropsied her and found what I suspected--her intestine had a dead-end. There was no connection between the colon and the rectum so there was no where for digested food to go. I'm not sure what was leaking out the umbilical cord, but I wonder if it was putrid intestinal contents that filled the abdominal cavity. Hopefully this is the only birth defect this lambing season.
It's a month before spring officially starts so it must be time for my annual blooming acacia photo. How can I resist that intense color?
These are Terraza's lambs-twin ewes. Sire is Tioga.
This is Savor and Tioga discussing fatherhood.
Here are the first lambs (except for the unexpected twins last month from a ewe that was bred when I got her).
Posting these photos makes me think of the contrast in my lambing set-up and that of other sheep farmers. My ewes have it pretty easy. When the weather is wet and cold and windy they are able to be in the barn. My heart goes out to those farmers and their flocks who have to battle the elements. Yesterday I spent time in the driving rain cleaning out the ditches and diverting water away from the barn, but nothing was really that serious. When we had a dairy I always hated winter weather because it was just not possible to get all of the cows out of the mud and rain. I'm hoping for milder spring weather soon!
I got back from 3 days at TNNA (trade-show which needs a blog post by itself) and an hour later there were lambs! This wasn't a complete surprise because, although lambing isn't due to start for another 6 weeks, one ewe definitely stood out from the flock as "more pregnant". Phyllis is a lilac ewe that had been sold a few years ago. She returned to me this fall, but no one said anything about being bred. I guess that was due to a mishap at her previous home. Even though I knew that these lambs would not be 100% Jacob, I'm so used to seeing spots, these were an initial surprise.
The lambs' fleeces are quite different. The one in the foreground has that wavy, coarser look and the other is curly. Notice too that the one in the back is lighter. I don't know how much of that is due to the camera (I think it flashed when I took this photo) and how much is real. I thought that he didn't look true black, but in this photo he is definitely lighter. He might make a great fleece wether. (I think the sire may have been a Merino--have to ask about that again.)
This is ram jail, where the rams spend time getting re-acquainted after being shorn and having been taken away from their respective groups of ewes. Putting them in close quarters prevents the serious injury that could occur if they had room to back up and bash each other. The rams spent about 36 hours here and another 12 in the double-size pen. This morning I let them out into their regular ram pen. There was still some tussling, but it was relatively mild.
It was obvious to figure out who was #1. Savor and Tioga are the yearling ewes and Savor has the top spot. He didn't let anyone forget it.
Tioga didn't put up much of a fight. If he acted as aggressive as Savor there would have been trouble.
Tioga protected himself but did not challenge Savor.
Savor thinks he's hot stuff...
...but he's not finished yet. Granite is the two horn ram lamb who is shying away from Savor's show of authority. Granite is #3 under Tioga but there were a few challenges between them. I think that Granite will be ready to try again for the #2 spot after he is a little bigger. Tioga comes from mild-mannered ancestors. His sire, Ranger had his skull fractured by Houdini, a very aggressive ram I had a few years ago. Ranger healed and was always a well-mannered ram, as was his father, Rocky.
Savor is still not satisfied.
Savor and Tioga are still tussling here. Notice that Granite is confronting Diego, another 2-horned ram lamb (in 4th place ranking). Do you see the lowest ranking ram? That's the 4-horn ram lamb from Michigan. However, what the other rams don't realize, is that Clint actually had the last ewe to breed to himself. While the rams were in "jail" one of the ewe lambs approached the pen wagging her stubby tail. I took Clint out and he took care of the job quickly before he had to go back in with the bullies.
Now it seems that its OK to hang out together. This reminds me of an article that I just read in Smithsonian magazine--it was all about he social hierarchy of male elephants. Lots of posturing. That avoids some of the bloodshed.
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.
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
Only 3 days after Black Sheep Gathering the crew is together again. This time it is at the Solano County Fair in Vallejo. Julie (Black Oak Jacobs) and I both have our sheep there right now and today was show day.
Julie and I showed both of my yearling rams. Savor is on the left and Tioga is on the right. They look a lot alike in this view, but they have very different fleece types, both within the Jacob breed standard, but quite different. I should take photos of fleece tomorrow.
After a quick sheep handling lesson, Chris helped me show in all the other classes and Shelby helped with Julie's sheep. Thanks to both of them for helping out. Thanks also to Jackie for taking photos.
One of Julie's sheep had a surprise baby this morning and Shelby took over baby-sitting.
Back home this evening. What are those dogs looking at?
This kitten has been hiding out under my shop for a few days. I started feeding it to entice it out. I don't want or need a cat, but I couldn't let it starve under there. He has been very hungry and I caught him tonight while he was eating. I don't know if he is truly wild because he has sure settled down quickly--not what I'd expect out of wild kitten. But if he isn't out of a feral cat then I don't know where he came from. I'm going to have to keep him in the crate for now because I won't be home to deal with the dogs. I could barely get Rusty to eat because he is so obsessed with the kitten.He has done nothing but stare all night. At least Rusty is entertained.
Anyone want a kitten?
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.
