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Archive for 'Sheep'

Mutton in my Shepherd’s Pie

One week ago the mutton in my shepherds pie was staring at me from a small pen on Mack Hill. This ram has become part of our harvest, as much as the tomatoes, herbs and potatoes pulled from the garden last month. Few families produce more than plant matter from their backyard gardens

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wang wong

Decisions, decisions

After five days in the hospital, I am finally back home. What a pain in the ass, literally (!), this has been. With a direct blow to my lower back, the damage took a lot of tricky fiddling to figure out how to treat me. It was days before I could move without screaming in

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wang wong

My fall farming footwear

We finally got back the socks that we had Zellinger Wool knit for us from our wool. It was expensive to do, but I’m so pleased with these socks. Now that it’s cooler in the mornings (around freezing almost every day), I slip the socks on in my crocs and then go out to

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wang wong

Sheepie Supplements

We had a lamb die earlier this year. (Gracie and George’s ram lamb.) The first quick diagnosis was heat stroke, as it was on one of the hottest and most humid days of the year. But I had a necropsy done on him, and it showed bacterial pneumonia and extremely low levels

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wang wong

Water in the summertime

Water for all the critters is something that takes up small chunks of time all day long. I must fill water buckets for everyone at least four times a day. I wonder about bigger containers, but the pigs flip theirs so quickly and Albus sits or lays in his that bigger doesn’t help. Since

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wang wong

Poor farmer’s round bale feeder

Instead of buying a $300 round bale feeder, I’m going to try using a cattle panel wrapped around it. We’ll see. We cut it down a little, and Aaron and Frank used a Dremel to smooth out the rough bits. We did the same thing for the sheep, except instead of eating out of the top, they will theoretically eat through the cattle panel openings. As they eat it, I’ll tighten it around them. We covered the top with a tarp. I hope these work. I need to find ways to save time during the day. It’s taking far longer for the loggers to clear the new pastures than I’d hope.

wang wong

Life and Death

It often happens this way on the farm — someone dies and someone is born, both on the same day. Sadly, Misty died today from a ruptured spleen, delivered by a kick from our new male llama. We had let them get to know each other, and didn’t leave them alone until there was

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wang wong

Who’s her daddy?

I had a surprise this morning. I thought I was done with lambing, and that none of Spike’s girls caught. I figured his troubles with parasites all last summer stunted his maturity, but I’d give him another year to see if he catches up. But I woke up this morning to a beautiful

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wang wong

Prolapse

Marilyn separated herself from the herd last night, and I fully expected to find lambs from her this morning. Instead, she was down, and when I went to check her out, I found she had a prolapse. I’d never actually seen one before, but it was all we could think of. It looked like

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wang wong

Let the lambing begin!

Fiona started us off with a bang this morning. We woke up to two lambs, a moorit badger-faced boy and a black ewe lamb. She’s always got things under control, and I didn’t jug her. Basically, she took over one of the sheds and kicked everyone out, which is fine. It was a beautiful

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wang wong