High Desert Cowboy- How far is it up north?

High Desert Cowboy

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So we may be adding more ewes then initially planned. My friends kids want to keep some of their ewes this year but they’re going to have no where to put them. They escape from one pasture and the one they’re in is needed for other purposes. Where most of my sheep came from their little herd and have grazed some pastures together over the summer, I offered to let them stay at my place through the winter if they’ll pay to feed them. We’re discussing “leasing” options as well as potential “breed fees” if they plan to use my ram. Their dad wants this to be a learning opportunity for running a livestock business. When he originally started buying them bottle lambs, he would make them put all the work into feeding them and would mark down how much he spent in initial purchase, what milk replacer cost, and the hay. When the lambs were sold they paid him what was due with a little interest and pocketed the rest. If you can’t tell, he’s an ag lender for the USDA.
They decided this year they wanted to keep some more ewes and see if they can do better with breeding and letting the ewes raise the lambs. Guess they’re tired of bottle feeding.
 

High Desert Cowboy

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Ah Utah, where it can go from 100 degrees to 70 degrees and back to 100 all in the space of one week! It got so cold it froze the corn and now it’s back up to hot, but folks will still be harvesting early. We usually at least make it to October. Spent the weekend splitting firewood, I got a huge dump trailer load from my neighbor. He builds log cabins and generally they leave the cut offs and crooked lengths for the owner to burn, but this one had all gas heating so they wanted it all hauled off. Of course I was excited as that’s less trips to the mountains for me and it’s pretty good stuff.
I’ve been trying to get more time in with the sheep, but I think bellwether will always be a wild child. I cannot come anywhere near that ewe without Bella, and that’s just because Bellwether decides I’m the lesser of two evils and I won’t bite her on the nose. On the other side of that scale is Heart who will practically put herself in my pocket and can’t be convinced otherwise.
My horse bro got to show off a little over the weekend. My son and his friends were riding him around and said they wanted to try something besides loping him around, so I suggested setting up some posts and jumping him. They didn’t think he could jump that high! Back in college I would lend him to the equestrian team to work hunter jumper courses and he’s still got it. I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of that horse, he’s great with kids and will do just about anything you ask him to do, and he’s really kid safe in that he won’t takeoff at a full gallop without spurs! I’ve had that horse for 9 years, trained him from the ground up and he’s come a long way. Jack, he’ll stay mine because we keep each other honest.
 

High Desert Cowboy

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So today as I fed I finally took a moment to realize that I have a lot of wasted hay with the sheep. It really clicked as I noticed the ram in his nice new pen had quite the collection of hay trampled on the ground. He doesn’t even sleep in it, he prefers his little dirt hole he’s made. So he now has a feed tub that had gone MIA a while back. Apparently my boy took it to a far corner to keep toads in. I’ll start work on a manger for the ewes using whatever I can find around here as soon as possible. I spend every day trying to minimize feed wastage in pigs, I can’t imagine why I never thought about it for my sheep and they’ve been here over a year!
 

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