Some posturing and head-butting continued after the rams moved out of the barn, but the three gentlemen finally seem to have made their peace with one another.
Travels with Musti
Dogs, nature, photography, and the meaning of life, with apologies to J.S.
Posts from the “sheep” Category
I think of my sheep as animals that I insert into a managed ecosystem, but of course the sheep become part of that ecosystem themselves. I found one of my lambs giving a ride to a nursery web spider (Pisuarina mira) that was carrying an egg sac.
The spider caught my eye as it’s better than 2 inches across. The female carries the egg sac in her jaws (sounds exhausting, but being neither female nor arachnid, I may not be qualified to judge) until the spiderlings are about to hatch, and then she builds them a web to hatch and start growing in. This species doesn’t make a web for catching prey, but instead stalks and overpowers its dinner. More tasty spider details here: http://www.spiders.us/species/pisaurina-mira/.
Tagged: lamb, macro, nursery web spider, Pisaurina mira, Spider
I’m probably anthropomorphizing again where I oughtn’t, but the shorn ewes looked particularly put-upon today.
Shearing today went remarkably smoothly, though I suspect the shorn sheep might have a different interpretation.
We needed extra help at the beginning to convince the sheep to cooperate with the gathering and sorting process, and folks stayed on to watch the start of the shearing. We had sheep crowded into a pen just beyond the shearing floor so it was easy for Bruce to grab the next customer.
For me, the most remarkable part of the process (other than Bruce’s stamina, shearing 31 sheep in less than 3 hours) was seeing what my ewes look like under all that wool.
In these two images, Bruce is shearing the mother of lamb #701, who I recently wrote was getting nearly as big as her mother. Without her fleece, it’s not at all clear that the ewe is bigger than her lamb.
And as I imagined, we ended up with an impressive pile of fleeces by the end of the morning.
My next project is to figure out if anyone wants to buy the wool. Bruce was very pessimistic about the prospects, pointing out that the synthetic fiber industry had not only stolen the market for wool, but also the name, since most people no longer associate “fleece” with a shorn sheep. To be continued…
Tagged: border collie, Bruce Clement, fleece, pasture, shearing, sheep, shorn, shrinking sheep, wool
I figured I’d eventually come around to shoveling shit — can’t really be a farmer without it. The shearer is coming tomorrow to relieve the flock of its wooly burden, and he needs a flat, clean place to work, so yesterday I cleaned out a section of the lambing barn for him.
I didn’t realize how deep the bedding had built up, but I managed to fill the tractor bucket seven times over.
I also got to make a significant contribution to the compost pile in one of the gardens.
Then today’s project was to set up the barnyard for sheep-sorting and bring the flock down from the pasture. While I shoveled shit alone, I was grateful to have help today from my shearer, Bruce Clement, and friend Wendy Pelletier in setting up the temporary handling system and moving the sheep.
Cleo and Bravo of course moved with their flock.
Tagged: barnyard, bravo, Bruce Clement, Cleo, handling system, herding, preparation, shearing, sheep, shoveling shit, sorting, Wendy Pelletier
I’ve written before about sheep and rose bushes and bad outcomes, but rose leaves seem to be irresistible to my flock. Today my youngest lamb demonstrated that the fraught attraction starts early.
Tagged: 733, ewe lamb, favorite, lamb, rosa rugosa, rose, rose leaves, wild rose
All three competing for my attention. The ewe lamb is particularly persistent.
Tagged: 702, attention, bravo, Cleo, competition, ewe lamb, Great Pyrenees, livestock guardian dogs, maremma, pasture
Lots of folks sell wildflower honey, but you never hear about wildflower mutton.
Tagged: buttercup, honey, marketing, mutton, pasture, red clover, sheep, wildflowers
The side of the big barn is one of the uglier spots on the farm — a wet hole that’s been collecting who-knows what for 18 years. I store discarded gates there that I’ve gathered from around the farm, and I always mean to clean it up. It’s also turned into the favorite hangout of the sheep in the Lawn-mowing Brigade.
I’ve been seeing Lefty and his mom tucked against one end of the gates.
More confusingly, the rams seem to prefer the space between the gates and the foundation wall. Angus had stuffed himself in there today, but I’ve found all three of them tucked in sometimes.
At first I was worried that they might be stuck, but I’ve seen the rams go out to eat and return to their little slot. I wonder if the foundation wall gives them a cool refuge from the sun. But mostly I take it as a reminder that I don’t understand sheep yet.
Seven days ago I broke down and turned on the heat when the temperature in the house fell to 56º. Cleo was shivering in the field. Both were a little hard to recall today, the third consecutive day in the 90s. The sheep were not thrilled.
One of the lambs has been studying Cass’s cooling-off strategies, though she seems to have missed the part about the water.
Tagged: Cass, heat wave, June, lambs, pasture, shade, sheep, stock tank, water trough