Spring to Summer...

Wow, another day of almost 90 degrees today. We have been busy shearing sheep in between ewes lambing. The above and to the left are our group of rams all sheared and lovin it. Gary, a friend of mine helped out and showed me how to shear on a stand without cutting the sheep. The shearing machine has very sharp blades and I hate to cut one. I am getting better and did my first one today without a cut.

The picture to the right is my new Shetland Sheep I have recently purchased. The ram is Dunkin and he is AI from England. It was pure luck I came across him for sale on the breed registry website. He is long and a beautiful ram, sired by Enfield Greyling, a very well respected AI sire from England. Dunkin has a huge set of horns, is extremely easy going and a lovely gray. I sheared him myself and his picture post shearing is above. The Shetlands remind me of mini icelandics with a very fine wool. The ewe in the picture is also a Shetland, Venus. I purchased her and her daughter when I went to Tenn. to get Dunkin. They are all three in isolation until I am sure they are OK to come out and have been wormed twice.

The pictures below are of Uma, one of my yearlings out of Havvah, an icelandic. She is standing in a hole and the picture is not great, but she lambed 4-25, a lovely black ewe lamb sired by the Trump. Uma is a triplet, polled white icelandic ewe. She just turned a year old and did a great job, lambing without assistance. The picture on the left is with her fleece and to the right, without. She is one of my shearing jobs, with only one nick on the other side. Uma is a nice, long ewe and meaty in the hindquarters. I will post better pictures of the baby when Uma lets me. She keeps herding the baby behind her.

Enough for now...

Spring is finally here...

We have actually had several days without rain and able to get around to round up the rams and do some shearing. The picture above and to the left is The Trump. We put him on a stand and sheared him due to his size and horn size. He was no trouble and has done very well on grass only. We still have some yearlings who will lamb by him. We have two moorit lambs on the ground now sired by him. He is a Gray Moorit Icelandic Ram.

The picture on the right is the goats on new pasture. We will be changing pastures every 30 days to decrease parasite problems. The sheep were put on new pasture as well. We have 7 different pastures to rotate the livestock on.

The picture above and to the left is a cute little Shetland ram lamb. He is pretty tame and comes up to be petted. I have not figured out what color he is yet. He will be For Sale. He is not registered, but purebred. He has a very nice wool and will have a good horn set. We will be offering him For $100.

The Ewe above and to the right is Havvah with her Trump ram lamb. They are enjoying all the lush pasture and he is growing very fast. We sheared Havvah just before she lambed several weeks ago.

We also purchased a dozen chicks for more laying hens. My original hens are pretty old and not laying like they had been. We purchased 6 Americaunas, 3 Production Red pullets and 3 black sex link pullets. The Ameri were straight run, so will have to wait and see how many are hens. Anyway, they are doing well and we will get pictures of them later.

Enough for now...

Happy Easter Everyone...

Happy Easter and what a beautiful day we had today. It was sunny, not to hot and we had a lovely breeze. We spent the late morning moving goats, ewes and rams to new pastures. By rotating pastures we keep the parasites down and give the pastures time to recover. It is a lovely site to see the livestock neck deep in new pasture.

The pictures above and to the left are of Sarah and her baby ewe lamb. She is a lovely chocolate color, which is referred to as Moorit. She is sired by The Trump. The picture above and to the right is Havvah's son, sired by The Trump as well. He is a rich Moorit and is nice and wide and long.

The grass has grown beautifully and we are backing off on the feed. We will keep an eye on everyone and supplement accordingly. With the abundant pasture, little to no extra feed is needed. The ewes are down right fat, so we have stopped feeding them and just checking them daily to see how they are holding their weight. The moms with twins are being monitored the closest.

The picture of the white ram on the left, above are of Havvah's triplet son from last year, Ultram. He has the widest set of horns I have seen on an Icelandic. He is almost a year old and For Sale. The picture to the right and above is The Trump. His horns are magnificent and he is just about two years old. His horns have grown quite a bit over the winter. I had to share these two with you as I admired their grand style and beauty. The Icelandics are beautiful sheep.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with family and friends celebrating the Easter Holiday. Enough for now...

The Beginning of Icelandic Lambing...

Havvah is the first of the Icelandic Sheep to lamb. But as luck would have it she had complications. This is her 4 th lambing without problems. She had triplets last time with out a hitch. This time was different. She had triplet rams, but only one made it. One was still born and the last one was very large with his head twisted under, behind the pelvis. After much manipulation I was finally able to free him, but he did not make it. Poor Havvah is exhausted and sore. Havvah had a lovely moorit ram lamb (above) sired by The Trump. He was born Friday the 3rd.

Sarah was due according to my calculations the 4th, but she has not lambed yet. We will keep her in a pen close to the barn to keep an eye on her. The two lambs below are the Iceoits, the mix between a Cheviot and Icelandic. They are doing great and growing like crazy. All the rain has caused the grass to jump and the grazing is great. The lambs are growing really fast and are all fat and happy.

We have received more rain today and had not dried out from the prior two weeks. Mud and more mud is the word of the day. At least a lot of the pasture has dry areas and the goats and sheep can get where it is dry. I worry about foot problems and have been checking everyone. So far all is well.

The blood work has come back on the Shetlands and they are all negative for OPP, Ovine Progressive Pneumonia. That is good and they will be coming home shortly. The moms and the lambs are doing great. Once Sarah lambs, we will have room to bring the Shetlands home.

There was a nice article in the Coop News about the Expo.

http://www.alafarmnews.com/index.php?view=article&id=1465%3Alearning-while-having-fun-at-elmore-co-sheep-a-goat-expo&option=com_content&Itemid=23

Enough for now and everyone take care.

We made it...

We made it through the Friday night storms. A lot of lightning and my friend Mr. Paul had his Porch blown off and his car port blew into some chain link fence. He must have had a mini twister set down at his place. The rain was not as heavy as the days before. As of today, the water is drying up and in another couple of days, hopefully will be able to get to the goats without our waders.

Above are pictures of the new baby Shetland ewe on the left, and the little ram lamb on the right. The ram lamb is turning chocolate and has a nice set of horns coming up. The moms are doing well and even little scruffy is filling out. We have sent off blood on them and hope to hear next week that they are negative.

The pictures above are of Sarah, the first of my Icelandic ewes to lamb next week. She is pictured sheared, standing in the Thursday water, waiting for some feed. She is very pregnant and nicely bagged up. She is almost two, bred by The Trump. We are hoping for lovely morrit (brown) lambs. Both The Trump and Sarah are morrit and gray morrit. Her fleece is pictured to the right. We did not get to shear her before the cold weather and it is a bit felted. I think I will make a rug out of it. It is lovely, and still pulls apart, but not the quality I personally would sell to a hand spinner. I am very picky and want only the best fleece for my hand spinners out there. But, it will still felt into a lovely rug.

Sarah and Havvah are the first two to lamb. I have Sarah due on Friday and Havvah due on Saturday of next week. I will keep everyone posted. The lambs sired by The Trump, out of the Cheviot are spectacular and have grown like weeds. I know they will be larger then their mini cheviot mom and may just give the purebred Icelandics a run for their money. They have had a 6 week head start with their birth dates and with the grass coming on, they are just producing great fleece and meaty conformations.

More later...

Round two, waiting for round three...

Rain and more rain today. We have received at least 3 more inches and all the feed dishes were overflowing with water. My rain gage was broken and disappeared once Joe, my quarter horse discovered it. The rain has left the goat buildings flooded all around and into the buildings. Only the high spots are dry.

The water came into the storage area where we store feed, upper right photo. We have 3 inches in the feed room and have stacked pallets to get the feed higher. Everything is a muddy, wet mess.

Yesterday, my friend, Mr Paul got his truck stuck when we went to feed and check on everyone. The truck is pictured below and Mr Paul had to walk to the end of the pasture to get the tractor to pull the truck out. He is pictured to the right.

A week ago we received 5 inches of rain and the ground had just barely dried before this next group of storms. It has rained all night and then clears up during the day to repeat the same for the last three days.

Tonight is round three of this saga. We are to get the worst tonight. I think we have received at least 7 inches of rain so far. We are on sandy loam and it usually soaks the water up with out a problem. The ground is now saturated. The forecast is for severe weather tonight with possible hail and tornado's. Hopefully it will not be as bad as they predict.

We will let you know how we fair through it all after Friday night and Saturday morning. It will take several weeks for us to dry out after all this rain. We will blog more later as the storm passes.

To Much Rain....

It has been crazy with the weather. A week ago we received 5 inches of rain and now we received almost 4 inches Wednesday and an inch and a half early Thursday morning. We are suppose to get more storms this evening and Friday.

The farm is flooded where we drive and the ground is compacted. We have had water into the storage shed for the first time. We had to remove some kittens I have been acclimating to the farm for rodent control, due to the water. We have had to move our feed and put it on double pallets to keep it dry.

My quarter horse, Joe really enjoyed the water and I caught pictures of him rolling and enjoying the water. I have 3 horses at the moment, only one is mine, Joe. The other two belong to a friend who has been having health problems and could not care for the older horses. One is Marina, and her half sister Dawn. Both are Arabians and Dawn was a champion pleasure horse at one time. Both are over 20. Dawn is a bit rough looking, because we just got her last Saturday. Joe is pictured above and to the right. Joe and Dawn are pictured below and to the right. Joe has not missed any meals and the winter grazing planted last fall is going to town, with a big growth spirt...

We have had another Shetland lamb born, this one a little black ewe. We will have her pictures posted on the next blog.

Two of the Icelandic ewes have been sheared and they are due to lamb next weekend. Havvah's fleece was felted and trashed. Sarah's fleece was partially felted and will make a nice rug. I kept her fleece and skirted it.

With all the rain, we have not been able to shear the other sheep. It has been a very wet spring. We went from very cold to very wet. The fleece needs to be dry in order to shear it smoothly. We also managed to get my friend's truck stuck going out to feed the herd. I have pictures of all that to post on the next blog. We are expecting more rain and up to 7 more inches of rain. Wow, but that is how weather works and we can only take what God gives to us. Two years ago we were begging for rain and I think we have gotten all that rain this last couple of months.

More later...