I believe it's going to be Mr. Bates

This is Olive's boy.  He's still waiting for his "Downton Abbey" name.  I'm thinking it might be Mr. Bates.  He has a kind face, don't you think?  He's been acting as the ram of the year for a few select ewes.  That red stain on his chest is from the marking harness he was wearing to help me determine when the 2013 lambs will be due.  The harness holds a wax crayon that marks the rump of the ewe as he mounts her.  I mark the date on the calendar and count forward 145 days.  That becomes the date to watch for new lambs.  It appears he's done his job,  so I pulled him out over the weekend and he's awaiting his appointment for "tutoring".  He's a lovely boy with a sweet temperament and a gorgeous fleece and I don't want to keep him around here as the solitary ram.  Sheep are flocking animals and they don't like to being alone.  We'll castrate him soon and after a brief period of recuperation and time for the testosterone to get out of his system,  he can go in with the little girls.  He's still a growing boy and needs to be getting some grain every day,  as they are.

(That face!)

(I have high hopes that Mr. Bates will pass this fleece along to his babies.)

Speaking of little girls,  I've finally remembered that I hinted at a near disasterous event that happened here at the farm while we were gone to Vermont in September.  It was Marilla .... my funny little bottle baby.  We'd only been away for a few days when I got a text from the farm sitter,  saying one of the ewe lambs was not eating normally.  The next text was that she was having convulsions.  By that point,  I had decided I was not supposed to ever leave the farm again because it seemed to invite tragedy.  Long story short,  we called Mike Griffitt (the closest veterinarian who still does farm calls)  and he came out to look at her.  (Because my husband Mike is a veterinarian,  we don't really have another vet who sees our animals and we were so grateful that he was willing to come out.)  She was unable to stand or walk and he couldn't figure out what the problem was but decided to try treating her with vitamins/minerals and a strong antibiotic.  I stayed up most of the night researching and while we never found anything conclusive,  we decided to put her on a modified treatment for meningeal worm.  It is fairly uncommon in sheep in our area,  but we have plenty of deer visiting our pastures and it can be a problem with the alpacas.  Honestly,  we felt we were probably not going to be able to save her and the treatment regime was a last resort.  Amazingly,  she showed a little improvement every day after that.  Thanks to diligence on the part of Sue,  our farm sitter,  Marilla was able to stand and even walk around a little by the time we returned home.  We still don't know what her mystery illness was.  It took her several weeks to return to "normal" (or as normal as she can be),  but now you'd never know she'd been close to death.  She's my miracle baby and more spoiled than ever.

(That's little Marilla all the way to the left)

The Mister

 That's what I'm calling him.  He's our rent-a-ram and he came with no name.  I've got to have something to call him,  so .....  "The Mister" is it.  If he were here to stay,  I'd work a little harder at naming him,  but he'll be leaving in a few months ( or less,  if he gets the job done quickly! ).  The Mister is a Wensleydale ram lamb ( born this past spring ) and he's got the most gorgeous fleece.  If you look closely,  you can see that he has no britch and his fleece is beautifully consistent,  front to back with plenty of luster.  I can't wait to see what kind of lambs he gives me.

The Mister has not been handled at all,  so it's been a little challenging to settle him in here.  He's been penned where he could see other sheep and that has kept him fairly content,  but this morning the last of our hay was delivered and he did not like the noise from the hay elevator.  He was starting to get anxious and was trying to jump over the sides of his pen,  so we gave him a girl to keep him company.

As you can tell by her expression,  she is not that pleased or impressed.  This is Gabby  (sister to the famous Graham ).   She's 3/4 Bluefaced Leicester and 1/4 Romney and has a beautiful fleece herself.  I'm hoping these two make some beautiful babies !
 

( Kinda looks like a wide load - not her best angle,  but look at that fleece ! )

 Tomorrow we plan to put the marking harness on The Mister and introduce him to the rest of the ewe flock.  Crayon number one will be orange and,  if you don't know what that means,  stay tuned and I'll explain it all next week.

Happy weekending !



 

Not quite the peaceable kingdom......

Finally, after a lot of head butting, shoulder shoving and general bully-boy acting, we have achieved a truce. When I took the rams away from the ewes in their breeding groups, I dreaded putting them back together. Most of the year, they get along well enough. I would say they even become pals. But, as soon as the ewes start cycling, the boys get restless and then every day it's "I'm more rammy than you are"....pretty much nonstop until I separate them and put them in with their ewes. Henry is a new addition to our flock this year and Ollie is not impressed or pleased (but, I think the girls were!). As usual, I penned them together in a very, very small space in hopes that they would not hurt each other in the time it took for testosterone levels to come down. I penned them together so they could barely turn around and still they were pushing and shoving after a week. I gave them a little more space and after another few days, turned them outside together. I think Henry got the worst of it, but they finally have settled down. Henry is an old guy and he made a valiant effort at being the dominant one, but Ollie is not quite two and that gave him the physical advantage.

(Yes, I know...the coat is done for....I took it off and found it's beyond repair. That's his third and LAST coat for this year!)

(Seriously, what's not to love about that face?)

Then, there is poor Buddy (he's a wether), who got thrown into the pen to serve as a peace-maker. He's bigger than either of the rams and could intimidate them, if he only knew it. He's such a big baby and sweet boy. He'd rather be baby-sitting those silly ewe lambs than dealing with the rough old boys. (And, by the way, don't let anyone tell you that bottle raised ram lambs won't ever amount to anything. Sometimes they do, because Buddy was a nice guy, even before we took away his ramhood!)

Get ready, get set, GO!

I didn't even have to say it. (Not sure I could have said it fast enough!!) We brought the ewes in, wormed them all and trimmed their feet, if needed (which was not easy given that we've had no rain in forever). I looked at fleeces, lambing records and made my final decisions about who was getting bred to whom. We divided the ewes and put them in separate fields and brought the boys in for worming, feet check and the strapping on of the marking harnesses. By that time, the temperature was close to 85 degrees and the sun was shining brightly, so I made the boys stay in the barn, cooling their heels until the sun started going down. I haltered each one and led him to his group of girls and got out of the way. Good grief! When I checked on everyone about an hour later, both rams had already marked two ewes! Guess my 2011 lambing season will start in a big way early in March.

Henry (That Henry) is quite the gentleman and is calm and sweet with his group of ewes. Ollie is still a little too youthfully exuberant and I worried that he might just have a heat stroke for a while there, but he has calmed down and is being attentive and not so rowdy (and a little tired, I would imagine!).

So the cycle begins again. I recently read on someone's blog (wish I could remember who) that they always felt like fall was the start of a new year. I share that same feeling. Even before I began raising sheep, having three boys head off to school and a quiet house to myself, always felt as though it was time for me to start something new. These days, fall means planning for spring and the new crop of lambs that will brighten my days and it means winter is coming (I hope, I hope) and prime spinning and knitting time is ahead of me.

(sorry for no pictures today-camera issues and heat combined to defeat me!)

Boys will be...............

Um, let's start with #1-hard-headed and maybe add #2-single-minded. Thanks to new levels of testosterone around the place right now and some cooler weather at night, the rams have been taking a little longer to adjust than I was hoping. I thought the extreme heat we had been experiencing would keep the head-butting and posturing to a minimum, but Ollie and Henry had other ideas. Mr. Lucky and Buddy wanted no part of the butting matches, so they were excused from the fray. (As a side note: Buddy became a wether after breeding season several years ago, so he does not show any interest in proving he is a candidate for ram-of-the-year. Besides being a wonderful personality to have around, he serves as a babysitter for lambs, companion to anyone needing one and all around good guy.)

Ollie and Henry spent the better part of a week penned up closely in the barn. Every few days, I would let them out into the barnyard and watch their behavior. If the head-butting started....back into the pen they went. Finally, they smelled enough alike to be satisfied with shouldering each other around occasionally. I will say, for an old guy, Henry can hold his own with a much younger ram.

These last pictures were taken this morning (I'm sitting on top of the gate) and the boys are just one big happy group right now. Well, except for Ollie, who, when he is not with his buddies, is pacing the fence looking longingly at the ewe flock (see #2 above). I am not planning on any lambs being born before March, so he will just have to get over it for the time being .

New man around the farm

Meet Henry. Yes, we've added to the level of testosterone around Tanglewood. He's an impressive, studly looking guy, isn't he? Henry came home with me yesterday from a big sheep operation a few counties away. He has done his manly duties there for several years and needed to move on to fresh pastures--so to speak. Henry is 1/2 Wensleydale and 1/2 Cotswold and I'm counting on him to add some length and luster to the fleeces on my next year's crop of lambs. Not sure how I'll go about describing those lamb's genetics! BFL/Romney/CVM x Wensleydale/Cotswold?

Anyway, Henry has been just lovely so far. He favors under the chin scratches and, maybe, just a little behind the ears.