Finally huh?

I finally found some time to sit down and catch up on my blog. Between the rain storms I really had an awful lot to get done. Why is it that there is always so much to do in the summer? At least I can say that all the baby lambs are doing very well. Spalding and Wilson have me wrapped  around their little hooves. They are both a little smaller than the others but at least they have some get up and go now. I go out to feed in the morning and there they are standing by the gate ready to be let out. They follow me into the kitchen while I get the bottles ready and then it's back out to the creep feeder where they get feed and the other babies get their grain. So life is a lot better now. That's it for tonight.

No Pictures tonight

I have no pictures tonight but I am going to post some very happy news. When I go out to the pen I usually take two bottles out. One for Wilson and one for Spalding. Wilson always runs up to me and drinks all 8 ounces of his bottle. Spalding is a different story. I usually have to corner him and try to get him to drink something but he won't. Well......tonight when I got home from work I made two bottles as always and thought, it's been a week and Spalding hasn't taken a bottle and he seems to be doing alright (by that I mean he's still alive. Weak but still alive) and I thought I'm not going to chase him down tonight. Just feed Wilson and let Spalding be for the night. He is eating creep and going out to pasture. I thought he'd be fine. Any way, I take two bottles out to the pen and Wilson runs up like usual and starts drinking. I'm down on one knee feeding Wilson and low and behold, Spalding comes up and stands by my side and looks up at me with the sadist face. I put the other bottle by his mouth and he just went to town with it. He drank the whole bottle. I was so happy. I hope he does the same thing in the morning. I think that's what he needed because I just went out and checked on him and he was cuddled up next to Merrie ( one I have to introduce yet) and I swear he had a smile on his face. He had a full belly for once and someone "Mommy like" to lay next to .I haven't seen him that content since his mom died. Maybe he realized that he was hungry and there was good stuff in that bottle or maybe he was just having a tuff time  missing his mom. The bad thing now though is I have to band all the boys soon, real soon and I'm afraid he'll stop eating if I do. I think I'll wait a while  to do   Vanessa's boys. That's it for tonight.

Back to the herd

This is Daphne Duck, she's a 2 year old Lincoln and she had one baby last year that I kept. There is nothing special about Daphne . She is a layed back, quiet, friendly girl. She has wonder fleece also. I have some of her fiber on my wheel that I'm experimenting with right now. I'll show that later. I'm really happy with how it's turning out. I finally got some of my flower beds weeded out and I was amazed to find so many different flowers that I forgot were there. Now I have to till my garden up and get that going. Saturday hopefully. If I can stay away from the babies I find I can get a lot of work done. Vanessa's babies will hopefully make it. Neither one would take a bottle at first.  I went to check on them  when I got home from work tonight. Wilson ran up to me so I thought I'd try giving him a bottle. I made 8 ounces up and took it out and he drank THE WHOLE thing. I think he was really hungry. I made one for Spalding and took it out but he refused it again. I'll try again when I get up. He seems to be doing okay though. Maybe he is getting enough grass and grain to make him happy. They are only a month old though and they really need milk yet. I'll watch him very closely. That's it for tonight.

My Lovely Vanessa

I got Vanessa when she was 6 months old from a breeder here in Wisconsin. A beautiful little black Lincoln. She fit in so well with the white girls I already had. She was my only black Lincoln. As I watched her grow it struck me how elegant she was. The way she looked and the way she walked. Her first year she was bred by mistake but she gave me little Chelsea. A better mom you could not ask for.

Doder

And now meet Doder (pronounced Due der}. Doder is my little clown. He is a year old and a whether. Early in the morning before the heat comes on you will see him and Tamarra running races in the big pasture. Tamarra always wins. But that's okay, he gets even. When she is laying down and chewing her cud he sneaks up on her and sits on her.(I really need to get a picture of that). He also gets behind her when shes eating and pushes her by her rear end as far as he can. You can tell just by looking at him he's full of mischief. Can you tell I spend a lot of time out in my sheep pens? It's amazing how each one has a different personality. I hear people say all the time that farm animals are dumb and all they are there for is to eat. I beg to differ.I really speak my mind when it comes to that. Cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and horses all have their own ways of going about their daily lives . They have their own way of having fun and their own way of telling you what they want and what they don't like. Basically like a dog does. You gotta love them all. That's it for tonight. Tomorrow.....my big hansom dudes. (forgot to tell you, Doder is a Lincoln/Romney mix. He has really beautiful fiber)

Busy Days

I have had a lot of busy days it seems. I think everyone has this time of year. Trying to clean pastures and pens up, putting fencing up, taking care of Vanessa and her prolapse, banding little boys and fighting an ear tag infection. But things are under control for a little while, so it's back to introducing the rest of the herd. The next one is JC. She is the one on the right in my opening picture.She's also KC twin sister. She's also a registered Lincoln. My sheep are all sheared in case you guys are wondering. I'm just trying to pull up pictures of them in full fleece so you can see what the breed looks like. JC is my mild, layed back girl. She had one ram lamb last year that I kept. I DE-ram ed him though because I didn't want a lot of rams. I'll introduce him tomorrow. I have 15 adult sheep and 7 babies . So I have a lot of sheep. The couple that bought Jennifer's babies came up to visit them today. As everyone with lambs know they are not approachable until the moms start weaning them so they had to watch them from a distance. Then they become your best friends. I wish they wouldn't grow so fast. Wilson, one of Vanessa's boys has an ear tag infection so I have been putting peroxide on it every day . He is getting use to being handled ofen and he discovered that the back rubs really feel pretty good .So he's not afraid of me. Temps have been in the 90's the last few days with high humidity and I'm afraid of fly strike. I have to really have to watch Vanessa for fly strike too. Her prolapse is out a good 6 inches and the harness will not hold it in. I wash her every other day and I spray her with screw worm spray twice a day to keep the flies off. Does any one know if I can use pin tar on a rectal prolapse? Well....that's it for the day

Tamarra

The fuzzy little dark one is Tamarra, KC's daughter.She looks like a little mess doesn't she? She is a registered Lincoln and she tries so hard to act like a little lady but fate gave her the tom boy gene. She can out run and out jump any of the boys (whethers} I have. If there is a puddle of water out there she doesn't go around it like everyone else,you'll find her jumping around in it. When it comes to the hay feeder that you see behind her,she goes for comfort when she eats. She jumps right in it and lays down and eats. See why she looks like a mess? I love her to pieces though. I think I really have a strange group of animals here. I can never go into the pen and not have at least one good laugh.Especially with Tamarra.{See little Oliver in the back ground?} Short post tonight because it's past this old lady's bedtime. Haven't decided who I will put on tomorrow. There are a lot more to do. Until tomorrow.......

Boy,we go from 50 degrees to 90 degrees today.It was to hot out today to do anything so my work had to be put on hold until I have off on Wednesday. On to the introduction of my small herd. This is KC. She is a registered Lincoln Long wool and she's 3 years old. She is the one on the left in my opening blog page. Her sister JC is on the right. They are 4 months old in that picture. I took this when I took her coat off to get sheared . She's the only one that kept her long facial dreadlocks this year. I got a wagon load of hay in November that was full of burdock. Not a fiber sheep's best friend. So I ended up doing a lot of cutting of face and neck fleece. She had her first baby at the age of two but I did not breed her this fall. She had a gray ewe by the name of Tamara which I kept. I will introduce you to her tomorrow. She ended up giving me 21 lbs of very nice fiber. Her average length was 13 inches. She's beautiful isn't she. And that's it for me until tomorrow.

The Last Mom

This little girl is Leslie. I call her my Shetland type sheep because she's small like a Shetland. I thought for sure she was going to have triplets because she was so wide. She ended up having twins. A boy and a girl. He weighed almost 15 pounds and she weighed 7 pounds . That explained why Leslie was so wide. I swear they are the reincarnation of a married couple. As soon as she was born she started yammering and she wasn't quiet until the little boy answered. He can't leaver her side, even today or she yells at him until he comes back. And they are always talking to each other. It's kind of spooky to me. Any way......he has a black nose and black feet and she has a pink nose and white feet and a very sharp voice when he walks away. That poor little boy. I'm wondering if she is going to let me band he of if she's going to holler at me too. They don't have names yet so if anyone has any ideas you can pass them on for consideration. Next you'll get to meet the rest of the herd.

Jennifer's Babies

Jennifer is my big,tall,stately Lincoln. She stands almost a whole hand above the other Lincolns. And she throws beautiful babies. Log legged babies. Her babies were sold to Tom and Joanne even before they were born. I'm thankful she gave birth with no problems. The new owners named the little girl Daisey and the little boy is Ba Ba white sheep. They were hoping that one of the Lincoln's would have a black baby because they wanted to name him Ba Ba Black sheep. No body wanted to give me colored this year. All white. Seeing as how we have a "Daisey" I found this daisey and I knew that little girl just had to have it. And I just had to have a picture of her wearing her Daisey to send to Tom and Joanne. So that's the picture of the day. Tomorrow you will see my last mom, Leslie.

Introducing The other Babies

After Chelsea had Little Willie there was a three week gap and finally more babies.Vanessa my black Lincoln had twin boys. That poor girl really went through a lot to have her babies too. She had vaginal prolapse. The harness did not work on her like it did on Chelsea. Dr. Bill had to come and put a stitch in her to hold her in. And if that wasn't enough, she prolapsed rectally. So Dr. Bill had to put a stitch in that area also. He thought she was close to being due so he gave her a shot to induce labor. He said she would give birth in 36 hours. He was right on the money.I'm glad I was home when she went into labor because I had to cut the stitches so she could give birth. He also thought that after the babies were born things would be better for her. He was not right on that one. He ended coming back the next day and stitching her up again. This was all caused because the breeder I got her from docked her tail to short. She has no tail at all. Things like this are really going to make me look at a sheep a lot better before I buy any more. She has no muscle control in her rectum any more and he thinks she will not get it back. Why do people do this to animals? He suggested that she might have to be put down too but I'm going to try to devise a harness to hold her in. She did have two beautiful white baby boys though. They are three weeks old today and they are doing very well. They bounce around so much .They reminded me of basket balls because of all the bouncing around they do so..... they got the names Wilson and Spalding. As for mom, I think she is doing a lot better. I am starting to get some hope up.Tomorrow I will introduce you to Jennifer's babies.

A Tribute to Oliver

Oliver came to me two years ago. He was a sweet goat.He was my only goat.He loved everything and everybody.He was also a special needs goat. He went through so much in his short life.He spent a lot of time with Dr. Bill. He was in Madison and then he went to Michigan for medical treatments.The treatments lasted for a short while then the problem returned.Nothing could really be pinpointed as to what was really wrong.He had a lot of trouble walking after a while.Saturday he could not walk at all.He was just kind of crawling to the pasture to be with the other girls. Sunday he was the same way.Monday and Tuesday he was up for a little while but come Tuesday night I could hear him crying in pain. I went out twice to give him some aspirin to take away some of the pain but I knew then it was time to let him go.Dr. Bill came out this afternoon and Oliver peacefully left the world. It was so hard to do.I know it was the right thing but I still question it.I hope I gave Oliver a good life here.Rest in peace my good little goat.You will be missed greatly.

And The Wait is Over

Meet little Willie. He is 3/4 Lincoln and 1/4 Romney. He really had a tough time coming into the world. His mom prolapsed a week before he was born. Laura from Psalm 23 farms came over at 9:00 at night and put her uterus back in and put a harness on her. She has been such a help.I sometimes wonder what I would do if she wasn't so close. I have 3 more sheep to go and then it will be over.After reading all the other blogs and hearing of all the rams verses ewes this year I sure hope I have some ewe lambs. I had the rest of the herd sheared on Wednesday and will try to post some pictures to introduce you to my outside family.I'm still trying to figure out how to get things to go where I want on this blog thing.

Still waiting

Still waiting for the babies. I thought they would come last week end but nothing.They sure are getting wide.I had the ladies sheared last week by Peter Halm. He is the head coach at Lakeland Collage.Peter and his dad do blade shearing at Old World Wisconsin in the spring.

Ladies in waiting

Time is getting very near for lambing. I bred two of my Lincolns and one of the Romney girls. I also bred a little mixed ewe with the Lincoln ram. I can't wait to see what she gives me. Jennifer the white Lincoln is due the end of this month. Her lambs are sold. The dark Lincoln and Callie the Romney are both due the end of next month. I'm happy to say that their lambs are sold to. Good for me. Last year I had so many lambs I felt over whelmed so this year I only bred a few.