Catching Up

Funny, looking back at past posts before March 5th, I couldn't wait for lambing, now I'm just glad its over!

Some catch up pictures...
This is Ewenice... my Mother called me and asked me "How do you spell Eunice?" I said "Ewenice, when its a sheep!" Anyway, she had a single last year, and another this year! A 14lb ram lamb, I suppose there wasn't any room for another one! I want to get more pictures of the lambs, they are getting to that stage where they are filled out but still cute as they can be. We let them out durring the day when we are there, it is so funny to watch them playing; they will all congregate, without their ewes, and if something startles them they all take off at a dead run, a little flock of minis, wish I could post a video.

Color in my flower/weed bed!

This was my surprise package Friday! I had ordered this from Terry Mendenhall of Wool Ranch fame, it was a lot faster than I expected! I was going to take a picture of the entire fleece, but it got put away and well, when something gets put away in my house (by someone other than me) I leave it there until I need it again :)

This is a moorit romeldale x, staple 5 to 6", unbelievably soft and fluffy! So guess what I did all weekend! I was in wool nirvana again!
I took a picture of a skein I finished on Saturday, but it didn't turn out very well. I have been looking in earnest for a moorit fleece since I went to Mim's last year; I need to get out more, she got me started on all kinds of quests! It was because of her I had to buy a drum carder!

...did I ever say thank you?

Long Weekend!

Sorry I haven't posted since last week, I took two days off from work because the kids were on Spring Break, so I had 5 days off, and I love being home with my kids. Lots has happened, but because my computer Internet connection is so slow, I can't post pictures and its actually kinda hard just to post text!

We are done lambing, the last ewe lambed on Friday, a ram lamb. I had a couple disappointments; after Rose had her triplets, Honey, who has always had twins, had a single ewe lamb; Ewenice, the absolutely huge ewe! had a single 14lb ram lamb. These were my biggest ewes and I was expecting at least twins. Oh well, I have had all kinds of surprises since this started! And thank goodness its over!
I will post some pictures tomorrow...

I recieved a package Saturday, one I didn't expect! Pictures if that tomorrow to :)

Hope everyone had a great Easter week!

Again!?!?!?!

I swear, with you all as my witnesses, unless or until I am in the possition to hire farm help (and have a bigger place), I will not flush before breeding again!

It was fine with Eliza, all her lambs are about the same size; 11lbs, 10lbs and 10lbs (can you imagine carrying 31 lbs of lamb???). She takes really good care of them, they are all healthy as can be.... and then comes Rose. I know it isnt her fault, it is actually mine because I did flush before breeding this year.

Rose had triplets yesterday evening. The first lamb looked great! Nice sized (about 8lbs), looked healthy, but half hour later he was not standing up. He's like a wet noodle. We drenched, gave Bo-Se, B complex and helped him to stand to get his first milk. He was a bit better last night, when my daughter gave him a nudge, he would get up, stagger over to mom and try to nurse. But if he got bumped, down he'd go like so much spaghetti and thats where he stayed.

The second lamb came, long tall and healthy, he was up in 5 mins working on finding the chow. That's when we noticed a pair of legs hanging out of the ewe. Back legs. Jari kinda freaked, I called Laura. My savior-sheperdess in Oregon. I was also trying to find out more about both problems from Laura Lawsons book, Managing Your Ewe; our copy is a bit dogeared, it is worth its weight in gold! But then so is Laura in Oregon. In the mean time, this lamb that was causing such a rucus just kind of fell to the straw, I dont think the ewe noticed to be honest. She weighs 4 lbs. I thought I got a picture of her brand new, but I had the camera on video somehow, so pictures of them later. She is a little bag of bones but she was also up and nursing within minutes. So now Im paranoid. I have two more sheep out there that are as big or bigger than Rose was, so either they are carrying trips or very large twins.

Anybody feeling my pain here??

This is Jari's 4-H suffolk ewe Misty, she had these twins last Friday the 21st. Both big strong and healthy and both ewes :) This was a photo op I couldn't pass up!
Two of Eliza's triplets, the third one looks just like his sisters :)

Tulips and Triplets

Slept in this morning.

Well, technically I didn't, but I only had 30 mins to get to work. So I woke Jari up to go feed the baby. She came back in with news I wasn't terribly surprised to hear; Eliza, my dorset ewe, had triplets! Two ewes and a ram lamb. I had a feeling she was close so I had Jari and KC (AKA Kevin) bring her in to the jugs last night. She had triplets a couple years ago and did a kick-ass job of raising them! Scuze the explitive, but its appropriate.

Now it looks as if our tunis ewe Ewenice is getting close, swollen in all the right places! Had them bring her in last night also.

Tulips? I don't remember having so many! They are all along the flower/weed bed now! And somemore of the 'unknown' plant... killin' me!
These I thought were the dafs that smell like gardenias, but they are just regular kings; the smelly ones come in three to a stem and are white.
A couple more days and I will have COLOR in my yard! YAAAAYYY! Wont be able to see them from the road, but I really don't care :)

This is just a cute picture... Twins born on th 15th.
Jari has her 4-H lambing presentation to do this afternoon, will post pics tomorrow!

Pictures and Correction

Just a small correction; I was mistaken when I said that ewe was a yearling, she was actually two, just had never lambed before...

Lots of pictures to share, I'll just get to it!



The only thing not so good about having the lambing jugs in our garage is the cement floor, if we don't put enough straw down or they move enough out of the way, it gets cold. This little girl, Carmen by name (she is the first lamb born out of Carmine), figured this out. She tried for about 30 minutes before she found a perch she wouldn't slip off of :)
This is my Niece and the bummer. After we took the ewe to put her down, Jari brought Bambi into the house, and apparently, into bed. This picture is really close to his true color, something I haven't been able to capture in any other picture yet. I guess some would call him a light moorit? Maybe he is kind of golden... I am now wondering if his body wool will fade like a tunis does, or, with his colored corriedale background, if he will stay this color all over, it is going to be interesting to find out!
One more....

This is Bambi along with the twins that were born the morning after Bambi was born. Just kinda gives you an idea of how large this lamb is; Bambi is only 14 hours older than the twins who both weighed 9 lbs when born.

Not the Ideal Weekend...

Saturday morning dawned with snow on the ground, not a lot, but enough to let you know it was a minimum of 32 degrees out. Some light snow continued to fall throughout most of the day. What I find funny about Nevada is the fact that it can be snowing with the sun shining in all its glory! It was a pretty nice day.

About 3:30, I drove the truck out to the sheep pen (I do this so I can sit in the truck and watch them without stiring everyone up), my last corrie ewe, a smallish yearling was in labor. I sat for a few minutes and watched, all the signs were there, she was lambing. I came back to the house and got my daughter. This is one of those ewes that you really cant help; my good friend Laura would call her a 'pinball sheep', no matter how long you have these sheep, they never figure out that you don't want to eat them. So we sat and watched. It soon became apparent that this ewe was not going to deliver without help. She would go into a contraction, throw her head back and make the most God-awful sound you would ever hear! She was hurting.
We finally managed to get her into a jug (halfway from the sheep pens she started having contractions again), she wouldn't lie down so we layed her down. While I held her, Jari was trying to help her deliver a very large lamb. We didn't think either one was going to make it, Jari was doing such an awesome job trying to pull that lamb, I was nothing but a spectator at that point. We ended up having to cut the skin around the opening to make room for the head, I pulled back on her tail and out popped a 17lb ram lamb! He is beautiful! We thought we had really accomplished something; well I guess we did, we have a moorit colored, tunis corrie cross, soon-to-be-wether that I will keep for his wool.
We lost the ewe.
Within two hours of delivery, the ewe expelled her uterus. We worked for almost 2 hours to put it back, I just couldnt do it. My husband, my son, Jari and I were exauhsted, the ewe was bleeding pretty badly... I think the worst part was knowing I had to give up. Knowing that a perfectly healthy ewe was dying, and there was absolutely nothing I could do for her.

These are the days I have nightmares about.

In the past twenty four hours, I have seriously contemplated giving it all up. I was so ill prepared to deal with something like this. I was on the phone with two experience shepherdess' who did a wonderful job at trying to talk me through it, but I didn't have half the things I should have had to be successful at what needed to be done.

Post-trama, 6:30AM:

I woke up to find my daughter had not slept in her room.
The last time she did this she was in a lot of trouble! But this time, it was because she was in the 'barn' assisting a ewe to lamb. I think the biggest thing she is going to learn in vet school is to be patient :)
We have been watching this yearling, first-timer ewe for over a week, her udders have been so ...engourged that I expected them to start dragging. I did not expect what happened.
Jari had helped her deliver the first lamb (we had a 'patience is a virtue' talk), and to my amazement, she was going to have another! However, Jari wasn't in there just to help her lamb, she was catching all the amniotic fluid she could get hold of and rubbing it on the orphand lamb from the day before. As the ewe had the first lamb and started to lick her off, she also started licking off the bummer. She let him nurse, he got a belly full and she had the second lamb.
I know what some of you experienced shepherds/ess' might be thinking at this point; the ewe can't support all three of them, and you are more than likely right. I worried about this all day today, and although the ewe does have plenty of milk, her lambs are half the size of the ram lamb (now dubbed 'Bambi'), and I can't see them getting a fair shake in that situation. I think the ewe knows this also, and although when you take him out of her jug, she cries for him to come back, she only lets him nurse occasionally. Which is OK, he got as much colostrum as he needed I think, and will start on replacer as soon as I can get some home from the feed store tomorrow.

So, lost one, gained three. And yeah, I remembered why I do this.

Pictures tomorrow.

The Need To Know!

I have the need to know what the heck this is!

I called my Mother, she gave it to me, and she can't remember what it is! I have never forgotten the name of a plant in my possession before, its a new experience... Any horticulturists out there?

So shall I make it a blog-sport? Hmmmm.... If you can tell me what this plant is, I will send out to the plant-smarty person some tunis wool when I shear. I will even wash it for you :)
Two hints, it is a perennial and it flowers (pinks and reds).
OK, one more hint, it grows close to the ground, spreading (the whole patch is about 3'x3', started with a handful from Mom) until it gets ready to flower, then the leaves, as you see them growing here (they grow one inside the last up a stem I guess you would call it), can get up to about 12" to 16" tall and the flower blooms at the top.

And the Answer Is... Not for Long!

So I go home at lunch to check on the critters, and I find we are up by one! Not the best picture, I had my cell phone, forgot my camera was in my truck... meet our first ram lamb! Crimson tried her best to keep it to herself, but in the end Mother Nature always has her way :)
I was surprised to see all the color, I expected him to look more like his mother as she has more tunis than her mother does and was line bred to her full blooded tunis father. The problem with Laz is he always throws that slopped butt regardless of the ewe he is bred to! So this little guy got a double wammy thru his sire and dam. I dont think he will be used for breeding unless I can sell him as such.
Too funny, as I am typing this, the song "Crimson and Clover" is playing on my computer LOL

Update on yesterdays ewe lamb; she is suckling like an old pro as of this afternoon! I was concerned this morning when I went out and she was still trying to find a tit under the ewes front arm pit. I again dirrected her to the right end thinking 'she's an idiot'. No point in breeding an idiot lol. When I was home she was right where she needed to be :)

Can Sheep Hold It In?

...I would swear this one can! More on her later...

This is today's surprise! A young ewe did this after I came to work today all by herself! When my DH brought the kids in for school, I asked him to come pick me up so I could go home and check on her. It was a good thing I did; she was standing with her head down and her mouth was starting to get cold. I stripped one teat on the ewe, the other had to wait for help from Jari as it was too tightly clogged and it hurt the ewe when I tried to open it up. I held the lamb up to nurse and she got the idea but didn't have a lot of suction. She is doing fine now, I just got back after picking the kids up from school, took them home (an excuse to go check on her again), she is still having a hard time finding the gravy train, but she is nice and strong now and will get it soon.

Another ewe, Crimson (the one pictured above) was straining and acting for all the world like she was in labor, until I moved her to the lambing jug. Last year, we moved her to the jug early so she could get comfy before time to lamb and she reabsorbed her lambs, her mother (Scarlett, mother of Little Jessie) did the same thing. Within two weeks of lambing! Haven't found a shepherd yet that has seen that happen before...

So, while I was waiting to see if Crimson was going to sh** or get off the pot, I wandered around to the front flower bed that is disguised as a weed patch. In removing some of the disguise, I found this;

Daffs

And this....

More Daffs, I think these are the ones that smell like gardenias

And some of this...

Can anyone tell me what these are?

I had to look really hard for these...

Though they look like weeds, these are actually daisies, 'Becky' daisies by name :)
I love daisies, and I have at least 4 shastas and two of this hybrid.

Little Jessie

Jessie and Momma Scarlett are sunning this morning. Jessie is modeling her new out fit, designed by lamanchappy of eBay fame. This is a 14" jacket made with love and velcro, a perfect combo for a perfect fit! Wish you could see her little fat tail :)
If you go looking for these jackets at the above link, you may have to wait a bit, lamanchappy doesn't take orders but she relists these jackets every now and then, just keep checking back!

LAMBS!!!!!

Well, now I cant surprise anyone can I...

I got home from work and asked my daughter if she had checked on the sheep, she said "Yes". I asked her again, are you sure you checked on the sheep? She said "Yes". So I called her a fibber and then she tells me "Well, we [her ride home from school] drove by the pen slow" with a grin on her face. So after I got DH up for work (night shift) I went out and lo and behold! This is what I found Scarlet is a California Red/Suffolk cross (the ewe that started it all!), her new ewe lamb was named by a friends daughter, her name is Jessie. Jessie had a brother, but he didn't make it.

I am thinking that they were born sometime this morning. I didn't get to look at the other lamb, but Jari said she thinks the umbilical cord didn't break. Not sure what that means to the lamb but what ever it was, we are glad to have one live lamb out of Scarlett as this is her first live birth in the last three years. If she weren't Jari's first ewe, she would have been gone after her reabsorbtion last year, but as it is, this was her last chance.

Jessie weighed in at 7 lbs and is doing great so far!

Work, Work and More Work... 10 Days!

Had a training session yesterday, a gentleman who has been in the drilling business for 40 or more years came by to help me and a new contractor learn more about a program called Gemcom. It is a mine modeling program and although I haven't used it as such in the last eight years (we use it to view drill data) I would like to learn to. This program is directly tied to my Access DB and through the validation dialog, I found out the my database is a mess! So, for the next week or so, I am going to be looking at lines and lines of text, telling me where the problems are and (hopefully) how to fix them. Soooo, unless I see something so beautiful (or disgusting) that I cant possibly pass up taking a picture and sharing with everyone, I probably wont be posting again till lambs ...if I can stand to stay away that long :) Love ya'll!

Confessions of a Procrastinator.... CDTs & 13 Days

No pictures today, I was going to take pics yesterday, forgot the camera inside then realized who wants to see pictures of sheep getting shot?

Well, not shot in the bang bang sense of the word, we gave CDT boosters yesterday and boy am I glad that's over!

I am a horrible procrastinator. I will sit and worry about how much work something is going to be, and of course spend more energy avoiding doing it than it would take to actually do it. So it always seems like such a huge accomplishment when something gets done on time. The girls were very cooperative, we set up a catch pen and my daughter walked into it rattling a grain bucket, they all marched in behind her like they knew what was coming, silly girls. We haven't trimmed feet yet, I was thinking we could do that as they come in to lamb. I think one of the girls is going to go early, this is her first year and she is already bagged nicely.

Another (Honey) has a problem; she has a lump in one udder roughly the size of a silver dollar. The same udder was huge last year, and so she more than likely had mastitis then. I am hoping against hope that she doesn't develop it again this year. She is one of my favorite ewes, one of the first to come here and one of the most correct.

The ewes have the go ahead now, jugs are ready, shots are administered; ready for lambing!