Oh, Brother

Megan spent her whole first summer herding chickens. After they went to the coop, she started fixating on the sheep. Good.

Behold, a border collie completely focused on her flock. Wrong flock.

Megan would rather stare at the chicks than get pets and love. If they move she almost comes unglued because she wants to put them back into a chicky ball. I think Megan will be getting a lot of outdoor exercise until I can find a better place to put the chick box.

Harsh Reality

Two chicks have been lost. I found one of the remaining 4 outside of the cage. Clancy and I suspect the missing chicks wiggled out of the cage and were consumed by the other chickens. Is that possible? I know chickens will eat mice. It's the only explanation we can think of...unless an ermine snatched them...

We brought the last four chicks inside. Hopefully they will be safer in the house. We removed the cage from the coop. The hen will just have to adjust to the flock again because I really do draw the line at having full grown chickens in my house.

Clancy also threw the rest of the eggs away. They seemed a bit heavy. A seventh one was hatching yesterday and it never made it. The hen was also so busy with the chicks that she seemed to forget about the unhatched eggs.

I feel so bad that two chicks were lost in such a short time. I wish we had brought them in last night. But then last night there didn't seem to be a reason to separate them from their momma. Life is just not always smooth and free of loss. Even though I wish it could be.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So far 6 chicks have hatched. Some have feather feet like the hen. Some are clean legged like the rooster. All are bantam-sized. It's so cheerful to hear them peeping. They vigorously scratch at the crumbles and sip at the waterer. Then they scramble back to mommy and disappear under her wide body. Such tiny bits of fluff with so much life!

We Erickson's wish you a very blessed Thanksgiving Day!

Peeping Snowflakes

The boys have been anxious about the nest the broody hen is sitting on. I was about to loose hope for the eggs too. The mama has been faithful to the nest. But what if the eggs were damaged by cold before we transfered the nest to the coop?

Well, Clancy did chicken chores this morning after the boys were off to school. He came in to tell me he heard peeping in the coop. I could hardly believe it. When we lifted up the hen, there were four fuzzy little chickies and nine eggs in the nest. Tonight, there was another chick, not yet dry from it's hatching.

These chicks are the tiniest little miracles. Just beyond their mother's protective wings, winter is leaning heavily against the chicken coop. Low clouds sweep down with chill and frost. Inside the coop, fluffy chicky snowflakes are piling up.

Just in Time

Early this morning, I moved the electronet to some clean ground by the barn and added my new ram, SheltrgPines Bombarde, to the pen. Anna Belle and Northwind were delighted to meet him.

Northwind didn't even notice that I had just removed her eweling, Rai Min, to a barn stall. Rai Min noticed, though. She has not stopped her frantic crying yet. I have a theory that the trauma of separating a lamb from it's mother is a fixed measure. It doesn't seem to matter whether you wean early or delay the separation until adulthood. The distress the daughter experiences will be the same. Rai Min is crying in her pen, only able to see other sheep through the slats of her stall wall. Sian and Delyth, her older half sisters, are crying from their breeding pen. This is also the first time they have ever been separated from their mothers, and they are behaving like babies.

The maiden ewes around here might not be happy, but the shepherd is thrilled. I have been interested in Bombarde since Becky first brought him to Minnesota. Since then I have had the chance to see his first lamb crop at River Oaks and I was very impressed. A huge Thank You to you Becky, for bringing Bombarde all the way up to Grand Rapids. I am so excited to have him in my flock. He improves tails and hind quarters. He is F2 Roban Dillon. And he is also fully resistant to scrapie-RR/AA.

There are some other reasons that I like him too: Bombarde carries the pattern for Katmoget and Grey. So all of his lambs will be one or the other, unless covered up by a white pattern gene. Since I prefer the heathered look and the ability to dye the lighter fleeces, I'm looking forward to my spring lamb crop from him. He's also moorit based, so one of these days I might get a musket ewe lamb. After three years, I still don't own a moorit based ewe. I really would like that to change without having to buy one.

Bombarde also has the type of fleece I like to spin: soft and crimpy. It is a bit short but I actually like that. His River Oaks lambs were unbelievably soft and I'm hoping he contributes as well here at my farm as he did there. Bombarde is also not a hulk of a ram. He has masculine features, but he is smaller and finer boned than any of the other rams I have owned. Up to now, Clancy has been doing most of the ram handling. Small size was one of the Shetland traits that convinced me to choose this breed. I want my sheep to be small enough for me to handle. In the future I will try to use rams about Bombarde's size. Bombarde may also carry a polled gene. I've paired him up with Anna Belle in hopes of getting a ramling that might answer a few questions about both parents concerning their polled possibilities.

So now all of my breeding pens are together...just in time to let me focus on Thanksgiving!

Where Wishes are Born

Two of three breeding groups are together as of this evening.

Unicorn, a yearling ram that has not been used to my knowledge, met Boston Lake Sian and Delyth for the first time. I hate to say it, but he thought he was pretty hot stuff and those girls were having none of it. He chased them around and around the pen. The two maiden ewes were concerned only with fact that their mothers were not there to protect them from the big white creep. After 10 minutes they were still anxiously baa-ing at the gate to go back to the ewe flock. Unicorn was panting with his tongue hanging out. He couldn't understand why the girls didn't fall in love with him at first sight. He fell in love with them at first sight!

Over in the other breeding pen, the scene was quite different. Old Allister was the quintessential gentleman toward experienced ewes, Rachel and Dolce. The pace was slow and courtly, and infinitely more effective. Neither of the girls were running away. (I'm thinking back to the first time I put Rachel in with a ramling. She was thoroughly disgusted with her situation and with me.)

Anna Belle, Northwind, and eweling Rai Min are still in the electronet by the barn. At the last minute, I decided to jump at the chance to buy a ram I've admired for a while. Hopefully, I'll be able to bring him home on Monday. He'll go in with these two ewes, while Rai Min will get pulled into the largest barn stall to wait out the breeding season.

Not only did the breeding groups get assembled today, but Clancy also trimmed the girls' hooves and gave them BoSe shots. I usually say "Clancy and I", but truthfully, I run the gates and doors and tell Clancy what to do. He does the hard stuff.

It felt good to get so much done. I have to keep my eyes open for breeding dates, and reintroduce the rams after breeding season, but most of the hard work is over. April 12 is the first possible lambing date. I'm hesitant to count my lambs before they hatch, but if things go well, next Spring will be the largest lambing I've ever had.

All winter long I'll be dreaming of the lambs I want: Hopefully Rachel will give me a blue-grey eweling. I hope Anna Belle passes on her incredible silky fine fleece. I would love to get a modified lamb from Dolce and Allister-technically a 50/50 chance. Northwind could give me a katmoget with a tiny tail. Please let Unicorn sire lambs that inherit his fleece.

Wish, wish, wish... That is what makes it so exciting to have more than one ewe lambing next spring-the chances are greater that some of my wishes will come true.

Choices

Clancy and I did some flock maintenance Sunday afternoon. We moved the ewes to the barn and reduced their electronet pen to one roll. The barn makes catching sheep a whole lot easier.

We also moved the rams into the two sturdy round pens. Each one got his hooves trimmed and his condition evaluated. We still have to trim the girls. That will happen next time Clancy and I have some daylight to spare.

This season is presenting some tough choices:

Mid October, on the advise of a consultant, I began force feeding a mineral mix to my flock. Forage tests have shown that my pastures contain less than half of the recommended mineral doses sheep are supposed to consume. Each lambing season was getting a bit more odd. And my first home-raised Shetland X Icelandic ewe actually had a weak lamb last spring at a different farm. (She was sold just a few months prior to lambing.) We suspect Selenium deficiency. I'm not a fan of force feeding any type of salt mixture. But I have noticed a large spike in water consumption. So I suspect my sheep were not eating much of their mineral free choice. So far I cannot see any negative affect from this change.

Our vet also recommended giving a BoSe shot this fall and then again next spring just after lambing. The bottle says not to administer the shot during pregnancy, so we need to give those shots very soon. I'm leery of giving these shots too. However, I've reassured myself that the shots might buy me some time to get soils amended, to get a mineral mix designed just for my farm, and to avoid a nightmare next lambing season.

I did not de-worm with commercial product this fall either. To make sure the sheep consume the salt I mix it with molasses, corn, and crushed alfalfa cubes. When I started this in October, I decided to add a portion of de as well, since the sheep had been without it all summer. One ewe expelled a few small worms. Everyone else looks good. Eyelids are pink. The flock was aggressively rotated on new pastures this summer. I will continue the de and keep my eyes open for any warning signs of worm load.

I took a good hard look at my rams yesterday too. Unicorn (the white ram shown above) will be used for the first time this season. His place here is secure. I won't part with him until I see some of his grown lambs.

Old Allister is quite bony. I've been feeding him supplements, he's been on good pasture all summer, and he is second in command to Uni. Because he was new to the farm this year, he was de-wormed not too long ago. For all that, and compared to the rest of the flock, he's not as stout as he should be. I am actually beginning to worry that this old boy is not going to have the easiest time of it over the winter. Then again, maybe he is one of those scrappy old gents that do better than one expects. Because I'm really wrestling with his condition issues, I have decided to use him on every ewe that he is not related to. That way, if I feel he needs to be put down when it gets cold, I will have captured his crimpy, dense, uniform fleece in my flock. Even if this is his last breeding season, he should be happy with so many girls in his pen.

Kavan was thoroughly examined on his way to the new pen. He has iset in his fleece now. But it is very uniform iset, if that makes sense. He still has a gorgeous, even, dense, crimpy fleece. And he is still a burly framed boy. Even his horn has begun to grow back-as if we has simply cut it off at skull level. But Kavan threw a ram lamb last spring that has just a slight under bite. So I checked Kavan's mouth, and sure enough, he has a slight under bite as well. I've seen worse. But considering Allister (Kavan's sire) has a perfect bite and no iset fibers, and that the two have almost identical structure, I have decided to put Kavan in the freezer. A very hard choice. His temperament is so good that it just breaks my heart. But I have three of his daughters, and they did not inherit his fault. So his contribution will be preserved.

Last, and Least, is little runty Tormey-the softest lamb I've ever produced. His fiber is just like a cloud. He's a darling little pest. He does have that slight under bite though, so I won't register him. We are hoping he will be worth butchering by next spring. This winter he can act as a companion to one of the big rams.

Breeding groups didn't really solidify in my mind until I had that good look at the rams on Sunday. I'm certain now how I will sort the girls-mostly: Allister will have Anna Belle, Rachel, Dolce, and Northwind. Unicorn will have Sian and Delyth. Tormey and his twin sister, Rai Min, will spend a couple of weeks in two separate areas of the barn. When I throw breeding groups together is any body's guess. I'd like to wait until December 1 for May lambs. But I want to get my electronet out of the ground early this year, so I might put them together sooner. One more choice to make.