Sorting ewes

This is getting confusing. This post is by me, Robin, even though it says it's by Rusty. He has his own blog and did not write this post and this is not his blog. Rusty's blog is here. Today was breeding group sorting day. Many thanks to Dona, a Farm Club member, who helped me all afternoon (and brought cookies).All the lilac ewes or those with lilac parents went to Hudson's paddock. He didn't waste time. Three of seven are marked.

Clint whispering sweet nothings to Delilah.

Faulkner  wasn't to be left behind.

The Puddleduck ram lamb (I still haven't decided on a name) is on the left in the picture. He isn't quite 6 months yet and was given a challenging group of girls to work with. He's starting to get the hang of what he is supposed to do, but the ewes are giving him a hard time.

Ruby Peak Linden and Meridian Clapton are the other two ram lambs I'm using. Linden seemed more interested in food tonight but Clapton got right to business although he had to work hard to reach the adult ewes in his group.

It's fun to see the colored rears and know to expect lambs in 5 months, but I hope we have some good rains before shearing day so the marks won't be so obvious.

Boys will be boys

You saw the photos of the new girls in the flock and how they ran out to greet the rest of the sheep. I brought home two ram lambs as well. This is Puddleduck 337 (needs a name) and his fleece is below.

This is Ruby Peak Linden.

I put 337 and Linden in the pen with Faulkner and his little buddies (4-horn April ram lamb and 2-horn wether). I figured that there wouldn't be any issues because the lambs are still on the young side.

Linden, however, thought that he could take on the big guy.

 Faulkner finally had enough of the pipsqueak and decided to put him in his place.

One more time for good measure.

That should do it. Now they can be friends.

More ram photos

I am still trying for those ram photos.

This is Granite.

Clint is still on the run.

The ram lambs that were born at the end of March are finally getting old enough to evaluate them with a little more confidence. I think it's too hard to tell much about them before 3 months old. Now I can see the width of the horns on the two horn rams. This guy seems to have a nice wide horn spread. I'd prefer that he didn't have white feet.

Here is another with a wide horn spread. If you don't start with a wide horn spread at this age, very often the horns grow too tight near the jaw as the ram gets to be a year or two.

This lamb is turning out very nice and I may keep him. He is the last lamb born this year, the son of Clint and one of last year's ewe lambs. He is a four-horn ram with good horn spacing, nice wool and some leg markings.

Re-establishing the pecking order

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.

Trying to get ram photos

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

Rams and lambs

I had my camera with me this morning in the barn. I meant to take pictures of the fog. You know those postcards that are black and say "Hawaii at night"? So I can have something that is gray--"Sheep in the fog", "Sheep herding in the fog". This time of year fog is common in the Central Valley. Thick fog. Wet fog. Cold fog. People that live in the foothills look down on the top of the fog in the valley. There are days when the high and low temperatures only very by 2 or 3 degrees because of the fog. Fortunately we are at the edge of the valley and somedays don't have fog at all when there is a thick blanket of it less than 1/2 mile away.

These photos are some I took--but not of the fog. This is Meridian Moonshine. He is one of two ram lambs that I kept from this spring's lambs.

Here is Meridian Ranger, who will be 2 in February. He still has a great personality and has never shown any aggression (although I still don't turn my back).

 Chicory Lane Houdini, below, is another story. He has nice fleece, horns, etc, but his personality leaves something to be desired. He can't be trusted at all. 

 All three of these rams will have lambs here in March. That seems a long way off. Usually I am getting ready for lambs in late January.