It's That Time Again

Monday was weaning day for the ram lambs.  They are plenty old enough to be away from mom and the moms are ready to have them leave.  It took all day Monday to separate them from the main flock, move them in two trailerloads to the upper barn, bring back a group of yearling ewes who had been in the upper barn for lack of space in the lower barn around lambing, put down fresh bedding, scrub water tubs, stop for lunch, etc.  Oh, and we had rain.  Lots of rain with wind - that's a sheet of rain being whipped up over the barn roof like snow.

 

We kept the ram lambs locked in the pens in the upper barn overnight so they wouldn't somehow get into trouble with the big boys when we weren't around.  You never know - it pays to be careful.  Off and on all night we could hear the lambs calling and the ewes answering back.

 

In the morning we let them out to mix with the adult rams.  They were mildly curious about some of the more bold lambs but mostly they ignored them which is just what we wanted.  Everyone trooped out to pasture but without a routine or mom to tell them where to go and when to go there the little boys kind of wandered around in groups grazing and exploring and sometimes calling for their mothers. 

 



 

 

"I'm lost."

 

"Have you seen my mother?"

 

Everybody wanted to be in a group, but nobody wanted to be the leader of the group so there was a lot of aimless milling.....but it was a nice day.

 



"I'm not milling.  I'm going to sit right here until mom comes....or until I get bored.  Whichever comes first."

 

The lambs are growing quite well and should continue to gain on new (to them) pasture.  Here's a sturdy young Cotswold.

"Why are you taking a picture of my butt?  Weird-o!"

 

 

It's a nice place to be a sheep.

 

Last night we didn't hear a peep out of the moms or the lambs.  They've all adjusted that quickly.  I"m sure they would run back to each other if given the chance but neither group is pining. 

 

And now it's summer.

 



The First of Two Busy Days

Yesterday morning we were finally able to organize ourselves to wean the ram lambs.  Right after breakfast we set up the scale in the lower barn and ran the flock through in small batches.  All the ewes were weighed, eye scored and dewormed if necessary.  Happily, not too many showed signs of being affected.  At the same time we caught out all the ram lambs and put them in a holding pen.  The procedure took four hours.  The ewes and ewe lambs were turned out and the ram lambs waited for us to have lunch.  Afterwards we trailered them (fifty-nine total) to the upper barn in three batches.  Once they were settled in and finding their way around the barn's floor plan we walked the fenceline of the pasture they'll be turned into.  A few big tree limbs had come down on the fence over the winter and Andy took the chainsaw to them.  Three posts are leaning but the fence itself is just stretched a little, not broken.  The posts will be replaced as soon as possible but the lambs likely won't bother the weak spots for a while since they have nice pasture to graze.

Then we went back to the lower barn and let the remaining flock down into the farthest pasture.  It's nice and lush so letting them get partially filled up in the current pasture before letting them go there was a way to keep them from eating too much. They knew right away that a gate was opening and there was no problem enticing them down the hill.

After that we unloaded a wagon and a half of hay.  That filled the storage space in the lower barn.  The rest will go into the upper buildings.  By the time we brought them in for the evening the sheep had really filled up and the trudge up the last incline was sloooow.  Holly helped.

We took dinner up to the boys and they seemed a bit confused but not overly alarmed.

I think that's our supper.

Everyone had a surprisingly quiet night.  Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Graduation Day

We got involved with making hay and got a little behind on other things, but yesterday was a Big Day for the ram lambs - there were officially weaned from Mom and went to live in the upper barn with all the big boys.  We don't castrate the boy lambs as we're never sure when someone might want to buy one as a breeding animal, and also they grow more quickly with their full load of hormones.  It's also just unnecessary in our situation since we have a way to completely separate them from the ewes.  So right around the 4th of July (when they start getting real pesty with the girls) we put them on the trailer and bring them up to the Baa-chelor Pad.  They have a fine time as adolescent boys eating and then sitting around, butting heads and jumping on each other and NOT harassing the girls.

Camp?  We're at camp?  What's 'camp'?

Ram lambs are so easy to work with compared to ewe lambs.  The ewe lambs are full of high drama like teenage girls - they scream and throw their hands into the air, roll their eyes and run away for no reason.  The boys are like surfer beach bums - all laid back and cool about everything and willing to go where you want without too much arguement as long as it doesn't look downright scary or difficult.

OK, this looks familiar.

We have a creep area set up as in the lower barn with vertical rollers set too closely for the big rams to get through so the lambs have a safe place to eat a little extra hay, a nibble of grain at night or just hang out without the big rams bossing them around. 

Dudes, check it out..... you can see the whole yard from back here.

Um, yeah, that's cool.....but do you see my mom?

Some of the little boys are more needy than others and they called for their moms for the rest of the day and off and on most of  last night, but by this morning they were pretty well adjusted and got down to the business of just grazing and learning their new boundaries.

Grass is grass no matter where you are....let's eat!

Congrats, boys.  Have a great summer.