Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Mike CHS]

Two of them had size/confirmation issues and had always had small, slow growing lambs. The third had a deformed hoof that was needing constant maintenance to keep her from limping. She was one of our registered ewes but we didn't see the hoof until checking out the cause for her limping.

 

[Bruce]

I felt guilty again since I didn't even need a buckets as when I got in the trailer so did all the sheep.

I'm sure that was pretty hard, you've had some of them for quite a while.

 

[Baymule]

I both dread and look forward to culling half my flock. It makes me both sad and happy. I have to cut some loose in order to replace them with registered ewes.

I understand Mike, and I’m still a couple of months from loading them up.

 

[Mike CHS]

We are watching some of the sale on the net and prices are silly again but I'm not griping. The ewes are in great condition compared to most that you see and the lambs are all prime. I'm not sure what the yearlings will bring since this is the first time we have sold any and especially not this early in the season, The lambs are all in the 50-55 pound range and the yearling ewes are all right at 85-90 pounds.

 

[Beekissed]

Two of them had size/confirmation issues and had always had small, slow growing lambs. The third had a deformed hoof that was needing constant maintenance to keep her from limping. She was one of our registered ewes but we didn't see the hoof until checking out the cause for her limping.

Has she passed that along to any of her offspring at all or do you think it was due to an early injury to the hoof?

I know how you feel as I will eventually have to cull my three favorite ewes....the rest I don't have much of a bond with yet. I'm not looking forward to getting rid of those older gals, but not being able to keep any of their offspring slows down the growth of my flock.

As I look at my flock with a critical eye, I'd cull every single one of them but Eli says I can't do that yet. We are definitely culling the ram and will not likely keep most or any of the ewe lambs produced this season. I want to invest the money from the sale of the lambs in a better ram and a few better ewes if we can find them. Got a line on two breeders in my state now that have better looking stock than ours, so will be haunting them for news of lamb or older ewes and ram sales.

I guess it's natural to want to hurry up and get into better stock, but we are operating on less than a shoestring here, so we have to go slow and build slow...but I wanna run!

 

[Mike CHS]

Has she passed that along to any of her offspring at all or do you think it was due to an early injury to the hoof?

I guess it's natural to want to hurry up and get into better stock, but we are operating on less than a shoestring here, so we have to go slow and build slow...but I wanna run!

She hasn't passed it on so I'm pretty sure something happened to her as a yearling. We know the breeder well so we are pretty sure they didn't know about her. Most of the sheep born on the farm here have looked nice but we didn't cut corners when it comes to rams. I drove as far as @Baymule drove to get Ringo to get the ram we replaced him with. This year we just swapped with another registered ram in our county.

 

[Beekissed]

She hasn't passed it on so I'm pretty sure something happened to her as a yearling. We know the breeder well so we are pretty sure they didn't know about her. Most of the sheep born on the farm here have looked nice but we didn't cut corners when it comes to rams. I drove as far as @Baymule drove to get Ringo to get the ram we replaced him with. This year we just swapped with another registered ram in our county.

Our drives will likely only be 6-8 hr round trips, which we've done for all the other stock, and I'm hoping to find better rams there....then, when I sell HIS offspring, maybe upgrade to an even BETTER ram, for which I'd have to travel quite a bit more distance, I imagine. It's all in steps, isn't it?

 

[Mike CHS]

Tennessee and Alabamahas a ton of sheep farms but if you look at the papers, they all come from similar (almost identical) lines. I had to venture to northern Missouri to find a ram that wasn't a close relative of our sheep.

 

[Mike CHS]

The hard part of this lambing season is pretty much over. They are all up to date on shots and we have ran enough fecals to have a good idea how the parasite load is. The load taken to the sale this morning is the last sales for this time unless the ram lambs don't develop good enough to warrant registering.

We had planned on having lambs for the auction this time of year for 3 years but "things" kept happening that delayed breeding so as a result, we were selling sheep at the same time as everyone else. Teresa went through the last couple of years receipts and the sheep that we sold this month brought in 50% more than our last three years. I still would not be a happy sheep producer (and probably hungry) if I didn't have other income but at least this year, they paid for all the years sheep expenses (I still work for just the enjoyment of these marvelous creatures) with enough left over to pay for next winters hay and feed and maybe some M&M's if I'm a good boy.

 

[Beekissed]

The hard part of this lambing season is pretty much over. They are all up to date on shots and we have ran enough fecals to have a good idea how the parasite load is. The load taken to the sale this morning is the last sales for this time unless the ram lambs don't develop good enough to warrant registering.

We had planned on having lambs for the auction this time of year for 3 years but "things" kept happening that delayed breeding so as a result, we were selling sheep at the same time as everyone else. Teresa went through the last couple of years receipts and the sheep that we sold this month brought in 50% more than our last three years. I still would not be a happy sheep producer (and probably hungry) if I didn't have other income but at least this year, they paid for all the years sheep expenses (I still work for just the enjoyment of these marvelous creatures) with enough left over to pay for next winters hay and feed and maybe some M&M's if I'm a good boy.

I was reading that earlier and it impressed me greatly. How does the breeding go in the warmer months? Any problems associated with that? What lambing date do you shoot for to hit this increase in market prices?