Farming in the shade

Last weekend the lambing season of our larger group of ewes began. We breed a small group of ewes early so that we can have a few lambs available for our visitors at Shearing Day. But the bulk of the flock starts lambing in early April. Generally it's a bit warmer by then, although yesterday we had snow... These are the ladies in waiting. (Note: It's hard to get good photos in our dark barn backlit by sunlight.) This is the group that The Farmer is scanning each time he goes out to check for lambs. He looks and he listens. There is a special "baaaa" that we only hear from the ewes during labor and delivery and for the first few days of the lambs' lives. When we hear that, we look harder. We look for a ewe standing or laying off by herself, or one who has her head turned back to look at her stomach. We look for lambs already born. If someone is in active delivery, we don't move her until she's finished and the lamb is cleaned off.  The Farmer wil...

The lambs have been coming in fits and spurts. It's been a good year, but not without some losses. Where there is life, there is also death.  About three days ago we had a burst of babies, and one lamb was not accepted by his mother. The Farmer has tried several different scenarios, including grafting this lamb onto another ewe. Sheep aren't very open to the concept of adoption. If it's not their lamb, they don't want anything to do with it. So this little one has been a bottle lamb. The Farmer made sure it got the colostrum--the first milk--that all lambs need to live. Since then, it's been drinking lamb formula out of a garage sale baby bottle with the hole in the nipple cut a bit larger.  This morning a yearling, a first-time mom, needed help with delivering her single stillborn lamb. The Farmer assisted with the birth, and realized that this was the perfect opportunity to graft the bottle lamb onto this young ewe. But remember, sheep aren't real...

The past few days have been rather mixed , weather-wise. Very little of our mixed weather has been pleasant. But when babies are ready, they come, even if the weather is not great. Some of us believe that babies come especially when the weather isn't great.  This little guy was born a day before the snow. At least he had a chance to get acclimated to his new surroundings in two steps: 1) Outside world, decent weather. 2) Outside world, snowy weather. But this little guy--calf #2--was born during the snow that came this past weekend. This picture was taken during a lull. We got more snow after this. His mama had the sense to drop him on a pile of hay, fortunately. Since then, we've had sheep delivering lambs left and right. Fortunately for them, they are in the barn. This ewe is delivering her first lamb of the year. And about 30 minutes later, she has finished delivering all three of her lambs. This is a busy time for The Farmer, but he tends to clear...

I'm emerging slowly from the fog that was brought on by our biggest on-farm event of the year (Annual Shearing Day) last Saturday and Michigan's Presidential primary election three days later (my day job has to do with elections). I will blog soon about Shearing Day, but here's something to tide you over until I am more fog-free. The Farmer has been busy for about a month with lambing. We like to have about 30 ewes deliver before our Shearing Day, for the cuteness factor. The clipboard in the foreground of this photo helps us remember who needs to be where in the jugs, seen along the wall in the background. (Side note: I don't know why the bonding pens are called jugs.) After a ewe gives birth, she and her lamb(s) are placed in a jug for a day or three. The length of time varies based on how many lambs she's had, and whether or not someone else needs the jug.  Most of the ewes take their jobs very seriously, as evidenced by this ewe's cautious stare a...

The spring rains have come. Days like today remind us why we lamb in the barn--so much more comfortable for The Farmer as he works with the sheep. Cold rain is also hard on newborn lambs, who struggle to get up and get the hang of nursing. That first hour or two are critical. Our dog has a tendency to go on walkabout during extended lambing chores. Today she seems content to watch the rain from a comfortable, dry place.

Lambing officially began last Tuesday, March 31st, with a yearling that had twins. Everything was manageable until Easter Sunday, when we had 10 ewes give birth in 24 hours. Here are some of our "jugs" (a.k.a. bonding pens). The Farmer has 14 jugs set up and they were all full this morning. He has had to move some out to the mingling pens to make room for more. Not sure how you all feel about birthing photos, but here we go. This ewe already had one lamb on the ground and was working on number two. You can see two front legs... In a textbook birth, the two front legs and head come together. The body easily follows after the head and shoulders are through. The hind legs are back for birthing. Unless the whole business is not textbook, of course. Typically a laboring ewe will stand for a while, and lay down for a while and repeat as needed. Usually the lamb is delivered while the ewe is laying down. At this moment, we have 27 lambs from 15 ewes, which puts us und...

Lambing season 2015 has begun! A first-time mom, with her twins--a ram lamb and a ewe lamb. We really didn't expect lambs for a couple more days, but yesterday a real humdinger of a weather system moved through, and it seems that atmospheric pressure (or just plain bad weather) makes those babies want to come. These were born this morning.

Since we put the sheep out to pasture about a week ago, we've moved them four times. Our rotational grazing guru is going to be away for the summer, and so I will have to be the sheep mover. I got a lesson a couple of days ago. Around the whole big pasture is a permanent perimeter fence. We subdivide the large pasture into many smaller pastures by putting up temporary fence. First, we made a dent in the pasture by driving a straight-ish line from one permanent fence to another. This dent is where we set up the temporary fence. We laid each of the fence sections out on the ground. It took four sections of fence and a gate to reach across the pasture to subdivide it. After laying each section out, we stuck the poles of the fence in the ground. The temporary fence was very easy to set up because the ground was so soft. After all the sections were set up, we electrified it. Can't have the little buggers getting out. And then we opened the fence between the ol...

When I blogged yesterday about what to do with the dwindling feed problem, I didn't tell you that we'd already made a plan and carried it out. I wanted to see what others would have decided, though I realize I didn't give all the information. Things I left out included lack of money and the fact that we are still lambing. The first year we had sheep we had the ewes giving birth out in the pasture, and it Did Not Go Well. Since that time we've chosen to lamb inside, where conditions are much more controlled. Anyway, this past weekend it was apparent that we had a dire situation on our hands. Denial of the situation was not working; something needed to be done, and it needed to be done right then. But of course we had these cows in the way. So the first order of business was to sort the calves from their mothers, and remove the bull from the group. Enter the sorting chute we recently purchased (which probably has something to do with our cash flow problem). We spen...

Lambing is still underway, with about half the Polypay ewes already finished. Some things are going exceptionally well, like the triplet that was successfully adopted by the mother of a single. It's pretty hard to get a ewe to adopt someone else's lamb. They know. You have to fool them, and it's not easy. But we had one successful adoption so far this year! And other things are not going well. We lost a very small lamb, the tiniest lamb we've ever seen. We have lost a few lambs from triplet sets. It takes a very good mother to raise three. The ewe in this photo had twins. She accepted one her lambs, and rejected the other. Who knows what goes on in the minds of these ewes? There is a head gate on each lambing jug that allows the ewe to be comfortably secured. The head gate adjusts to allow for plenty of room for her neck, but her head will not fit through the opening. It holds the ewe still in the lambing jug, and allows the lambs to nurse at will. The Farme...

The first time I heard about the process of "tubing" a lamb, or feeding via a tube, I was slightly horrified. It sounded so barbaric. But watching a weak lamb slowly die is not all that much fun, either.  So, "tubing" a lamb has become one of our strategies for lamb survival--a tool in our toolbox, if you will. It is important that the lamb is not cold--you can tell by feeling the ears. If the lamb is cold, you must warm it up before tubing it.  The three things needed are a chunky syringe, a flexible tube, and some lamb milk replacer (or mama's milk, if you can get it). You'll see in the photos below that the milk is in a standard baby's bottle. The bottle in this case is simply something to hold the milk in.  The Farmer likes to warm the tube in hot water to make it flexible. The thin end of the tube is inserted carefully into the esophagus. The wider end of the tube is attached to the bottom of the syringe. The warm milk is poured ...

Our daughter is working for us again this summer, home from college. Two summers ago we had a simply disastrous year with keeping sheep alive. Shepherds all over the state reported heavy death losses to parasites. So we know we weren't alone that summer. But we also knew that heavy worm loads can be minimized with careful management. And there is just too much work on this farm for one employee. Even with all the familial minions. We needed someone whose passion was working with the sheep. Enter college daughter. Last summer she did a fabulous job of managing the sheep's grazing and care. If you don't know anything about rotational grazing, I can boil it down for you. Set up a small temporary fence and let the sheep graze there for 1-2 days, until most of the grass has been eaten. Set up another temporary fence and let the sheep graze there for 1-2 days, until most of the grass has been eaten. Repeat, all summer long. In your spare time, maintain the electrical current ...

We usually let ewes begin lambing in the large pen, with the other expectant ewes. After the first lamb is born, The Farmer will let her care for it for a few minutes. Then he will go in and pick up the lamb (or lambs, if he's arrived after multiple births) and move slowly out of the large pen. In this case, the lamb is the bait that makes the ewe move, too. She is very concerned about her lamb, and will follow closely, calling out the whole time.  The ewe and her lamb(s) are placed in a small lambing pen, called a jug. I have no idea why they are called jugs. If anyone knows the origin of that term, I'd love to know. They are kept there for 1-3 days to ensure that they bond, and that the ewe is caring for her lambs well. No distractions. We set up a whole row of temporary jugs during lambing time. This is one of our hay storage areas, so we need to be sure that we've used most of this hay up before lambing begins. After their time in the lambing jugs, the ewe...

What does a Farmer do on a lovely spring day, when the weather's just right for field work and the lambs are popping out all over the place? Why he sits in his recliner, recovering from the stomach flu. What else? In the absence of any real news here at Shady Side Farm, I'd like to let you know about a neat project that another farmer (way over in Vermont) is working on. He's building his very own USDA butcher shop. In an effort to speed the process up, he's joined forces with Kickstarter. You can click on the button below to find out more information. And, finally, some cute lamb photos.  This little one is getting his/her first glimpse of the outside world... And meeting a cat for the first time. 

A local vocational school has a couple of our ewes "on loan". Today, one of the ewes gave birth to a very tiny ram lamb. He's got some unique coloring and some mighty cute ears. We don't usually name ram lambs. But if we did, what would be a good name for this one?

I know this isn't the best photo. But if you look carefully, you can see the nursery area within the maternity ward. We call it the playpen. I wonder if all the lambies sleep in the hay feeder to avoid being stepped on?

In theory, our two flocks of sheep (Suffolk and Polypay) should lamb sequentially. First the Suffolk and then the Polypay. We time the placing of the rams so that it happens this way. In theory. But for some reason this year, many of the Suffolks seem to have been bred later than we'd hoped, causing us to worry about overlapping lambing seasons. You guessed it; our worries have come true. Lamb count (so far) today is 15. More to come, The Farmer says...

This is one of two ram lambs born to the ewe that lives at the nearby tech school. The kids in the ag program are getting a hands-on education. This little guy is about two hours old here. More photos later, I promise!

And the first lambs have been born. This is baby #1, being tended to by a good mama. Shortly after this photo was taken, mama had to take a break to deliver lamb #2. Both healthy, strong ewe lambs. So now the busy time has come.