Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

I’ve been catching up on your journal Mike. WOW! You’ve been busy. Love all your sheep. That’s a far cry from the 4-6 you originally planned. I only planned two. But now have seven. I probably won’t go much above that, though.

Your sheep work space looks awesome. That is going to make a huge difference, when working on your sheep!

Bruce said:

Some years back I made a raised bed with cedar along the driveway at the old house. Figured it would last forever. Turns out that cedar rots quite well when in contact with soil. Even the 4x4 posts rotted.

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As I was reading, I couldn’t help but reply to Bruce’s comment about cedar and how it isn’t as water resistant, as it’s cracked up to be. I have to concur. The previous owner, here, used cedar trees, for the fence around the chicken yard. I’m guessing every single one has rotted off. But, in all fairness, we have clay about 6-8” down, and during rainy season (at least six months of the year), the clay stays wet, so I’m guessing most posts would rot off. We have even had Tractor Supply 6” PT posts rot off. After talking to a friend, we bought some black (tar type) paint, so we can paint the ends of all our fence posts from now on. Hopefully, they will last longer, in the future.

Devonviolet said:

I’ve been catching up on your journal Mike. WOW! You’ve been busy. Love all your sheep. That’s a far cry from the 4-6 you originally planned. I only planned two. But now have seven. I probably won’t go much above that, though.

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We only have 4 of the original 10 left and they aren't going anywhere soon. We have taken 9 to market awhile back but still have 45 so we will be market bound again soon. We also wethered one ram lamb for us.

Devonviolet said:

As I was reading, I couldn’t help but reply to Bruce’s comment about cedar and how it isn’t as water resistant, as it’s cracked up to be. I have to concur. The previous owner, here, used cedar trees, for the fence around the chicken yard. I’m guessing every single one has rotted off. But, in all fairness, we have clay about 6-8” down, and during rainy season (at least six months of the year), the clay stays wet, so I’m guessing most posts would rot off. We have even had Tractor Supply 6” PT posts rot off. After talking to a friend, we bought some black (tar type) paint, so we can paint the ends of all our fence posts from now on. Hopefully, they will last longer, in the future.

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I've seen cedar from out in West Texas that have stood for 30+ years. A lot depends where the tree grew and even what time of season it was cut.

The pressure treated stuff isn't worth a crap if the soil stays wet very much. I just swapped one out for an old creosoted power pole last week. I had put that PT post in the ground no less recent than 2015 and it failed just below ground level. Of course too, it was one that was less than 200' from the river and had been under water countless times since 2015...

I love your barn area. I really want an alleyway and chute for working the sheep! I told DH if we had a chute system, we could do all the stuff ourselves without having to catch and hang on to individual sheep!

Got to figure out how to set one up - with a scale in the chute too, so we can weigh the lambs without having to lift 80 lb. lambs and larger onto the hanging scale!

If we only have a few to do something to we just call them all into the stall. There are so many right now and they are so tame, I can walk right up to them to give a drench or things like that.

Sure beats having to wrestle each one and makes it waayy more Enjoyable to be out and about!!........you'll have em "falling in" for "roll call" before too much longer....

It's been a long time since I've had to work at getting them in. I just open the gate to the squeeze chute and have the magic bucket. Once I get a good size group in there we open the sliding gate to the chute and they will start going in on their own.

Thats really nice! Nice that they’re so cooperative. Goats aren’t bad until they see you doing something to one of their buddies - then they head for the hills. (‘Cept we don’t have any hills around here!)

frustratedearthmother said:

Thats really nice! Nice that they’re so cooperative. Goats aren’t bad until they see you doing something to one of their buddies - then they head for the hills. (‘Cept we don’t have any hills around here!)

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We center most things we do with them around feed and especially in and around the handling chute. They all get a bit of feed when they come in the stall. A few get feed from a bucket when a group of them goes into the crowd pen. There is a bucket of feed being held in the chute itself for the first one to go in. And we make sure all of them get some feed as they are finished and in the last section of the chute. All of that adds a bit of time but they never get stressed out and don't mind coming back in again the next time.

Amazing how a feed bucket makes you SO attractive!