SheepGirl's 2015 Lambing Thread - Lambs are here!

We're supposed to be getting 1 to 6 inches of snow in a couple hours... my dad went and bought 8 bales of hay for the time being.

Barn will now be here Dec 8, if they show up this time. Last time they didn't even call to say they weren't showing up.

I'm selling Valentino to a Spanish family from work who wants to eat him. They have a huge family so they didn't want one of my smaller 70 lb lambs Valentino I estimate at being 120 lbs or more (he's as tall as Ciqala and she weighs 160+ lbs) and he was born the day before Valentine's day of this year. He's 1/2 Dorset x 1/2 Finnsheep. Yesterday I switched him and Odysseus--Odysseus joined the girls and Valentino is by himself in the pen getting fattened up. He was nice while I had him, but he's too mean to keep around. I will be getting less than market price selling him to this family, but this way I know nobody will be hurt by his aggression. I will only lose about $25 or so from his purchase price, so it's not bad.

We got about four inches of snow. Family arrived today for Thanksgiving.

Oh and I updated my Web site and created a Facebook page for my business -- check it out and tell me what you think

YAY! I checked out FB I don't have FB so I couldn't like you
My customers say I should do a FB page... is it time consuming?
Geesh I cannot keep up with my website so I am thinking how could I do FB. You will have to let me know how it works out for you.

I will check out your website too! Been awhile since I have been to it.
Sorry about the ram situation.

I noticed the rockdust you have down ready for your new barn!
Love it. What exactly did you use?
Did you dig down? How deep is the rock?

No, took me like 5 minutes to create a page and then for every post, just a minute or two. I already spend like an hour or two on facebook, im a part of a couple sheep groups and goat care and goat health groups as well as sheep and livestock sale groups so im always on there reading. The groups are almost like forums.

And yep, the stone dust was delivered from a local garden center and then our neighbor came over and used his bobcat and leveled it out for us. We never dug out anything, it was just dropped on the ground. The front is about 3 or 4 inches deep and the back goes to about a foot where the slope is.

Thanks!
I went to your website. Your old one had lots of info and articles how come you didn't put them on this one?
Nice crisp clean look!

Ewes finally have a nice barn to lamb in. Tomorrow I may build a new hay feeder (if any of you remember the $30 10-hd hay/grain feeder I built 3 years ago, well...it's no longer in existence. I made it without pressure treated lumber and between the weather and the abuse of the sheep, it fell a part pretty quickly. I may build another one if I can get Lowe's to cut my lumber on an angle) or I might wait until all of the pens in the barn are built. My ideal situation would be to have a fence line feeder so I don't have to go in with the sheep to feed hay and have them climb all over me and knock me around.

Also I have been toying around with rations for the sheep in late gestation and lactation. Normally I feed the ewes a 16% textured sheep feed from Southern States. It is a complete sheep feed that I feed along with hay. However, at $28.40/cwt, I'm looking for something cheaper, especially since my ewes will be eating a lot this year. So I've been googling and calculating and I found a small feed store that is very cheap. It's in the town I work in, which is great. Southern States chick starter is I think around $9 or $10 for a 25 lb bag, but I went to this small feed store and paid $12 or $13 for a 50 lb bag. The guy loading my chick feed said their sheep feed was around $9, so that makes me wonder how low their corn is priced (Corn is currently $4.03/bushel or $7.20/cwt) I'm gonna call them tomorrow and ask about a bunch of feed prices and then I will plan my rations from there based on low cost. Definitely corn and SBM will be in my ration in addition to my orchardgrass hay. I will see if it is more cost effective to feed their sheep feed or just start hand mixing my own.

Also my chicks are outgrowing their brooder, so my mom said they can move into the shed that she keeps all of her planting and gardening stuff in (she calls it the "Potty Shed") until they get big enough to move out into the barn. It is 8x12 so more than big enough for the 54 chicks. They are currently in a baby playpen that measures 28"x41" that also has a 30 lb feeder and 5 gal waterer in it so at almost 4 wks old they are outgrowing it. So they will be more than happy with their new, larger space. I have 16 Barred Rocks, 14 Buff Orpingtons, and 24 Red Sex Links. I have 16 pre-sold already with non-refundable deposits. The only downside to moving them in there is I will have to keep buying bedding and spending time to clean their area out. I was planning on building a long cage, 3' wide by 30' long to keep them in that is 3-4' off of the ground and have them on wire, but I'd rather my mom give me that space for free rather than me have to buy wood to build the cage. But as my started pullet business expands, I would like to take advantage of the vertical space I have raising them so I don't limit myself with floor space in the limited amount of buildings I have available to me.

All that said, I have 7.5 weeks until lambs are due!!

Isn't it wonderful to see how your farm has progressed!
So happy for you! New barn, new ventures!

A word about wire... you will need a way to remove it like a tray or something as it will be very hard to clean!
We raise a lot of started pullets and once they hit 6-8 weeks ours range as they are so messy on wire... we do pen some but outdoors on the ground with shelter then at 12 weeks they can come and go as they please.

When do you sell your started pullets? We generally sell from 12 weeks to 22 weeks.

Not long for lambs!!!!!!!!!

Yep, I have wire in my chicken house with my five hens. I can't remember the spacing, though I'm sure it's 1/4" or 1/2" square. Their poop sticks to it (but once dried it easily scrapes off) but I figured with smaller chickens their poop is smaller so there wouldn't be much of an issue.

I will be selling them in April when they are 16 to 20 weeks old. I might be getting more chicks in February, of different breeds... gotta figure out how much money I will have after school, feeding the ewes, and getting a new-to-me car (it's a '97 Ford Thunderbird my uncle, who is a master mechanic, has fixed up).

So I called the feed store. 16% sheep feed is $11.40, shelled corn is $5.95, and soybean meal is $15.95, all for 50 lb bags. So that makes me soo happy

Instead of paying $42.60 to feed grain to each ewe raising twins, I can pay $20.79. So I save $21.81/ewe, which is a total savings of around $200 (or around $65/month). That $200 is the sale of about 1.5 lambs... so instead of those lambs paying for feed for their dams, it's going to be profit

My feed rations are as follows:

Late gestation (total cost is $14.48 per ewe)
4 lbs orchardgrass hay, 3/4 lb corn

(ewes that look like they may have triplets will be given extra corn)

Lactation - twins (total cost is $40.61 per ewe)
5 lbs orchardgrass hay, 2 lbs corn, 0.2 lb soybean meal

Lactation - single (total cost is $35.12 per ewe)
5 lbs orchardgrass hay, 1.5 lbs corn, 0.1 lb soybean meal

Ewes that have triplets will have their ration adjusted accordingly. (Probably will be 2.5 lbs corn and 0.3 lb sbm.)

Back when I had a couple of ewes, I didn't mind spending the money for a complete sheep feed. But I won't mind spending about 10 minutes weighing feed to save $200. I'd be "spending" $120 in labor, so it's still worth it to me. (10 minutes a day x 90 days = 15 hours x $8/hour) Now that I have a larger flock and I am going to school full time plus I have the chickens and I'm also buying a car, that is money well saved!

Altogether, I'll be spending about $380 or so on feed for nine ewes. I'm hoping to get around 15 lambs, so selling 2.8 lambs will cover feed costs for late gestation/lactation. Plus $100.21 worth of hay to feed the ewes until their late gestation ration starts. So altogether, it is about $480, the sale of 3.5 lambs (65 lbs at $2.10/lb). However, I used a new sire this year who was 140 lbs at 9 months old (who easily could've been at 150-155 in perfect condition) so my lambs will probably be heavier when Sept comes around when I go to sell lambs at auction. I just hope lamb prices are still $210/cwt when I go to sell!!

My next biggest feed expense is hay--I already found a $1/bale cheaper source, however, I think completely switching to round bales will save me even more money. However I like handfeeding the bales to give the ewes an exact amount so maybe I will get large square bales. I think that would be my next best bet for next time.

I've been calculating it out even more.

I went to the feed store, bought five bags of shelled corn. Turned out it was $6.05 instead of $5.95. I bought one bag of soybean meal (47% protein) for $13.95, instead of $15.95 like I was quoted. Also bought two bags of chick starter... $13.89, same price as last time.

Then I was looking at my mineral label. Turns out they have a feed recipe right on the label! For a 16% feed, mix 1,500 lbs farm grain, 450 lbs 44% soybean meal, and 50 lbs of sheep mineral. So I took that as a starting point and used book values for the corn and the label I received for the soybean meal and I was playing around with the ration. Turns out, adding mineral to the corn and soybean meal ration makes it cheaper than just feeding the grain!

So, I can feed my ewes 4 lbs of hay and 2 lbs of my feed mix and it will cost $0.734 per day to feed to a ewe nursing twins. Compare that to $0.802 without the mineral (5.2 lbs hay, 2 lbs corn, 0.2 lbs soybean meal)!

Oh my gosh... I love saving money. It makes me want to find more ways to figure out an even cheaper ration. Though I think I will stop here for now and go to bed