Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Ridgetop]

No, I am just a worrier. The older lambs need the creep, but the outside pen doesn't have the full cover space that the creep pen in the barn has. So to move the tiny few days old lambs out there might not be so good. Moving the older lambs out there is better but then no creep. Probably be ok, but it looks like rain and is getting colder. The outside night fold is all corral so no windbreaks except for the A-frame cover.

Got the wire up along the 20' of corral panels. DS1 suggested using the X-pens I had for camping with Pretzel. They are 24' tall and have 8 24" wide folding panels. Finished off the final couple feet with another trailer dog panel I had. DH took the truck to get it detailed. Apparently, it is so dirty he can't stand riding in it. He is supposed to bring back some zip ties - if he remembers. 1 guess where the zip ties currently are. LOL I decided not to wait around since it is getting darker and rainier looking. I cut up some hay ropes and tied the panels in place, 4-H style. Going to miss those hay ropes. Better bring them with me.

It was very easy EXCEPT Skittles in in roaring season. She kept lifting her tail and squirting. Luckily not on me. However, she gets super loving when she is in season. She loomed over me as I crouched and bent over to tie up the panels. She nibbled at my pants, my hair and my butt. Shsouts and smacks on her nose did nothing. Her expression was very hurt that I was not accepting her loving gestures.
Finally finished and decided to wait till later to do the work inside the fold. DS1 said that he would pick up DGD1 who will be thrilled to help build another creep. Checked the sheep below. No one actively lambing, but one ewe looked like she was checking out a good lambing site. She stopped and came up when I went into the pasture. No mucous plug, but her butt on either side of her tail jiggled like Jello as she walked.

14 ewes with lambs to ship. 19 bred ewes to go. At least 2 of those look open. Several others don't look to be due for

I am wondering whether it would be safer separate the new lambs from their moms to ship. Thoughts! Suggestions?

 

[Mini Horses]

Majority of time everyone will lay down during trailer ride, so despite length of trip, little will be in stand &fall mode. Consider that and fact they'll mostly be 10+ days old , mostly, when they leave. You need to have a glass of wine!! Relax.

 

[Ridgetop]

Just got a call from Bob May. He will be here on Saturday May 4 in late afternoon to load all animals. He said that he will separate the older lambs from moms, and they will be in separate compartments. The compartments are small to avoid much movement of the animals while traveling. He feeds alfalfa and water during the trip. DS1 will be here to load, and I will see if DS2 can be here to help him. DS1 will make a loading chute from portable panels to move the sheep into the trailer. I have the list of all sheep, dates they gave birth, how many lambs, etc. We will make sure all lambs are ear tagged and on the list. I will keep a copy of all the documents I leave for Bob May. He will have a list of all the sheep, their tag numbers, scrapie numbers, dates they lambed etc. He will also have copies of the Coggins, Brucellosis and CVIs.

DH and I will travel to Texas with the big gooseneck and two dogs, leaving on May 2 to arrive in time to set up for the sheep arrival. DS1 will drive out pulling another trailer on May 8 am with the last dog and the last corral panels.

It is happening!

 

[Ridgetop]

No more room at the inn!
Divided one jug in half to hold the 6 ewes with twin lambs that arrived 4/22 through 4/24
These ewes are in the "overflow" area where the scale used to live. They are the ewes that we pulled lambs out of last night. If I keep the ram I will call him T-Shirt. We only name the rams and bottle babies.

We ne to move the 5 ewes with their lambs out of the barn pen with the creep so these 8 other ewes with younger lambs can be moved in.

We made this creep pen in one corner of the night fold. The creep gate is the extension ladder pulled apart and stacked. On the upper right section you can see where a rung was missing. That is the overlap section of the extension ladder. I wove hay ropes to keep the ewes from trying to come through it. The creep is attached to the corrals with connector pins an also tied to the corral fencing. The two sections of the ladder are stacked on top of one another and stabilized by connector pins through the lined-up rungs and driven into the dirt. Then I tied it together with more hay ropes to increase the strength. DS1 refers to it as the Disneyland way of building (Mickey Mouse). I refer to anything connected with hay ropes a 4-H operation. One year DD1 had a veal calf in a 4-rail horse corral. After the little guy had climbed through the bars for the 4th time, she took hay ropes and wove them over the bars to make a cage. LOL Our corral got soe funny looks, but it held the calf in until Fair. Those hay ropes are very useful. I plan to pack all that I have and bring them with me. I always carried at least a dozen in the 5th wheel trailer and they came in handy.

Tomorrow, I have to notify the vet of the departure date for the CVIs and also email the insurer again about the insurance. got a quote od $495 for both horses for a year which covers everything including colic for one year. I am going to get it since they will be transferring to plain pasture and in case of any problems they will be covered. I need the quote for the transport insurance on the sheep though.

Now that we have a shipping date, DH wants to load the trailer with the furniture. He will pull the trailer and I will drive the car. We will bring 2 dogs with us and DS1 will bring the 3rd when he comes out. Just have to decide which dogs we will take first. One needs to stay until the sheep are gone. I am considering bringing Rika and Ozel with us and leaving Angel since she is capable of protecting everything on her own here. Then she will come out with DS1. Or leave Rika on her own here where the sheep will be confined in more easily defended pens. Decisions . . . .

Ordered the pull out trays for the kitchen cabinets and the first set were delivered yesterday, along with the blank ear tags to retag some of the sheep. Today the syringes arrived from Amazon. The second set of pull outs are supposed to arrive today before 10pm. The trash can pullouts will arrive Saturday. The Valbazen from Jeffers is supposed to arrive May 1. Apparently Premier wouldn't ship it to California but Jeffers would. Go figure! Anyway, Once the Valbazen arrives we can give the second dose of wormer before the sheep go on the trailer. Tomorrow DGD1 will come over and we will CDT vaccinate all the new lambs and their moms. We will also dock the ewe lambs after a dose of Tetanus Antitoxin. It is on back order and I am almost out. Hope the new order comes in soon. I will stock up this time. We vaccinated the 2-month-old lamb and the 6 new sheep for CL on 4/17. They will a need a booster on 5/17 which will be when the first vac for CL needs to be given to the month-old twins. A month later the new lambs will be 2 months old and get their first CL vac and the twins will get their last. Next year I will put everyone on the same schedule.

Once we get to Texas, I will have Payton move a roll of hay over for the sheep. Will also need some barleycorn to feed in the barn to teach the sheep to come in at night. After the sheep arrive DH and I will have to drive down to get a hay cradle in Lometa for the ewes and lambs. We can check out the portable panels and gates at both companies at the same time.

 

[farmerjan]

Take Rika with you and leave the younger Angel there. Rika may not understand the being left with no other dogs and she is the more "precious", to you, of your dogs, with her age and all. She also could get into trouble if, God Forbid, there was any problems with any predators for those few days. She will be more comfortable traveling with you.

Be careful of worming the sheep just before going on the trailer, you are subjecting them to "stress" with the worming, then the confinement and travel. I would not do it within a week of shipping. You do not need to have problems with their intestinal tracts all messed up. If you gave them one dose at this point I would call it good... not do them within 2-3 days of travel.

Make sure they take some of the water from CA that they are used to so they will not be changing water, and have them refuse to drink on the trip.

 

[Baymule]

Yes, what @farmerjan said. I carried water to Gatesville when @Margali and I traded ewes. But they didn’t care and drank water from the faucet there. But I was prepared!

 

[Ridgetop]

The 2 week time line for worming is May 30. That is 5 days before shipping so if I worm at the 13 day mark, on the 29th, that will work. I guess I should get some wormer and do the horses one time too.

Will be vaccinating 21 sheep today - mamas and lambs. Then Tetanus Antitoxin and dock 9 lambs. The Antitoxin is no available until maybe the end of May. MAYBE. It has been hard to get hold of it and I like to use it when docking. I guess anyone else needing docking will have to wait 2 weeks after the CDT for a band since I used the last of the Antitox for the 9 I will do today. It is really ard to get and has been out of stock for about a year. New regs on having to test horses for a bunch of stuff before using their blood to make vaccines.

OR10 lambed today. Early this am I went down and there was a puddle and she was licking at it. Stringing out of her vulva but no lamb. She isn't terribly smart, being a sheep, so watched her as she decided that she didn't have a lamb yet or had lost it somewhere. Up and down for about half an hour and zi just about decided she might be in trouble when she got up again and half a lamb was hanging out. She turned in a circle looking for it and it fell out. By then she had turned around in a complete circle and the lamb was behind her. She is looking all around in front of her while the lamb is struggling on the ground behind her! She is calling to the lamb and it has stopped wriggling. Wondering why I like raising sheep, I went down with a towel to wipe the sac off the baby's head. By now the ewe had investigated the entire area in front of her without finding the lamb. As I approached she turned around to see me and Surprise! Here was her lamb. She began to clean it up. I went up and got some iodine for the cord. By now the first one was trying to get to his feet. I waited until the first one nursed and she dropped the second lamb to do their cords. This was not her first rodeo, and she is a good mother, but sometimes these sheep are really stupid. LOL

No more room in the barn so when DS1 picks up Elizabeth, we will turn the ewes in the barn creep into the field night fold. Then we will check to make sure they are tagged, if not, we will have to ear tag them. Once the creep is empty, we will vaccinate the sheep in the jugs, dock the ewe lambs and 8111's ram lamb and turn them into the barn creep. Then I will clean out the jugs, lime them and put down DriStall. Finally, when we go to feed, we will bring OR10 and her lambs up to the barn jugs. No need to vax with Antitoxin since they are rams and will go to auction. If any others have lambed, they can come up too. Once we have a couple more ewes in the barn we can vaccinate with CDT and wait to dock for 10 days.

Hear some ewe squalling out front so better check. Some of them are noisy when lambing and some are quiet.

 

[SageHill]

Just got a call from Bob May. He will be here on Saturday May 4 in late afternoon to load all animals. He said that he will separate the older lambs from moms, and they will be in separate compartments. The compartments are small to avoid much movement of the animals while traveling. He feeds alfalfa and water during the trip. DS1 will be here to load, and I will see if DS2 can be here to help him. DS1 will make a loading chute from portable panels to move the sheep into the trailer. I have the list of all sheep, dates they gave birth, how many lambs, etc. We will make sure all lambs are ear tagged and on the list. I will keep a copy of all the documents I leave for Bob May. He will have a list of all the sheep, their tag numbers, scrapie numbers, dates they lambed etc. He will also have copies of the Coggins, Brucellosis and CVIs.

DH and I will travel to Texas with the big gooseneck and two dogs, leaving on May 2 to arrive in time to set up for the sheep arrival. DS1 will drive out pulling another trailer on May 8 am with the last dog and the last corral panels.

It is happening!

YES!!! So exciting!!!!!

 

[farmerjan]

The 2 week time line for worming is May 30. That is 5 days before shipping so if I worm at the 13 day mark, on the 29th, that will work. I guess I should get some wormer and do the horses one time too.

Will be vaccinating 21 sheep today - mamas and lambs. Then Tetanus Antitoxin and dock 9 lambs. The Antitoxin is no available until maybe the end of May. MAYBE. It has been hard to get hold of it and I like to use it when docking. I guess anyone else needing docking will have to wait 2 weeks after the CDT for a band since I used the last of the Antitox for the 9 I will do today. It is really ard to get and has been out of stock for about a year. New regs on having to test horses for a bunch of stuff before using their blood to make vaccines.

OR10 lambed today. Early this am I went down and there was a puddle and she was licking at it. Stringing out of her vulva but no lamb. She isn't terribly smart, being a sheep, so watched her as she decided that she didn't have a lamb yet or had lost it somewhere. Up and down for about half an hour and zi just about decided she might be in trouble when she got up again and half a lamb was hanging out. She turned in a circle looking for it and it fell out. By then she had turned around in a complete circle and the lamb was behind her. She is looking all around in front of her while the lamb is struggling on the ground behind her! She is calling to the lamb and it has stopped wriggling. Wondering why I like raising sheep, I went down with a towel to wipe the sac off the baby's head. By now the ewe had investigated the entire area in front of her without finding the lamb. As I approached she turned around to see me and Surprise! Here was her lamb. She began to clean it up. I went up and got some iodine for the cord. By now the first one was trying to get to his feet. I waited until the first one nursed and she dropped the second lamb to do their cords. This was not her first rodeo, and she is a good mother, but sometimes these sheep are really stupid. LOL

No more room in the barn so when DS1 picks up Elizabeth, we will turn the ewes in the barn creep into the field night fold. Then we will check to make sure they are tagged, if not, we will have to ear tag them. Once the creep is empty, we will vaccinate the sheep in the jugs, dock the ewe lambs and 8111's ram lamb and turn them into the barn creep. Then I will clean out the jugs, lime them and put down DriStall. Finally, when we go to feed, we will bring OR10 and her lambs up to the barn jugs. No need to vax with Antitoxin since they are rams and will go to auction. If any others have lambed, they can come up too. Once we have a couple more ewes in the barn we can vaccinate with CDT and wait to dock for 10 days.

Hear some ewe squalling out front so better check. Some of them are noisy when lambing and some are quiet.

Tetanus ANTI Toxin is readily available here, it is the tetanus TOXIN we often cannot find. That is what we use when we band calves... When you get to TX and if it is still not available, I might be able to find a smaller styrofoam container, freeze water bottles, and ship it to you if you want...Ought to keep 2 days for UPS to get it there...

 

[Ridgetop]

Tetanus Toxoid is available here, it is the one that is not instant protection. It is long term protection and is included in the CDT (Clostridium C & D, Tetanus) vacs I give for annual protection. The Antitoxin is the instant protection that I like to use when banding tails (docking). I used to give a jab f t when castrating too, but it is not really necessary when castrating a 2-3 months old that has gotten the 2 shots of CDT a month apart.

If you can get the Antitoxin, I will take you up on that offer when I get to Texas.

Forgot to hit post on this this morning.

No more new lambs yet. However, 2 ewes have escaped from the front pasture and are loose in the large pasture. One side f the front pasture is chain link and is all buckled and rolled up on the bottom and down on the top. We would be planning to fix it but since we are moving in less than 2 weeks, it is not on our to do list. In the meantime, DS1 rolled some power pole butts in front of the worst rolled up places hoping to keep them in. Apparently it did not work completely. The front pasture is eaten to bare dirt which might be why they want out. It will pass the Fire Marshal's inspection. Those ewes will be allowed out onto the large pasture once we have moved the sheep around. There is plenty to eat in the big pasture now. Would like to get it eaten down a bit before we move. The Grandsons are coming over to stay on Memorial weekend and will be doing weed wacker duty on the remaining weeds within 200' of the house and barn. The lamb creep hill has been eaten off pretty good too and the next group of ewes will finish it off. Putting the ewes and lambs on the large pasture will require harder work from the Anatolians. But as long as they can be put away at night they should be safe.

Take Rika with you and leave the younger Angel there.

I think I will take Rika and Ozel with us. Ozel can't be left alone to defend 50 head of sheep, and Rika is getting too old to be there alone. When the sheep arrive in Texas, we have good fencing, and the ewes and lambs will be in a pen inside the fencing with the dogs. Rika and Ozek should be able to defend the sheep together. Angel is large, powerful, and able to defend all the sheep. Then she can ride out with DS1 a couple days later. I am going to ask DS2 to let me take his .22 rifle with me as well as my shotgun and that should be enough protection for the sheep until Angel arrives.

Vet emailed that they want a video f the flock because "they need a visual" 10 days before shipping. ??? The requirements I read only specified Brucellosis tests, Coggins tests, and CVI within 30 days. When the vet came out, I told her that the sheep were not shipping until after May 1. She didn't mention any 10 day visual when she was taking pix. She wants a video so I guess I can try to send one via phone.

Blocked off the creep from the rest of the pen and used it as a holding pen for the ewes and lambs in the pens i cobbled together. Then vaccinated, tagged and docked those lambs and moved them and their mamas into the creep. Next we tagged the older lambs. Then we moved the sheep and older lambs from the barn to the field. Finally, we tagged, docked and vaccinated all the lambs and vaccinated their moms. As we did each ewe and her lambs we moved them into the barn creep pen. Once they were finally done, I started cleaning out a couple of the jugs. I can't wait until I can do this chore with the tractor! Raking wet hay and manure mixed on top of clay is heavy work. Got 3 jugs cleaned out, limed, and put down Dri-Stall. Then shoveled all the manure into two 50 gallon trash cans. As I was finishing DS1 and Elizabeth brought up OR10 and her twin ram lambs an they went int the driest clean jug. One of the jugs is saturate and doesn't drain properly. When I was cleaning it the layers of hay, manure and urine just rolled up in a heavy roll. Tomorrow I will lime and Dri Stall it again. Came up and cooked dinner. Done for the night but tomorrow I need to clean out the last 2 jugs, lime and Dri-Stall them. Then I need to shovel all the stuff into a 70 gallon can because I am out of 50 gallon cans.

Exhausted but ready for next wave of lambing.