Today's lambing adventure

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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.

 

Lambing-Day 4

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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?

Farm Club helps out again!

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Lambs are due in about a month. That means that the ewes ready for their annual vaccinations. They get Covexin which protects against a variety of diseases caused by Clostridium bacteria including tetenus. They also get MUSE, which supplies selenium and Vitamin E.  By vaccinating at this time in gestation the ewe's milk will provide a high level of antibody protection to their lambs. What's a farmer to do? Call in the Farm Club! We have 3 regular Farm Days a year, but Farm Club members enjoy coming out more often and I am sure grateful for the help and the comraderie.

Shelby and Tina teamed up to vaccinate sheep. Shelby, person, is holding Shelby, sheep.

Dona held sheep while I vaccinated.

Mary and Kathy kept syringes loaded and ready to go.

Tina spent some time at the manure pile. It's too wet to get the tractor out to the pile so re-stacking the pile needs to be done by hand (or pitchfork). It's a good workout!

We spent the afternoon enjoying the sunny day. Notice the milk mustaches on these two. The lambs, that is!

 

 

Warm-up for Lambing

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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.)

 

My new toys

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Look at what I got for Christmas!

I don't have a movie collection like my kids all do, but this is one that I wanted. Its a documentary of the sheepherding in the Montana mountains.

Wow! My son gave me the docking station for my ipod (which he gave me earlier in the year). He had let me use his in the shop when I wanted Christmas music for my Holiday Open House. I thought it was a long-term loan, but then he wanted it back. I guess he felt guilty so he bought me my own.

I asked Santa for this one and my husband followed through. Now I'll be able to include videos as well as still photos...after I figure out editing.  I spent all day working with the new software that I uploaded for this. I actually really like it because there are features that Picassa doesn't have, or at least I hadn't figured out.

My daughter-in-law made this calendar with lots of family photos, including photos of people (and our dogs) on their birthday squares. It is really great!

I gave this to my husband, but I think it was for me. We finally finished our back-porch/mudroom/entryway remodel. It started when we talked to Mike Carson, the blacksmith who demonstrates at the CA State Fair as well as others. In fact, last summer his blacksmith shop was right near the Nursery at the fair and I talked with him when I went to check on my sheep and goat. I have always admired his work but don't need fireplace tools, not having a fireplace, and can use only so many key-chains, etc.  I have bought some of his gadgets with horse heads, but this year he had a ram head on something. We got talking about doing some custom work and I said that I'd get back to him. Some time after the fair my husband started the remodel project. I have had all my food in laundry baskets all over the kitchen floor ever since because the new entry way was the old pantry. The end was in sight (with Christmas as the deadline) and I called Mike to see about getting this coat rack made in time for Christmas. I sent him photos of sheep and Mike delivered it to me at the Artery when I worked on Christmas Eve Day. Isn't it fabulous?

These are all sheep from photos that I sent.

Here is the rack in use with hooks to spare, although since then I've added my headlamp, gloves, and hat to this. But there is still room!

 

New Yarn

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Isn't this a beautiful sight?

This is Jacob yarn and some black Rambouillet from a sheep rancher in Rio Vista.  The light gray Jacob in the lower corner is already sold!

This is white, lilac, dark gray, and black Jacob yarn, labeled and for sale .

Here is the Rambouillet. I  sent this batch to a mill that said that they could work with the fine, short-stapled Rambouillet, and they did a great job. It is very soft and I knit up a small sample on #6 needles. I don't have this yarn on the website yet, but it's available in the shop.

Here is some white yarn from sheep that live up the road from me. I can't wait to start weaving with some of these yarns!

Re-establishing the pecking order

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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.

 

Shearing Day

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I look forward to Shearing Day all year and this was one of the best ever. That is due to the number of friends who helped and to the outstanding shearer. Farm Club members helped in the barn and two good friends staffed in the shop (unfortunately I don't have photos of them). That left me free to run and back and forth for things we needed, take photos, move sheep, and thoroughly enjoy the day. Shearer John sheared 67 of my sheep, 19 sheep that belonged to other people, and 7-8 Angora goats. He started a little before 9 a.m. and finished at 1:30! Here's the photo tour. Sheep in full fleece the day before shearing.

This is Fran.

Here is Tioga...

... and Clint, the ram lamb I got from the Sweetgrass flock in Michigan.

We gathered all the ewes while John was shearing my friend's goats.

Farm club members, Tina and Kathy, and Kathy's friend, Haylee, helped bag fleeces...

...and keep the shearing area clean.

Shelby (and her husband, Greg, who escaped my photos) did a lot of sheep wrangling. This is Shelby with her namesake sheep.

Tina did her share of sheep handling too...

...while my son multi-tasked.

John is an excellent shearer, making shearing look easy (and I know it isn't). He is fast, the sheep look great, and the fleeces are perfect wth no second cuts. We are very happy to have found him. It is always impressive to watch the rams being shorn. This is Savor being shorn.

Savor's fleece.

Staple from Savor's fleece. This fleece went home with Jackie, another Farm club member, who helped skirt and sort fleeces and answer questions.

Jackie, and another helper, Linda, helping a customer skirt a fleece...

...and now I have a lot of fleeces to skirt and put on the website for sale.

Rusty enjoyed the day.

Sometimes I think the sheep enjoy getting that wool off.

We certainly had great weather  from the sheep's point of view.

Thanks to all of my helpers!

Barn Make-over

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It may not be as extreme as the Home Make-over TV shows, but I feel like they just rolled the bus away and I got a new house...almost. This was a Farm Club work day prior to Shearing Day which is next Saturday. I had a list of chores and we checked off a lot. The weather was fabulous too--sunny, warm, dry and it's November!

I told Tina I had buckets to wash before I put them all away. You could serve dinner out of these buckets now!

I needed to get the salted pelts out of the stall so I could get them ready to ship off as well as empty out the stall so I can use it. Even though the pelts have cured, the salt remaining on them draws the moisture out of the air and they feel wet. A day in the sun took care of that and we put the pelts  in big plastic bags which went in the back of my car until I can find boxes to ship them. We counted 31 pelts in all--that will be some shipping order!

I have an appointment on Monday with the State Vet who checks tags, etc to monitor compliance with the Scrapie Program. Tina, Greg, and Shelby volunteered to check all the sheep and make sure they all have their scrapie tags and that my paperwork is correct. They did a great job and found just a couple of sheep that needed tags. In the meantime we found their namesake lambs.

Here is Shelby and Shelby.

And this is Tina and Tina.

Kathy and Kathy.  Greg will have to wait. I have two more lambs to name and register so maybe he can pick one of those.

I am so tired of tools falling out of corners, being knocked over, not finding them but I have never put up the gadgets to hang them. This was on the list.

Isn't this cool?

Try to conceal your envy at my organized tools.

I love my stall barn, but it's hard to use the big sliding doors with sheep. The doors work, but I feel like the sheep are in jail and in warm weather they get no ventilation when the stall door is closed. I have been using my Shaul's panels with gates, but wiring them up. Greg and Kathy put eye-bolts into the walls to mount the panels properly.

Shelby found time to play with a chicken. Rusty wasn't sure that the chicken was in the right place.

Thanks to all of you for so much help! Next Fun Day is Shearing!

Publicity photos

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I have been asked to participate in an event at UC Davis on November 20 called New Media: Making Agricultural Marketing Personal. Chris was home so I asked him to take some photos. I had a vision of me sitting in the field with a laptop with sheep all around me. First I thought I'd use the ewe lambs that I've set aside for Rusty to use. They weren't so insterested in just staying with me.

Then I tried the ewes in the pasture (and I bribed them with grain).

Lamb Festival

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The Lamb Festival (used to be Lambtown) was last weekend. I was so busy that I didn't get very many photos of the event. I have been on the Board and organized the classes for 3 of the last 4 years, but I have already given notice for next year. Someone else can have a turn...maybe someone that doesn't have quite as many things going on as me.  I had a vendor booth, taught, a class, managed the registration table, and showed sheep all at the same time. How? Thanks to my good Farm Club friends and others. Jacki, Shelby, Kathy, Tina, and Anna all helped. Shelby showed the sheep with the help of my husband. Too bad we don't have photos of that. Granite, the ram lamb that won Reserve Champion at Black Sheep Gathering received a Champion ribbon although I'm not quite sure how the divisions were set up.  Here are a few photos.

This knitted vest was awarded "Best Item of 100% Jacob wool", sponsored by meridian Jacobs. Isn't that gorgeous?

And here is some beautiful Jacob novelty yarn.

My friend, Nancy Jane Campbell, did a fantastic job of organizing the Sheep to Shawl contest and the Spinning Contests. One of those was a spinning triathlon which included blind-folded spinning as well as spinning with rubber gloves.

The Lamb Festival was on Saturday but we had addional classes on Sunday, three of which were held at my place. While I taught a weaving class and Nancy Campbell taught knitting at the shop, Rebecca Burgess set up in the barn and  taught Natural Dyeing. Here are some photos of the class samples.

These are yarns that Rebecca brought with her. Rebecca has a fascinating message and you'll hear about it in future posts. It's too late now to explain more but if you google Fibershed you'll find out about it.

And what was happening at home? I put these 4 ewes in with Savor before leaving for the Lamb Festival and when I came home they were all marked. I think my sheep are ready.

What do I do all day?

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What have I been doing all week? Way too much to write down and maybe not all that interesting. But I'm so busy that although I'm always taking photos and thinking of good blog posts I just haven't had time. Here are bits and pieces of this week.

I finally wove some more baby blankets. I have customers waiting.  After I took the blankets off the loom I realized that I had a lot of skipped threads along the left side of many blankets. I know why--has to do with combining 7 threads as one in the warp and trying to use 2 threads wound together on the pirn with a fly-shuttle. Just enough drag on the shuttle to cause it to catch the warp threads. AHHHH. That means a lot of fixing. My $/hour just went WAY down. Here are some of the 17 blankets.

These blankets will be on my website after I get better photos. That's another thing I spent time on. I tried in the sun and in the shade and none of the photos were very good. Back to the drawing board.

I have projects on three looms right now. Two are for the November show at the Artery. One is for my friend, Irene, owner of  Cotton Clouds. That project will be a surprise, but here is a preview:

14 carat gold thread--use sparingly!

This is more of the project. All of these yarns are going into the warp!

In the meantime there are sheep things going on. Savor, one of the yearling rams, had been with a group of ewes and I needed to put him somewhere temporarily. I didn't want to put him back with his buddy, Tioga, because I figured that they'd have to fight it out first and I can't deal with that right now. So I gathered up the ram lambs that are left and put them all together. Usually the lambs bow down to the older and stronger ram and leave him alone. There is posturing, but if they know what's good for them they won't antagonize the big guy.

At first I thought it would be OK.

They look friendly enough, but finally Savor started threatening one of them more seriously. It happened to be a ram lamb who is already sold for breeding but hasn't gone to his new home yet. I needed to separate them because I didn't want to take a chance.

The ewes were all looking hopeful that they would get a chance to mingle with the rams. "We're ready! Come hither!" Notice the double fence.

Last but not least--someone in this house has no problem taking naps:

Earning your keep

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Alas, no photo. But maybe you wouldn't want this photo. Ozzie, our kitten (who is featured in a few blogs not too long ago) killed his first mouse! I felt bad taking it from him, but I was not sure that he was even big enough to eat it. So this is great news!   ...but Ozzie lives in the house and doesn't leave it (too close to a busy road)...that means he found the mouse in the house. Not such good news. While Ozzie is hunting to protect our stores of food from ravenous rodents, Rusty earns his keep with sheep.

This is the group of ram lambs that are left here.

The other day I took Rusty over to work with Jackie's sheep. She has four sheep and is anxious to start training her dog using her own sheep. We're using Rusty to get her sheep accustomed to being worked by a dog.

Marley, the Wensleydale, wasn't cooperating at first. Rusty is hesitant when a sheep looks like it is going to resist. He has been bashed by more than one ewe with horns and I am trying to help him become more forceful.

We're getting movement.

Job well done.

This seemed to be the coolest place for Rusty. Or maybe he thought that it was the only place that the guinea hens weren't going to bother him.

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.