It is sort of the same when we wean calves... luckily the house at the farm is far enough away that the calves' noise is not too terribly bad. The brothers that bought the farm then "split it"; the one brother took the "house and that side", the other kept the barn and that "side". You can hear the calves at Linda's house, she says she isn't overly bothered by the noise; but we have found over the years that weaning the calves at older ages, has stopped alot of the incessant bawling... We used to pull them at about 6 months.. now it is more like 8-9 months. Plus, we have found that leaving 2-3 cows with them when we take the rest away is a "comfort" thing... they are like nanny cows and the calves don't get so upset... then we take those cows away 2 weeks or so later... and their calves will holler a little but they just follow the ones that are weaned. It works for us but I am sure most people wouldn't want to be bothered. Just seems that the calves feel "safer" following cows that they are familiar with even if it isn't their own mommas. Waiting til they are a little older helps too from how we used to do it.Our neighbors know our routine at weaning so we always apologize in advance for the noise. I just took Sassy and Lance out for their last potty break and the ewes are standing at the fence just bawling. That is one reason we put them in that paddock as it is on the far side of our house so we aren't kept awake all night.
but they will go back today so not like it will be days of carrying on.
That's where having the much shorter gestation in sheep is helpful. When we pull calves the cows have already been bred back and are pregnant getting ready to go dry... Whole different deal with the sheep since the lambs are pulled at 2-4 months and our calves stay with the cows for about 7-9 months.. You have to worry about ewe lambs breeding at very young ages. Whereas MOST of the time, we don't have to worry about heifers coming in heat much before 8-12 months... there are always some that will come in sooner, and the better their nutritional levels, good pasture, the sooner they might start to cycle.. The thing for us is to get the bulls OUT from breeding the cows after a 90 day period, so the heifers are usually about 6-7 months still nursing the cows... and usually aren't coming in heat that soon. A couple of places where we can't get the bulls out, due to the way we rotationally graze, no catch pens etc... have created a few "oops" pregnancies.... it happens. Usually have 1 a year....
