I’m probably anthropomorphizing again where I oughtn’t, but the shorn ewes looked particularly put-upon today.
Travels with Musti
Dogs, nature, photography, and the meaning of life, with apologies to J.S.
Posts tagged “lambs”
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
Electronet without the electrons is a purely symbolic barrier that sheep, dogs, and coyotes could easily push aside. And while I went on at some length yesterday about the physical challenges of setting it up, I’m also adept at failing to get the electrons to flow properly. The trouble arises in the Catch-22 embodied by electonet: I use it to divvy up sections of my pasture, an assemblage of tall grasses and other plants; but if the tall grass touches any of the conductive strands, the electricity flows to ground rather than through the fence.
If I were an optimal shepherd, I would have a lawn mower with me out in the pasture, and I’d mow a strip of grass everywhere I wanted to run the electronet. With no tall grass shorting out the fence, I’d have 10,000 volts of deterrence running through it at all times. Instead, I take repeated measurements until I get a number I like.
The meter reads in kilovolts, and 2kV is about the minimum to get a sheep’s attention through all its wool.
Tagged: deterrent, electricity, electronet, grass, ground, lambs, pasture, sheep, short-circuit, testing, threshold, voltage
My friends Nancy and Mary Lou Kaufman were up for a visit yesterday, and Nancy provided some evidence that I’m not just making up this farming stuff.
Tagged: back field, Cleo, electronet, lambs, Milton Trimitsis, Nancy Kaufman, pasture, sheep
It was pea-soupy on the farm this morning after last night’s storm.
This is what 65 sheep look like rushing onto new pasture. The ragged ones are Katahdins that haven’t fully shed out their winter coats. The lamb and ewe at the end are consistent stragglers.
Tagged: border collies, electronet, ewes, lambs, livestock guardian dogs, new grass, parade, pasture, sheep, temporary fencing
After the recent days’ drama, today I’ll again take refuge in cute lamb photos. This is the last pair of twins born this season, with mom in the background.
Tagged: Barb Eriksson, Bea, blach and white, Border Cheviot, dorper, ewe, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, north country cheviot, twins
Today the last of the pregnant ewes gave birth to twins. It seemed fitting that my first and last lambs were black.
Now that lambing is over for 2017 (barring mystical events), here’s a first pass at documenting what happened.
- Of my 27 adult ewes and one ewe lamb, 24 gave birth; 4 ewes didn’t get pregnant for some reason.
- 36 lambs were born between 3 February and 20 May, and 30 are still alive.
- There were 2 sets of triplets, 8 sets of twins, and 14 singles, a “lambing rate” of 150% (where 100% is all singles and 200% is all twins). Many shepherds try for a lambing rate of 185%, hoping for as many twins as possible with few or no triplets (who are more likely to die of something or other).
- Of the lambs who died, 2 were eaten by Bravo, 1 died after a complicated labor and C-section, 2 died of hypothermia in a May snowstorm, and one died from a combination of cold and maternal abandonment
- My lambing mortality rate was a bit under 17%, while the national average is about 15%. I think 4 of the deaths (the Bravo victims and the hypothermic twins) were ultimately attributable to my inexperience and bad decisions, so if I were an optimal shepherd, my mortality rate might have been as low as 6%.
- The 6 winter lambs were sired by a Texel ram. Of the 8 lambs whose sex I could identify, 4 were female and 4 were male.
- The spring lambs, sired by my border cheviot ram, were 18 females and 6 males. I’m not sure that either group is large enough to draw any statistically meaningful conclusions, but one tempting explanation is that the ram influences the sex ratio of the offspring. I’m very curious if this is borne out with the cheviot’s offspring next year.
Tagged: black lamb, Border Cheviot, dorper, ewes, Hollow Oak Farm, lambs, last lambs, newborn, north country cheviot, statistics, twins
I was particularly grateful for the border collies when Musti died. They don’t brook any wallowing, always asking “What’s next?”, and they pulled me through a difficult time. It seems that sheep have some of the same world view (I wonder who learned it from whom…). We lost two lambs during the snowstorm on Saturday night, and the forsaken triplet lamb died some time over Sunday night. But this morning, the Katahdins were back at it, with twins and triplets waiting for me in the field first thing.
These triplets are bigger and more vigorous than the previous set, and the ewe seems to be taking good care of all three. The challenge over the next couple of months will be getting her enough food to nurse all of them without her turning into a bag of bones. The safe decision would be to pen her and her lambs and feed her tons of corn every day, but then I’d never find out if she has the genetics to pull of the trick eating just grass. TBC…
Tagged: border collies, cheviot, Hollow Oak Farm, Katahdin, lambs, Musti, pasture lambing, triplets, twins
We’ve gone from snow and lethal cold on Sunday morning to uncomfortable heat this afternoon… Local friends assure me that this is not typical, but I’m not sure any of us know what typical looks like these days. In any case, part of the flock took advantage of the sinkhole Eversource left after installing a new transmission tower in the pasture last fall. I’m anxious for the power company to fix their mistake, but perhaps not until the temperature moderates a bit.
Tagged: cool ground, cooling off, Eversource, ewes, Hollow Oak Farm, Hot day, hot sheep, lambs, lazy, sheep, sinkhole