Sheep in the Sun

During the winter the sheep are mostly in the barn and corral area. The pasture doesn't drain well and I don't want it to be a trampled mess. I'm also waiting for there to be more growth there. It's been dry enough the last few weeks that I opened the gate to the small paddocks near the barn. The sheep were thrilled to get out to that grass.  This is Summer (the sheep, not the season).  This is Spring (also, not the season). Here is Eliza. They are all looking a little heavy, but that is because they are due to lamb in about a month.  Stephanie, the old goat, is so stiff in the cold weather we've been having. I walked her out here to enjoy the grass.  Most of the sheep kept their heads down eating. But Kyra just wanted to play.     Happy sheep! I still have the new lens on the camera. It is a 40 mm lens and I wasn't that close to the action. I'm surprised that I was able to crop the photos to this degree and still have them relatively sharp.

Weekly Photo Challenge-Round

Remember the cloud photos? The next photo challenge is Round. This was my first choice that I found when I hunted through my photos. Then I went to the barn with my camera and the new lens.   

There are a lot of versions of Round.

Fleeces Revisited

I haven't finished getting the wool ready to send to the mill. Holidays get in the way. Now it's COLD. Farm Club members have been helping and I think one more afternoon of skirting and sorting will do it. Sending wool off in January means I'm way ahead of my usual schedule. If you are not excited about wool these photos won't be very interesting. But to me they are a precursor of beautiful yarn and blankets.Alison's fleece. The 3 x 5 cards provide scale (as well as remind me of whose wool is whose). Eliza's fleece

Athena's fleece is a little shorter than the others, but very soft.    Miller is a ram lamb born last March. This fleece is only 9 months growth. I can't wait for next year's.Hattie's fleeceDid I say it was cold while we were working? Mary and Dona helped one day and Linda on another. Here was the best place to stand--a south-facing wall in the sun. We already finished with your fleece, Jazz.

Ultrasounds and other veterinary observations

The veterinarians from UC Davis VMTH were here on Monday. The VMTH sponsors the State Fair Nursery so they will come here to ultrasound ewes. I will be breeding 3 or 4  ewes at the same time as all the others are lambing. This fall, while I was breeding ewes to 6 different rams I also had a non-breeding group. Unfortunately, one of the rams got in with that group on the last day of my breeding season. I gave the 2 ewes he bred the sheep equivalent of the morning-after pill, so Monday was the day to see if it had worked.

No! Shelby is pregnant with a single and Mary has triplets. I think this is the photo of triplets. (If you must know, I can't always tell what I'm seeing in these.) By the way, a lamb at 42 days gestation is about the size of a gummy bear. That's not something that you find in a veterinary text, but vet students have pointed out the relationship to their teachers.

Here is one that I could see. There is a large (relatively) single lamb here in the middle just under that dark line. (It doesn't show up in this photo as well as it did seeing it on the screen.)

While the vets were here I showed them a wool sample from the fleece of a ram lamb, Presley.

It isn't all that obvious in this photo, but can you see that distinct change in color and texture at the bottom of the locks? It is not weak at that point, but the fleece definitely changes color. That is the cut end, so the change occurred a couple of months before shearing. I thought that maybe this related to selenium deficiency or some other mineral issue. We looked at the ram.

This is Presley, taken in mid-September. One observation of mine is that he won't register as a lilac ram, but his fleece is the brown/gray of a lilac and definitely not black and white. (In this photo the dark wool just shows sun-bleaching, but when you look at the fleece sample you can see that is is not black.) However his facial markings look black. I think this is what some people are calling a chocolate lilac. This is Presley now. Take a look at his horns.

I hadn't noticed before, but all 4 horns have a ridge in the same place and the vets wondered if this related to the same conditions that caused the change in the fleece sample. When you look back at the first photo of Presley from September 17 you see that his horns are smooth. I posted a video of Presley taken September 24 that shows what I think is one of the many possible symptoms of bluetongue. The last two photos were taken 3 months after that. Did the illness result in the change in horn growth and the fleece observations? It is not any matter of earth-shaking importance, but I find it an interesting idea. My simple question about the fleece has led to a lot of other inquiries.

We looked at the rest of the rams while the vets were here.

 This is Larry, who was breeding a friend's flock and just came home. The friend told me that she thought Larry had blue tongue also. Note the ridges on his horns.

The reason that I asked the vets about Presley's fleece is that I had remembered seeing another fleece with the same discoloration. I had taken a photo of it at the time.

 Ginseng is also a lilac lamb and her fleece shows the color change at the same place as does Presley's.

I have no answers yet (except that Mary and Shelby won't be going to the fair), but I'm going to examine the rest of the fleeces as I sort through them and I think I'll pay more attention to horn growth after this. I'll report back if the vets give me any answers.

A Riot of Rams

You've heard of a Flock of Sheep, a Herd of Horses, a Gaggle of Geese. How about a Riot of Rams as a subset of the Flock? Larry came home yesterday. He is a ram born last February (still called a lamb up to his first birthday) and was with a nearby flock of ewes. Whenever rams that have reached sexual maturity (and that could be 5 to 6 months) are to be reunited there are apt to be fights until they have figured out the pecking order. The shepherd's job is to prevent injury, death, and property damage. Most of the time that means putting all the rams together in a pen that is small enough that they can't back up and put their whole body force into the inevitable ramming that occurs.

This is Larry. He is a nice looking ram lamb. Since I was going to be moving all the rams I took the opportunity to trim all their feet.

This is one of the ram lambs born at the State Fair in July.

 He has nice wool, doesn't he?

Here is Sullivan, a yearling ram. He was shorn along with the rest of the flock last month. Larry missed shearing so I'll have to shear him by hand, and I didn't shear those lambs that are going to be sold. Do you notice a swelling just under and behind the two spots on his shoulders?

 Here is what it is like close-up. I noticed it a few days ago and I think it is a hematoma, probably a result of rams tussling.

How do I put the rams in close quarters? I don't want them near the ewes because that would be asking for trouble. I particularly don't want any of these rams trying to get over or through the fence to get in with the ewes. So I use one of the stalls, but a 12' x 12' stall is way too big. I use panels to make a pen in the corner of a stall.

There is a feeder just out of this photo at the bottom of this photo. The two shorn rams at the feeder are the February lambs. The two rams with wool at the feeder and the one in the top corner are the July lambs. Sullivan is the 2-horn ram in the center and Larry is the 4-horn ram next to Sullivan. Small enough pen?

Evidently not. I tried to take video so I could share the real impact (pun intended) of this, but it was too dark in here. In this photo Larry goes for Sullivan.

Now it's Sullivan's turn. You can't tell in these photos but there is real power behind these hits.

Larry's turn again.

Another view. They are still fighting.

I collapsed the pen a bit more and they gave it up. Or maybe it took the fun out of the fight when they couldn't back up to bash each other.

This morning all the rams were behaving so I gave them more space. Tomorrow they will go out to the ram pen and live happily ever after...