Remuda1-Haps and Mishaps at KB Farms - Poor little Lambies ;)

[Remuda1]

New to sheep since spring 2011. Livestock background is in horses. Have had those since I was a kid.

1. What state/province/country are you in and what is your climate like? North Central Texas, fairly mild winters, HOT, HUMID summers
2. How many people are in your family? Marital status? Two, my husband and I
3. How would you define your farm? Small, growing
4. What would you do with your spare time if you had any resources you needed? Build a barn large enough to house everything I have with room for expansion and fence the other 1/2 of the property for sheep
5. Have you ever built a house, barn , or other types of building? Do you want to? No, no, see above
6. Can you weld? Steel, aluminum, MiG, TiG, stick, Oxy-Acet? No
7. Who or what inspired you to be a farmer/rancher, hobby farmer? No one, have always loved animals. No one else in my immediate family, other than husband shares this.
8 Is it a hobby or an occupation? Both
9. In what areas are you knowledgeable and in what areas would you like to learn more? Knowlegeable about equines, need to learn more about rearing sheep
10. In what types of farming will you never choose to do? Crop
11. Are you interested in providing more of your own food supply? Yes
12. Where do you end up when you sink into yourself, away from the outside world? A simpler time and place
13. Can you drive a farm tractor or a semi? Yes, no
14. Do you make crafts or useful items? Would you want to teach others how to do these? Yes, maybe
15. Can you legally have all forms of livestock where you are at? Do you have any? What kinds? Yes. Horses, sheep
16. Can you operate a lathe? Metal, wood? Yes, wood
17. Do you like to garden? If so, what do you enjoy growing? Yes. Carrots, tomatoes, squash, cantelope, cucumber, lettuce, broccoli, peppers, onions, many more
18. Do you fish? Bait or explosives? Yes, bait.
19. How much space/land do you have or rent? City farm? Country? Own twenty acres, country
20. Are you a Novice, Technician, degreed? Not degreed
21. What is your farm specialty? Or what one would you like to learn? Previously, breeding, raising, training and running thoroughbred race horses, now Dorper sheep
22. If you could create a degree and curriculum, what would you major in and what classes would you take? This one is taking too much thought.....
23. Do you do wood work? framing, finish, cabinet? Used to make rustic furniture
24. Are you interested in herbal animal medicine? No
25. If you could live any place you chose, where would it be? Somewhere that you could not see a neighbors house for a few miles
26. Do you use a wood stove for heating or cooking? No
27. What would your ideal super hero/villain be? ??
28. Are your family or friends also interested in animals? No
29. Do you like to cook? Are you interested in whole foods and natural foods? raw milk? farm fresh eggs? Yes, yes, no, yes
30. What was your best animal experience? Worst? Best was winning my first race out as a licensed trainer with my favorite horse. It was his first win as well and he is still in my pasture, enjoying retirement now. The worst experience is having to make the decision to euthanize any animal. Worst part of animal ownership.
31. Do you forage or hunt for part of your food needs? No
32. What skills do you have that help you be more a self sufficient farm? ??
33. Do you process your own meat? Can or preserve? I have only processed a rooster. I think if my husband were more involved in it, I would do much more.
34. Do you use alternative energy sources on your farm? Would you like to? No. Yes, wind
35 What is on your to do list? Right now, just getting my first lambs sold and getting through the rest of my first lambing season without any additional complications at lambing time
36. Have you ever lived completely off what you produce? Would you like to?
37. In what do you trust? My God, my family, my animals
38. Do you make and fix things yourself to save money? Yes
39. Has the experience with animals changed your attitude or habits? Have never been without animals so I guess rather than "changing" anything, it has more specifically helped to shape who I am today.

So there's that.... I am awake at this hour because I have two bottle lambs that spend the night in my garage. I set my alarm to feed them and have been having a lot of trouble falling back to sleep after that even though it only takes a few minutes. I've been up since 3:00 now. Gonna check the radar and if it's not raining, go walk a few miles. Then come home and start the chores.

I have seven ewes (all dorpers) still to lamb and three that look very close. Temps are s'posed to drop this weekend, sooooo. Five lambs on the ground now. Two singles that are close to finding new homes or going to market. One set of twins that were born on the 30th of Jan., one of which was rejected the next morning by the ewe and one bottle baby that I got from a friend to keep the rejected lamb company.

So, here's the first entry in my journal.... I appreciate BYH for providing this area to allow us to share our experiences and knowledge.

 

[77Herford]

Good luck with the Sheep adventure.

 

[RemudaOne]

Thank you 77. I think I'll need that luck . It has been so cold today. Our winter thus far has been so mild that this shot of winter weather has been like a slap in the face. Temps in the 20s this morning and wind chills in the teens. Makes chores so much more challenging. But it's all good..... Got everything done but noticed that even the bottle babies had to break out the winter gear, LOL

When I got back to the house, I decided that chicken stew was a must for dinner this evening. Yum, yum! Cut up chicken breast, carrots, onions, yellow squash, zuchini squash, green beans, kernal corn, purple, red and white fingerling potatoes, a finely chopped jalapeno, marjoram, sage, thyme and a hint of cayenne pepper. Add a couple of pieces of fresh, french baguette to soak in the stew....OMG, heaven

We are having a little work done on our driveway entry. It's always had an old, old, rickety rockwork entry so we had it remodeled a bit. It used to consist of two rock pillars on each side with a low rock wall connecting them. We had the pillars nearest the drive on both sides torn out, along with the rock walls. We had the two pillars rebuilt with a 4" steel pipe in the center to anchor steel pins to support gates and used steel pipe in between the pillars. Heres what it looks like so far. You can tell the pillars on the outsides are still the old rockwork, but that's all right.

We're talking to someone to install an automatic gate with a keypad and that's no problem.....But we also want an intercom at the gate and a button in the house that will control the gate so that we don't have to give fedex or ups or our vendors the code to the gate. Sounds pretty simple, huh? NOT!! LOL, we have to go to Fort Worth to the manufacturer to see if they can hook us up with all of that.... We'll see . I've wanted a gate (any kind of gate) since we moved in here 14 years ago so I'm looking forward to having this project completed.

Bottle lambs are tucked into their crate in the garage and will get another bottle at 9 tonight. I think I'm going to start spreading out the feedings tomorrow. They are doing great and look so sweet until they see a baby bottle then they turn into piranhas!!! Devil lambs. Their appetites are very very good. I don't really know when they are supposed to start showing an interest in pellets. They are trying to nibble hay and alfalfa but they seem like they are just gumming it to death. Although, when they catch one of my fingers in their mouths I can certainly tell they have teeth!! Piranhas, I tell you! They are starting to leap into the air and run/buck just for the thrill/fun of it. I enjoy seeing them thrive like that. I'm sure that I did the right thing bringing the other bottle baby home for the little ram. They take a lot of comfort in eachother's presence.

On a bummer note, had a lady that was supposed to come buy several dozen eggs today and she's a no show. But.... I have a regular customer coming on Monday to pick up 6 dozen. That will free up some room in the fridge

Oh well, I guess that's it for now. Hope you all have a wonderful night, I think I'll get hubby to start a fire in the fireplace.

 

[ThreeBoysChicks]

Cute baby outerwear. And I love the entry to your lane. Very nice. Good luck with the gate / intercom work.

 

[RemudaOne]

Wow.....so sleepy this evening. Seems like I didn't get to sit down and put my feet up until 8:00 pm. Day started cold, cold, cold again. Chores weren't too bad this morning. I'd been trying to decide how I wanted to separate the ewes that are getting close to lambing and reintegrating the ewes that lambed in December. Sooo, I penned them all up and enlisted my husband to help sort. I only had three that I wanted to keep up, along with the ewe that just lambed on the 30th and her lamb. Two ewes and their lambs to go back out into the big pasture with the rest of the flock. I kind of hate to send them out there since one of them is the friendliest ewe that I have. She was also my first lambing ever and it was a difficult lambing that I had to assist with. Anyhow, I think the ram is glad to have them back out there since they are the only open ewes on the place, LOL. It will only be a few weeks until those lambs head of to market.

I've decided to sell all of the first crop of babies. It will be nice to RECEIVE a couple of checks rather than writing them! Speaking of which, I need to call my feed man and get him to deliver a load of alfalfa. I finally got everyone situated the way I wanted them for sleeping arrangements. I have the three pregnant ewes together in the lambing pen, the ewe with the week and a half old lamb in the 5X10 jug and the two ewes with older lambs in a stall together since it's snowing and sleeting and raining... I didn't want the babies to get bullied out of the shelter by the rest of the flock. In the morning, the flock will go to pasture, along with the two ewes and their babies. The three preggos and the ewe with the week and a halfer will stay in the maternity paddock.

Had to break ice in the troughs this morning. That really must be my least favorite winter chore. It wasn't too thick though, last year was the thickest I've ever seen it and it was about 5 inches thick at one time. All I could do is keep a little hole open that was just big enough for the horses muzzles to fit in. I hope to get up in the morning to a new lamb. This is not likely to happen, but I can hope for it.

The bottle babies are going cold turkey overnight tonight for the first time. I think they'll do just fine. I have gradually increased their bottles and both are growing well. I'll be weighing them tomorrow evening. I wonder what they'll think of the snow in the morning....if it's still here . I'll post pics if I can get them. I'm sure there'll be no progress on the gate renovations tomorrow. Too cold and sloppy.

Oddly enough, the hens are still laying very well even through this cold snap. They were so funny, running around eating the sleet pellets this afternoon. Oh...and good news, the no show egg buyer showed up today and I made the sale. That coupled with the sale tomorrow will buy those girls another bag of layer pellets .

Hubby and I had to go pick up our backhoe from a jobsite early this evening as well. They had cleared a lot and burned the brush but we needed to get it out of there before the weather prevented us being able to do that. Looks like he'll be home for a good part of the morning due to the weather.

I'll close for now, will be nice to get an entire night of uninterrupted sleep....At least that's my plan

 

[RemudaOne]

Yuck. This isn't going to be fun this morning. It's raining right now and the roosters are yelling to be let out but rain should stop within 20-30 minutes so they can wait. Mid to Upper 40s for the high today. High tomorrow 63 with a low of 54. Gotta love Texas weather

 

[77Herford]

Well at least your getting rain now. We are just now getting our first Snow of any amount this year. Normally this time of year there should of been around 20 inches...we are behind.

For the Chickens that I allow to free range, I just open their little door but on cold days like this they usually don't leave the coop.

 

[jodief100]

You are makign me hungry!!!

 

[RemudaOne]

77, I have a high school friend who is a rural route postal carrier. She lives in Harlan, Iowa, but delivers in a neighboring town. She had to cut her route short about a week or so ago because she went into the ditch. BUT she says she can't complain because y'all have had a mild one thus far.

Jodie, I made a huge pot, come getcha some . It's like fine wine....better after a day or two.

 

[RemudaOne]

Well, as expected the chores were a mucky mess this morning, lol . But all went well and I managed to stay on my two feet throughout....always a plus. And this afternoon, the sun came out and it was beautiful. Went from bundle up weather in the morning, to a tee shirt in the afternoon. I came in from chores and pulled the eggs from the fridge to inspect them for my customer. He had originally asked for five dozen then called back for six. I told him that I *should* have that many. Soooo, as I am opening cartons, I realize that they're not all full. I don't know why my husband does this, . So I start pooling what I've got. I get down to inspecting the last carton and I have just enough. Then I drop one..... I said a couple of not very nice words and ran out to the coop. I had ONE hen sitting on a nest and no eggs in any of the other nest boxes. So I begged her pardon and grabbed a feel under the hen. THANK YOU!!!! nice and warm, haha . Got the eggs delivered in time and got back home to finish work.

After I put the two bottle lambs in their pen in the barn, I pulled the crate that they sleep in out of the garage, removed all of the soiled hay (used for bedding) and the feed sack I was using as a liner under the hay and washed the whole thing down. I had picked up large breed puppy training pads the last time at the grocery to use instead of feed sacks so I put those in there and added fresh hay for bedding and fresh water in their bucket. Turns out though that since it turned out such a nice day, they are spending their very first night out in the barn like the big sheep do, lol. Just got back from their final bottle feeding and all was well. I've got a heat lamp securely hung for them to get under if they wish so they should do great.

I took them with me on a walk down to the mailbox today. They are a pain in the patootie, but I sure do get a kick out of them. Growing SO fast! They come on the run when I bleat at them, haha . I go and let them out of their pen two or three times a day so that they can enjoy themselves and so that they can play with the twin that the ewe did not reject. This does not sit well with the ewe as she's a little overprotective still. Of course, it's only been two weeks since she had them. The ewes with the older lambs RUN from them so they are pretty well halfway weaned now and the ewes udders are diminishing a bit.

Talked to the manufacturer for our entryway gate and all is good and they have everything that we need. Glad that is headed in the right direction now.

Will close for now. Goodnight y'all.