We have been Busy Bees to say the least. We had a bit of snow early Febuary, but it was just a bit and did not stay long, even with warning of 5 to 7 inches, we were disappointed to say the least. We have been waiting for the rain to dry up enough to put in a road at the farm. Finally, it was time and after 12 truck loads of crushed pavement, we have a dry road!! Hooray! I can actually wash my truck.
The picture below is the road to the farm, minus the mud holes and sloppy areas.
Febuary 20th we had a surprise of our first Icelandic Lamb being born to Sarah, one of my ewes. I had put the rams in with the ewes in September hoping they would breed and lamb earlier. The thought is to breed earlier and wean before the parasite season of June, July and August. The little ram lamb is sired by Phantom and is jet black now, but may gray out and doing very well. The picture below is a week later and he looks as if to say... Watch me, I am special....
While messing with Sarah, I noticed one of the cows, Beauty with some mucus on her tail. The next morning she calved a large black bull calf Feb 21st. (left) Then on Feb 25th Christy calved a dark brown bull calf. (right)We have one more cow, Daisy the old cow to have her calf. We are not sure if she is bred and will wait and see. We have not noticed her coming into heat and Brutus is with the cows.
Both daughters of Angel, sired by Buddy have kidded as well. Babette and Alexis both had single doelings. Both are blue eyed. One sired by Flash out of Babette and the other by Mr General out of blue eyed Alexis. The sisters have really nice udders and I am milking them once daily and hope to show them this spring.
We have also been busy building lambing pens out of treated wood. Mr Paul and Billy put together 4 pens before the rain last Sunday and will finish 6 more this Saturday. After messing with hog panels and looking into pricing for metal now, wood was the option. We can fold up the lambing pens when not in use or use them to wean Nigerians in. The wood is close enough not to allow kids to stick their heads through and continue to nurse their moms. Cow and hog panels have enough room for a long neck to reach mom's udder and cow panels are large enough for the Nigerians to squeeze through until they are 5 or 6 months.
We hope the weather will improve and be a bit dryer and warmer. We are still above average for this month's rainfall and the temperature has averaged 15 to 20 degrees cooler then average as well.
