The lambs are picking up pointers from their elders. Bill had suggested that the ramp would become a favorite feature…
Tagged: barn, Hollow Oak Farm, lamb races, lambs, ramp, silliness
Travels with Musti
Dogs, nature, photography, and the meaning of life, with apologies to J.S.
Posts tagged “barn”
I’ve always prided myself on being adequately paranoid, but Bill still manages to catch me short sometimes. I texted him a photo of the barn lambs exploring their new front yard, and he texted back a comment to the effect of “wasn’t I worried about a lamb accidentally drowning in the water tank next to the ramp?”
I agreed that I probably should be worried. The drain plug wouldn’t come free, so a 7/16″ drill bit made a nice new drain hole, and on to the next thing I should be worrying about.
Tagged: barn, Bill Fosher, drain, drowning, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, paranoia, stock tank
We haven’t had a big snowstorm in a week, and the date suggests that winter may be coming to an end, so the lambs need to get ready for life without a roof over their heads. This afternoon I rearranged the partitions in the barn to give the sheep a path to the outdoors and made a small electronet* enclosure in the barnyard. I’ll let them get used to being outdoors while still having the shelter of the barn if the weather turns ugly again. In two or three weeks, when the lambs are a bit older and the weather (presumably) a bit milder, they’ll go out on pasture full time.
Sheep who seemed very anxious to escape the confines of the barn suddenly got tentative about the change in surroundings, but with some corn, I was able to lure the more adventurous ones out. The fat black ewe lamb was too timid to make it out in the first wave and guilted her mother into coming back inside.
The ram wasn’t particularly timid.
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*Much more to come about electronet…
Tagged: adventurous, barn, barnyard, corn, electronet, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, outdoors, ram, sheep, timid
Bill Fosher came over this afternoon to help me sort out my thinking on pasture subdivisions, grazing planning, lamb growth, wetlands management, and the genetic future of my flock. Because we had a light agenda, I imposed on him to give me a refresher on hoof trimming.
Ninety percent of the challenge is in catching and inverting the sheep into the “first shearing position.” This is not very much like ballet’s first position, but achieving it without injury nevertheless requires a measure of form and grace. I’m still working up to it. Once the sheep is on her backside, she cedes control pretty completely to the shepherd, so the trimming itself is not such a struggle.
The other 90% of the challenge is figuring out where hoof stops and blood vessels start, and staying on the right side of the line. Bill makes this look easy, despite the dirt and dung clinging to the hooves. I’m hoping to work up my courage to take care of the remaining seven barn sheep over the weekend.
Tagged: Aikido, barn, Bill Fosher, Edgefield Farm, ewe, first shearing position, Hollow Oak Farm, hoof trimming, sheep
I get it with the bottle lamb; we forged quite a bond during his first week of life, and now he runs up to me for a scritch or a suck on a finger.
But the variability in the others is less easy to explain. Some won’t let me near, and others won’t leave me alone. 702 is particularly fond of my shirttails.
Some of it is probably learned, as #701’s mother is one of my flightiest sheep, and lamb has taken after her mother. But I assume that some of the variability is just spontaneous expression of personality, sheep reminding me that they are individuals, too.
Tagged: 702, 703, barn, friendly, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, personality, sheep, shy, sucking on finger
When I moved to the farm last fall, the activity of terrestrial arthropods was diminishing quickly as the cold arrived — a few lingering spiders, and some late honeybees in the asters, but on the whole pretty quiet. As I’ve explored this winter, though, I’ve discovered a fantastic profusion of wasp nests of various sorts, suggesting that this place will be hopping with flying invertebrates this summer. I found this small mud dauber wasp (perhaps made by the black-and-yellow mud dauber, Sceliphron caementarium) nest attached to the baling twine on a bale of hay, but as I look around, the barn is absolutely filled with these beautiful forms. If the snow ever stops, I’ll get to meet the nest builders some day as well.
My beloved Luc, who got me started down the shepherding path, is caught in a terrible bind: he’s powerfully drawn to sheep, but sheep make him deeply uneasy. When he tries to gather sheep in a field, his anxiety bubbles up and the gather devolves into chasing and gripping*. In the barn, with lambs bouncing around and being silly, he stares until his jaw starts clacking and he begins chewing on the walls. I would dearly like to help him discover an easier relationship to his stock, for his sanity and mine, with the fantasy that be might yet discover some talents as a herding dog.
Today for the first time, I decided to let Luc into the part of the barn where the sheep live; I’d previously kept him on the other side of the enclosure, lest he lose his mind and chew on the lambs. I had hoped that daily exposure to the barn crowd from a slight remove might desensitize him, but the opposite was happening and he was getting progressively more wound up as weeks went by. My theory today was that without the barrier separating him from the sheep, he might be forced to take more responsibility for his own behavior and pull himself together. (I recognize that this line of reasoning sounds absurdly anthropomorphic. Somehow, though, this is an approach that seems to work with border collies. Or I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid.)
I gave him lots of encouragement, and we didn’t have any disasters. He seemed to be cycling from curiosity to avoidance to abject horror at being face-to-face with these wooly creatures. I think we’ll try it some more tomorrow.
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*Gripping is the euphemism in the herding world for biting sheep. If it involves pulling a little wool from a recalcitrant ewe, it’s often regarded as justified, though a better dog would accomplish the same thing through gaze and force of personality. Drawing blood is deeply frowned upon, unless a ram is charging at your dog, at which point all’s fair.
Tagged: avoidance, barn, border collie, creep, dog, enthusiasm, fear, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, Luc, sheep
The lactating ewes are unaccountably tolerant of lambs using them as bed, table, climbing structure, or vaulting platform, both with their own lambs and others. Here, Matilda’s ram lamb is having a tête-à-tête with the firstborn ewe lamb, with sis watching on the left side.
And when the big black lamb isn’t negotiating with the Romney twins, she’s now competing with the adults for the morning corn ration.
And they seem to be giving her plenty of room. If the trend continues, she’s going to be a tough gal when she grows up.
Tagged: barn, big black lamb, ewe, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, Matilda, Romney, sheep, tolerance, twins
Robert Johnson’s guitar licks raised suspicion about whether he was playing fair. Lamb #701, the first born this winter*, has been growing at such a rate that I was wondering what deals she might have made. It turns out poaching is part of her strategy. In the first photo, her mother is at the left, and she’s nursing from someone else.
Even as the ewe tries to walk away, fat black lamb is still hanging on.
Sheep are generally pretty assertive about pushing off lambs who aren’t their own, but 701 has perfected the art of capitalizing on distraction. Persistence is also part of her strategy. I’m very curious to see what kind of mother she’ll be when she has lambs of her own.
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*Technically, the lamb that Bravo ate was firstborn.
Tagged: barn, black lamb, ewe, Hollow Oak Farm, lamb, nursing, poaching, sheep
The weather was the whole story today.
The sheep out on pasture managed to eat for a while before things got crazy (ewes and lambs in the barn seemed to be gloating).
And then the wind started to pick up.
I was feeling some temptation to prepare a revised Beaufort Scale with border collies in mind, but you run out of dynamic range once they become airborne.