Farm Day - help with sheep chores
Our first Farm Day of the year was on Saturday and five Farm Club members helped me get ready for lambing. I forgot to take photos at the beginning but started with vaccinating all the ewes. In the meantime we kept an eye on the two ewes who were supposed to be bred that day so that they will lamb at the fair in July.There was no question about Miller and Donna, but ZZ left me wondering. He seemed more interested in his buddies in the adjacent pen than he was in Clover although she was doing her best to entice him. I decided that I'd better try another ram so Faulkner was the one. He knew just what to do. While the rams were otherwise occupied and I had plenty of help it was time to clean the ram pen.Rusty usually keeps the rams away while I clean so he took his usual position although the rams weren't there. The ewes watched through the gate while we moved wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow load. Those red marks are just from the marking crayon we used as we vaccinated. After cleaning the ram pen it was donkey play time! Lisa discovered the bliss of brushing a donkey.Amaryllis had to hold still for me to measure her. She is about as svelte as she ever gets and I wanted to have a baseline measurement for her (670 pounds according to the tape, which is really meant for horses). By the way, I looked up svelte because I wasn't sure how to spell it. Svelte, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: thin in an attractive or graceful way; and a. slender, lithe. b : having clean lines : sleek. Hmmm. So maybe svelte isn't quite the right word to describe a donkey.