Farm Day

This was the fall Farm Day. Usually we would be getting ready for shearing but since I have postponed shearing until January we did other things. Unfortunately Dona wasn't here because she seems to take most of the photos on Farm Day. We started by gathering up the different groups of sheep. They have been separated into breeding groups and it was time to put all the ewes back together with just one ram. That means that I'll have just two groups now--the large group with the ram, Ringo, and the non-breeding group (March ewe lambs, State Fair lambs and their moms). There are photos of one group in Rusty's blog.   After putting the ewes together the rams also go back together. This is a ram lamb that I kept but didn't use this year but we took photos so I can register him. Right now the yearling ram, Alex, and the two ram lambs are in a small pen so they can become buddies again--it's really a matter of working on the hierarchy so when they go out in the larger area they don't kill each other. There should be no question that the yearling ram will be on top, but the two lambs were duking it out. This guy knows how to use his horns to get his way. We'll see when they go out who won the second place spot.   This is the group of ewes waiting to go into a different paddock. As they turned the corner you could clearly see all the marks from breeding (from the marker the ram wears on his chest). Unfortunately the blue mark on that ewe in the back means that she still is not bred after having been bred twice by Alex. I think were a few other ewes with blue marks tonight. I'm wondering about Alex's fertility. Normally I'd expect all the ewes to be bred the first time around.  I'll know in the morning. View Across the Road from my pasture. They are prepping the ground to plant alfalfa.