Baymule’s Journal

[Mini Horses]

Goat pastures the same! What a horse pasture or hay field person would shutter to see. But those "weeds" often carry up nutrients from way down in the ground, supplying what they need. I spot clear areas with undesirables ... I even till and rake areas sometimes. For eons goat and sheep have been pastured on the "questionable" forages and did great.

 

[Baymule]

It’s like this, say your favorite food is broccoli. But that’s all you ever get, 3 meals a day. While broccoli is packed full of nutrients, it doesn’t have everything your body needs. Not to mention you would get real tired of broccoli. Same with grasses. Some of those weeds with long thick taproots that you can NEVER pull up, those roots go deep and bring up nutrients that are not available in shallow rooted plants. The more diversity in the pasture, the better.

 

[Baymule]

I use this bunk feeder. Ariel, a lamb, jumps in it to give herself ample room so she doesn’t have to fight the ewes for food.

Cleopatra, one of the Texas Five, observed this. Oh! THAT’S how it’s done in TEXAS! And she jumped in too. The rest of the Texas Five followed suit.

It broke the supports at the welds.

Baaaad sheep!

 

[Margali]

Bad sheep! There is a fitting for chainlink fences you can buy to repair if sidewall ripped.

 

[Baymule]

Lucy, daughter of Miranda, bred to Ringo, gifted me with triplets this morning. 2 boys, smallest is a girl. All are eating. Lucy is a good momma. I will supplement if needed, I really want this ewe lamb. I have one ewe from her and Ringo, now bred to Cooper.

 

[farmerjan]

Lucy, daughter of Miranda, bred to Ringo, gifted me with triplets this morning. 2 boys, smallest is a girl. All are eating. Lucy is a good momma. I will supplement if needed, I really want this ewe lamb. I have one ewe from her and Ringo, now bred to Cooper.

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[Mini Horses]

My goats LOVE those feeders!! They nap in them . Yeah, jump in for feed sometimes, especially the young ones.

You need pink stripes on those all white ewelings

When I tagged goats boys had left ear & girls right. A big farm goat lady told me to do this -- because "girls are always right" ain't it the truth!

 

[Ridgetop]

We always tag the scrapie in one ear and the flock tag in the other. The ram lambs don't get the flock tag since they are going to auction, no need to waste a second tag. Last week when we tagged the lambs, DS1 said he wants to start tagging the ram lambs in the opposite ear to what we are doing now. We can identify the rams from ewes quickly that way. If we decide to keep a ram lamb or wether for meat we can separate quickly.

When we had our rabbitry, we tattooed the does with even numbers and the bucks with odd numbers. The kits' numbers had a 2 letter prefix - the first initial of the buck and doe. Very easy to ID the parentage of the rabbits fast.

Anything that makes identification easy is paramount.

 

[Baymule]

I’m going to have to come up with some kind of tagging protocol. I have 17 breeding ewes, not counting the 3 oldest Texas Five that will be visiting Cooper soon. That will make 20 breeding ewes. 3 ewe lambs, 3 months old plus the 2 younger Texas Five, can be bred in November or December. Then just had 1 ewe lamb last week and one this morning.
I’m counting 27. Plus buying 2 registered ewes end of April. Up to 29.

The 3 registered ewes that were with Ringo are bred, due anywhere from a week ago to June. One of those ewes I have 4 breeding dates for. Go Ringo! The 8 ewes that vacationed with Cooper are bred, due June or July.

I will have a large group. I already have several marked to move along.

 

[Margali]

@Baymule Do you have plans for all the ramlings yet? Thinking Cassandra might like raising one as meat wether...