Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Bruce]

Poor Lance. You can’t explain to a dog that Thunder Monsters are not going to hurt them.

I don't know, we've had a few strikes so close to the house the Thunder Monsters were LOUD and shook things pretty good.

 

[Mike CHS]

Our two year old Pixie had a ewe lamb yesterday afternoon from the OOPs lamb That is a shame since Pixie is a really good registered ewe that has now had a lamb from an unregistered ram. That ram lamb at least had good taste since three of the ewes (out of six) that he bred were registered so their lambs all go to the sale. On the plus side, is that prices are really good right now and of the lambs born so far, there are two ewe lambs and the rest are rams so the rams go to market also. The young ram has some good genes since the first few born of this batch of lambs have been putting on a little over a pound a day. As the lambs are born, I have been going out after they have had time to bond, and walking them back to our sheep handling paddock and mixing them with the older lambs so we can sort and load those going to market.

I didn't check the rain gauge but we had a light rain literally all night last night and it kept going until about 3:00 this afternoon.

 

[farmerjan]

I've watched the radar coming up from Tenn and all, and it works up into southwestern Va then as it comes up along the mountains in WV it tends to break up and not come across here but goes more north and quite a bit of it is just dissipating.... and we are not getting any. That has been happening alot the last few years... Used to come up from Roanoke on this side of the mountains and give us a good rain, but not so much lately.

 

[Mike CHS]

We don't gripe about the rains as it is normal for us this time of year and we gladly take it. This winter was mild and we only went through 10 large round bales of hay for the winter running 40+ sheep.

 

[Ridgetop]

How many round bales do you usually need for 40 sheep? In a bad winter. I will have to lay in some round bales for this winter since we will be moving the sheep in then.

 

[Mike CHS]

How many round bales do you usually need for 40 sheep? In a bad winter. I will have to lay in some round bales for this winter since we will be moving the sheep in then.

A few years ago we had 75 but it was a mild winter and our cool season grass helped with the load and we used 16 bales. Our average has been between 10-13.

 

[farmerjan]

Don't know what the conversion is....but a round bale of grass hay... approx 5x5 is about 20-24 sq bales of hay.... we figure 1 round bale per 20 cows per day when it is cold... ... so if the bales weigh 50 lbs that is about 1,000-1200 lbs per round bale... This is a very LOOSE guideline.... and you will not have the cold but you may not have the water/rain to make the grass either... although this year they could grow fins from what @Baymule has had...
Several of the custom hay guys around here that are making sq bales are doing the squares in the "cubes"... like 22 or 27 sqs to a cube.... easier to load and deliver/unload with forks on a skid loader or a tractor....

 

[Mike CHS]

It's supposed to rain more this afternoon so I got my grass cutting caught up this morning. The kids called via Zoom to wish Teresa a Happy Mother's Day.

I made a Thai Coconut Pork Curry for our meal today.

 

[Baymule]

It’s pouring rain here. Yay! Mo’ mud!

 

[Mike CHS]

Teresa noticed some of those Black Vultures circling over our south paddock so I grabbed the shotgun and headed that way. A couple of the vultures landed while I was heading there and I could see a dead lamb not far from the birds and two ewes were doing everything they could do to protect a newborn lamb. There was another set of twins with their mom not far from the first lamb. My vulture permit is current so this flock is now minus one member. I hung the bird on a T post in the field and I haven't seen a sign of the vultures since then. We picked up the lamb and got it out of the field and moved the two ewes and their lambs to the nursery field. One of the ewes is one of the few that is skittish with her lambs but she actually herds pretty good as long as someone is walking in front of her for her to follow. We had Lance ready to work if needed, but the ewes moved well on their own.

We will never know for sure but I think the lamb was still born.