Shearing the Rams

Shearing was a few days ago and it's an event worthy of a few posts. I started talking about it in here but have been distracted by a major project which will take over my brain for a couple of weeks. I need a break from that so here are photos of shearing the rams. Thanks to Dona and Carole for contributing some of these photos.

This isn't a ram but while I was catching them John started with  Mary's  seven sheep.

Then it was Faulkner's turn. Faulkner is a Bluefaced Leicester (BFL).

Catalyst is a lilac colored Jacob ram. Lilac refers to the gray-brown color of his wool and the facial markings.

What a gorgeous fleece!

Bide a wee Buster is almost a year old.

It's been on my list to trim Buster's horn, but John did it before shearing.

That's another beautiful fleece coming off.

A shearer has to be careful in maneuvering those big horns.

Here is a close-up of Buster's fleece. Notice the difference in color of the outside of the fleece and the inside in the photo before this.

Joker was the last ram to be shorn.

This photo clearly shows the difference in the black & white and lilac color pattern in the Jacob sheep.

Next up--shearing the ewes.

The Morning After

We sheared yesterday (more about that in future blog posts). Here are some photos from this morning and some before-and-after shots.

You can fit more sheep at the feeder after shearing and it's sure easier to keep an eye on udder development and predict lambing.

The aftermath where the skirting table was yesterday. We were so lucky with the weather yesterday--no rain after continual storms. This water is from last night's rain (almost an inch).

Meridian Zoey. Zoey has freckled skin but not freckled fleece--that's two different things.

Meridian Fandongo. Notice how the sheep look like they have brown spots in most of the "before" photos. The wool has sunbleached tips. Underneath it is black, or gray if the sheep are fading, or gray-brown if they are "lilac".

Puddleduck Petra. A good example of a black fleece that looks brown when on the sheep.

Meridian Alice, a two year old ewe.

Meridian Bertha, another two year old. It will be only another day before the sheep look dirty again and you don't see that bright white against the black.

Shadow Mountain Shelby. Shelby is lilac. Her facial markings are gray, not black. Her spots are a light gray. I used my iPhone for this morning's photos so some of the sheep look like they have abnormally big heads. Maybe that's only partly camera perspective but partly that they no longer have huge fleeces around those heads.

Bide a wee Hallie.

Meridian Cindy, one of last year's lambs. Oops! It turns out that she is freckled. Those smaller spots are in the wool. You can't tell about freckling when the lambs are born. After a couple of months it will appear. I think it shows up in the secondary follicles instead of the primary ones and that's why you don't see it at birth. (I'd like to hear someone who knows explain if that theory is correct.) I also noticed it in her twin brother, although you can't really see it in the photo below.

Meridian Joker, Meridian Catalyst, and bide a wee Buster.

And here is what I saw when I first checked on the rams this morning:

That wall behind Joker is supposed to be attached to the 2 x 4. I found the drill and some screws and put it all back up and it was only then that I looked at the other corner:

Oh, that's a bigger problem.  This wasn't originally a ram barn. It started out two calf hutches that I made. Eventually they were put on this slab facing each other with a space in between and another roof overhead and the kids show pigs lived there for a few months a year. Then it was Faulkner's pen and he was pretty easy on it. Now that the Jacob rams live there it needs reinforcement. Dan got the jack out to jack it up back on the cement and then reinforced everything inside with heavier 2 x 10's at about head-bashing level. It could still use interior solid plywood walls but hopefully this will get us by for a few more months.

Stupid rams. You should be grateful that you have a shelter to get into after shearing and you're not expected to stay out in the wind and rain.

The Right Decision

We all have to make difficult decisions at times. I was in that position last month about a ram I had bought only a couple of months previously. Today I had confirmation that I made the right call. WARNING: There are some yucky photos part way through this post. I wrote this blog post about the trip to pick up a new ram in early August. I have looked through my photos and can't find a "before" photo of the left side of Legolas. This is the one that was posted on Facebook by the seller:

In early September I noticed that his horn looked like this on the left:

That left horn is touching his face. I knew that the horn wasn't like that when I bought the ram and I was amazed that it could grow so fast that in a month. There was no obvious sign of damage. I had noticed flies around his horns, but again, no sign of blood or a wound. With the horn that close to his face it would be a problem if it continued to grow that direction, putting pressure on the jaw. Even if it didn't grow more there would be continued skin irritation at the point of contact.

A few days later I caught Legolas to figure out what to do about that horn. I couldn't even get my finger between the horn and the jaw. Here is what surprised me. When I held the horn not only did it move, but I could see movement in part of the skull where the horn was attached. Yikes!

Behind the horns I found a small opening, which got a little bigger as I scrubbed with hydrogen peroxide. This had been covered with hair and really wasn't visible until I started  cleaning up around it. I could squeeze out a little bit of pus but not very much. There was minimal blood or drainage and the edges of that wound looked already healed over, just not healed together to close up the pocket.

I could move the horn (and skull) so that there was a little space between the horn and the jaw, so I tried to anchor the horn in place with duct tape and wire attached to the other horn. (This was the most mild-mannered ram I've ever worked with.)

This is all the progress that was made by that--not much but better than touching the jaw.

That pink stuff is Swat to keep flies away. As I was working on this I was thinking that I didn't remember these rams fighting, but that would be the only way to account for this injury. At the time I think I just had Catalyst and Marv in the ram pen. When I first brought this ram home I used the "buddy-up" pen, a very VERY small pen where the rams can tussle with each other but not move backwards and run at each other. They usually fight in this small pen where they can barely turn around and when they move to the big pen after a couple of days they mostly behave themselves. They may still posture and fight but hopefully they quickly figure out the hierarchy and the hitting isn't as violent.

I looked back through my videos and found one of Catalyst (another two-horn ram) and Legolas making some pretty hard hits. Then I remembered that a few days after I moved them all out to the ram pen I was worried about Legolas. He seemed "off", shaking his head and not eating much. Nasal bots will make sheep very uncomfortable.

Legolas also had bloody lips and gums. I remembered talking to my vet to find out if that was a another symptom of bluetongue because bluetongue causes edema, ulceration, and soreness of the mouth, in addition to listlessness and not eating (because of the sore mouth). At that time I treated him for nasal bots and with antibiotics to prevent secondary infection due to bluetongue. Eventually he got better.

But now, a month later, I realized that he had probably been injured the month prior but the damage to his skull was not obvious.

The wire and duct tape didn't work. I didn't take long for Legolas to start scratching and rubbing on the tree and fence and put the horn right back where it had been. I thought about using rebar or something stouter but I knew that I wouldn't be able to rig up something stable enough to keep the horn in place and besides I wasn't able to move it enough to be a long term fix. This was not a sustainable situation.

I made the decision to put the ram in the freezer. I am in the sheep business, not the sheep rehab and geriatrics business. Butchering the ram would provide meat and I would have his hide and skull to sell.

Before I can sell the skull it needs to be cleaned. I take the easy way out and put it out in the back and let nature take its course. Today some Farm Club members were here and some of them wanted to see the skull. I was amazed that we could clearly see the damage done to the skull by the fighting. This photo shows the skull fracture clearly:

I have had two other rams die from fighting. Once, early on in my Jacob-raising days, one ram killed another (a 6-month old ram lamb owned by my friend but here for breeding) through the electric fence. The ram lamb was standing when I went into the barn and lying dead at the fence when I came out. (I tried butchering that one myself but that wasn't so easy. Now that I'm thinking of that I remember that my daughter and I finally dug a hole to bury him, thinking that eventually we'd be able to dig up a skeleton--she was taking a taxidermy class at the time.) Now I do all I can to separate breeding groups without fence-line contact. Another time I was watching when two rams (that had been buddies just a moment ago) started fighting and one staggered away and finally dropped. I took a wheelbarrow in to the pen to get him out and found that he was still breathing. I guess he was in a coma because it's not normal to be able to load a living adult ram into a wheelbarrow, but I did. I was able to have that one butchered to salvage meat and hide.

The other memorable fighting ram story is about Ranger, a ram that had a beautiful fleece and personality. He wasn't killed fighting but suffered a skull fracture. With that one I discovered how serious it was when I saw his eye bulging from it's socket. The swelling in his head was so bad that it pushed the eye forward and the lid couldn't close over it. I don't remember if the vet came out or we just talked on the phone, but remember  treating and covering the eye and I kept the ram in a small pen until the swelling went down and there was no movement of the horn and skull.

At the time I asked the vet how to tell if there was brain damage. I still remember her answer: "It's not like he has to drive heavy machinery."

Consolidating Breeding Groups

For almost four weeks I've had sheep in five different breeding groups plus a non-breeding group. It doesn't take long before I'm tired of dealing with that. By last Friday all the ewes were marked and very few were being re-marked so it was time to pull out a few rams.

Dragon, this 4-horn ram, went back to his farm up the rad from here. Buster went with him to finish up the job there. Joker went back to the ram pen with Marv (after spending a couple of days in the "buddy-up" pen, or "jail" as I also think of it.

Faulkner was a lucky ram who got to stay out with his ewes for another month or so. However, he knew that something was going on in the barn and thought that maybe he should really have a few more ewes on his side of the gate.

All the rest of the ewes were consolidated into one group and spent some time meeting and greeting.

"How are you Fran? Did you hear what happened to...?"

"What is that scent you're wearing?...Who have you been hanging around?"

Catalyst is the Jacob ram who stayed out with the ewes. He spent some time introducing himself to the ewes who had been in the other groups but they all ignored him.

Here is he after another couple of ewes were turned into the field.

Happy boy even though he's not seeing any action.

Breeding Season

This week it was time to separate sheep into breeding groups. After much debate and deliberation I ended up using five rams this year. I don't NEED five rams for the number of ewes I have but it's always fun to find out how each ram will match with the flock...and there is also a bit of "not putting all one's eggs in one basket". There are a lot of criteria in selecting a ram to buy or a ram lamb to keep in the flock.

Fleece is the most important characteristic for me. If I don't like a ram's fleece then I don't want to use him no matter how great he looks otherwise. I want to stay within the Jacob breed standards but consider fleece weight, fiber diameter (determines if a fleece is soft or scratchy), crimp, and freckling. One problem with making decisions about young rams is that you're better off waiting until 18 months to fully evaluate fleeces. That is a long time to hang onto a ram and then decide he stays or goes. With my small acreage I just can't hang onto several rams to evaluate a year later. I need to make my best guess at about six months old.

Horns. You can have the best ram from all the other standpoints, but if the horns grow into the face he will have to go. Here is a blog post with examples of two-horn rams.

Color. The Jacob Breed Standard states that registered sheep must have 15-85% color. That's a broad range, but not all sheep fit that category.

Jerry is a 5-year-old wether who won the sheep-lottery by having a beautiful fleece, but with too much color to be kept as a breeding ram. He was castrated as a lamb and was kept to be a buddy to any sheep who had to be separated from the flock. He lives permanently with Faulkner, the BFL ram. Also note how narrow his horns are. If he had not been castrated those horns would have grown tight onto his neck or face.

There is more, but this was going to be a post about the rams I am using this year, not a how-to-choose-your-flock-sire post. However other traits to consider are personality (yes, really), conformation, size, birth weight, gain, and is he a single/twin/triplet.

I hadn't planned on keeping Meridian Joker, but as I looked at lamb weights over the last few months he stood out as one of the heavier ones. I sell at least half the lambs for butcher and the sooner they can be sold the better. So rate of gain is important. His horns don't have a huge spread, but hopefully they will be all right as he grows.

By the way all the rams in these photos are wearing marking harnesses with red crayons. That's what all the color is.

Starthist Dragon is on loan from a friend. When I evaluated his lamb fleece a couple of years ago I was impressed and Trish remembered that so offered him for the season.Bide a wee Buster came here from Oregon last June. He was so small I had my doubts about him being up for the task this month, but I should have had faith.

Meridian Catalyst is a ram who was born at the 2015 State Fair Nursery. He is a lilac ram with nice fleece and markings. That's him in the middle of the ewes on the second day of breeding season.Faulker is ram #5. He is a Bluefaced Leicester (BFL) and sires the black (brown) lambs. He is the big guy in the center of the photos. His lambs are larger than the 100% Jacob lambs and are mostly sold for meat although they have very pretty fleeces and also wind up in some spinners' flocks.Faulkner enjoying some time with the ladies.Isabelle, marked by Joker.Skye is in Catalyst's group.Jillian is with Faulkner.Joker looks a little disheveled after a few days.Buster has his work cut out for him to reach those big ewes......and needed a nap after the first morning out.

For any of you who pay attention to this stuff and may be wondering about the other Jacob ram I bought this summer...I discovered a few weeks ago that he must have been injured by another ram and his horn had changed position so that it was growing right up against his jaw. I found that the point of attachment was movable (I don't know if went all the way to the skull which means that it would have been fractured). I tried to give his face a little more space by using wire and duct tape but that didn't work. This is not a sustainable situation so he is no longer with us.

A Sheep Adventure - Part 2

I forgot to put a couple of photos in the last post. Besides the BearFest that was going on through the summer in Grants Pass, there was also a Fifties celebration the week we were there. There was a car show that evening and here are some cars that we saw in the motel parking lot.

I have no idea what they are but I took these photos to show my husband.

This is not how butterflies normally look on my headlights.

We got on the road about 7:30 and drove to Selma, Oregon where Jackie's sheep had been delivered the day before. She was picking up two English Leicesters that came from Michigan.

Carol Ronan graciously took time to give us a tour of her beautiful farm. She raises Angora goats (above) and Gotland sheep (below). Information about her sheep and goats (and the beautiful farm which is for sale) is at this link.

The animals have access to this 100+ year old barn that has been reinforced and given a new roof (which will probably give it another 100 years).

I don't remember the dogs names but this was an older one who put up with the nosy sheep.

I took this photo because I wanted to remember this oh-so-simple feeder idea. That welded wire panel is not a fence. There are two panels attached to a 2x6 at the bottom and to posts with slightly tapered pieces of wood on the sides. Perfect for dropping in a flake of hay and feeding on both sides.

We walked to the field with the bucks...

...and examined fleeces.

Here are Jackie's new sheep who had been housed in the trailer overnight.

They were easily switched to my truck and we got on the road. There are not too many photos of the part of the trip that became more of an adventure. I didn't want to backtrack to Grant's Pass and I-5. BORING. If you take Hwy. 199 south from Selma you can turn off onto a road that winds its way through the rugged Siskiyou Mountains to Happy Camp. It wasn't a good idea for me to be taking photos while driving on this road that was full of switchbacks and Jackie probably would have thrown my camera out the window. We didn't stop because we had spent a lot of time at Carol's and had planned to make the next stop by mid-morning (weren't going to make that) and get home in the afternoon, trying to avoid being on I-5 through Redding at the hottest part of the day.

At Happy Camp we turned east onto Highway 96 and watched for landmarks until we got to this sign and across the road...

...this bridge where we crossed Horse Creek and drove north along hillside edging a green valley . We were supposed to go 2 miles and find the correct street address for the farm where my ram would be. We saw a few numbers on mailboxes, passed what should have been the right place, found a place to turn around and chose a driveway that seemed to be in the right place. We drove in past barns and farm equipment but didn't see a house, sheep, or any signs of someone looking for sheep buyers who were late. We drove out of the driveway, down the road and chose another driveway with the number that would be the neighbors to the place we were looking for.

As I drove down the steep driveway, several large dogs ran out barking. However I saw someone looking through a window and waited for him to come out. He wasn't happy about seeing us and told us to go back up the road and take the driveway with "the lifetime gate". "Can I drive forward and turn around down there?", I asked. "No" was the answer. OK then. I'll back up the steep rocky driveway that has a sharp turn onto the road and a steep drop-off to the side, while trying to see the end of my truck through the plywood sheep crate on my truck. I did that with several back and forths and only one minor mishap.

Finally backing into the road in the wrong direction we drove down it again, passing this sing, turned around and came back. (Note: When my sons have fought fires in these mountains they have been turned away from entering access roads to the forest by surly land-owners. The firefighters are warned by their supervisors to be careful in or avoid areas where they have spotted marijuana or equipment for growing or harvesting.)

So we took the same driveway we had before with the barns and cattle equipment. Steep-Driveway-And-Big-Dogs-Guy was there to meet us, having gone from his house, across the creek, through the barns, to this upper driveway. He pointed and said "no, go back to the lifetime gate". Lifetime gate? When we looked more closely there was a closed gate down a dirt road that branched off to the right of this main driveway. Jackie opened the gate and we drove into what looked like a little used driveway that stopped before you got to a house where I could hear children. So at least someone was home.

I found the sheep owner who strapped her baby on her back and we walked out to the barn with other kids running beside us. We arranged bales of hay to create a step up into the truck and loaded the ram. She pointed us out a dirt road that  ends up on a different paved road which seems to be their main access and is "easier".

This is the field (sheep in the distance) that Kenleigh's Legolas left behind.

We drove east through Yreka to I-5 and headed for home. I always stop for a photo at this overview of Mt. Shasta. We stopped several times to check on the sheep. There was really nothing we could do about the heat but the truck thermometer was showing 108 (or was it 109?) through Redding. It was in the 100's for most of the trip, but the sheep survived. I didn't dawdle, wanting to get them out of the truck as quickly as we could.

I put Legolas in with the young rams and a wether. They followed him around for awhile.

There was fighting among themselves, but not with Legolas, because it was obvious that he would be the dominant ram of the bunch.

This will be the first year that I will breed the bulk of the flock to 2-horned rams. There is Kenleigh's Legolas (Lego for short), Meridian Catalyst, a 2-horned lilac ram, and bide a wee Buster, the younger ram with 4 horns.