All of our older lambs have been weaned for nearly a week now; all, that is, except for Jewel and Jezebel.  No matter how tightly we build the barriers between them and their mothers, no matter how much distance we put between them, they seem to find a way into the ewe pasture and nurse.

This has been going on for nearly a week now.  Every morning, I wake up to a beautiful view of our pastoral ewes grazing, and - WHAT?! - there are two lambs out in the ewe pasture!  Once again, after a careful perusal, I realize that it is Jewel and Jezebel.  Somehow, they have found a way back to their mothers - again!

So this morning I decided to take matters into my own hands....  Rick has been helping me catch the lambs and take them back every evening.  No more nice shepherdess!  I am determined for them to wean so that they can go to their new homes and greener pastures!  That won't happen unless I can keep them away from their mothers.  There is only one thing left to do - jail them!



So, when I saw them out this morning, I got the rest of my chores done and went to work building some kind of a container to house these two escape artists!  I know that Jezebel is a jumper at her young age....  Many lambs will jump when this young and then later never leave the ground - Jezebel is likely one of them, since her mother, Gianna, was too.  Whatever I built would have to have a top on it to keep Jezebel in.

Jewel's trick is to find any small opening and squeeze her nose into it, letting the wedge-like shape of her face open the space to allow the rest of her to follow.  Her structure would have to have openings or spaces  with limited ability to expand - otherwise, she would find a way out.

I headed to the barn and got creative.  We still have panels left that were used to build lambing jugs.  Most of them are currently being used to reinforce the board fences during weaning, but I had five four-foot panels left unused.  With a little ingenuity and a lot of carabiners (those colorful little clips you can see in the photo below), I assembled  a jail to house the errant lambs.

I am hoping that they won't have to stay in their little jail long....  I hate having them separated from the rest of the lambs, but I could think of no other way to ensure that they would stay out of the ewe pasture.  At least the pen is housed in the area where all of the other lambs come to eat.  I am hoping that a few days in the pen will convince them that there is no use in trying to make a run for it - and that they will then stay with the rest of the lambs.  I guess only time will tell....

Every few years, our chickens get old enough that they essentially stop laying eggs, and we know it's time to replace them.  We drop the old chickens off with some friends of ours in October, and in the spring, we get a box of day-old chicks in the mailbox from McMurray Hatchery.  We only order hens because we want the fresh eggs, but McMurray always throws in a free rooster with every order.  When our order came last year, we had some school-age girls here to help get the chicks settled, and they named the rooster "Squawkers" because every time they touched him or picked him up, he would squawk.

Well, Squawkers grew up to be a fine looking rooster (see photo at right), and we had high hopes that he would live here for many years, alerting us when dawn broke and just generally adding his own personal flair to the chicken yard.  Oh, we had no idea then of what was waiting in that little package!

Squawkers is now a full-grown rooster and he does, indeed, let us know when dawn breaks with a "cock-a-doodle-doo" that carries throughout the neighborhood.  He also lets us know that the sun is out, in general  - and I mean it!  He cock-a-doodles the entire day, from sunup to long after sundown!  If there is any light sighted from the chicken coop, he will let us know!

But worse than that is that Squawkers is not a friendly rooster....  He knows that I will check for eggs at least twice a day, and he lies in  wait for me.  As I come near the chicken yard, walking towards the gate, he walks along the fence with me, strutting and pecking at the fence.  He lets me know that he is up for a fight, no matter how big I may seem!

Yesterday, when I went to collect eggs in the late afternoon, he was nowhere in sight - and I thought I might be able to sneak up and get into the chicken coop without his seeing me!  As I opened the chicken-yard gate, a flying beast launched itself at my head from around the corner of the coop, claws and spurs extended!  I don't know if you have ever seen the spurs that roosters grow on the back of their legs, but his are over an inch long - and very sharp!  I ducked out of the way, but he got my arm on the way down - and I still hadn't made it to the coop for the eggs!

I quickly dove towards the coop door, but not quickly enough because Squawkers came back for another assault - this time, at my legs.  I was wearing heavy jeans and I kicked back, figuring that a moving target would be harder for him to hit, but by the time I made it into the chicken coop, a circle of blood was slowly seeping through the denim.  So much for the protection of heavy jeans!

I slammed the chicken coop door so that he would have to go around to the other side to enter the smaller chicken doors, giving me time to collect eggs.  I finished quickly and cracked the door open to see if my path to safety was clear.  He was nowhere in sight, so I decided to make a run for it - with thirteen eggs held in sling created from the front of my shirt!  I must have been some sight: eggs bouncing in my shirt, my head down and running, closely followed by a crazed rooster with plans of mayhem on his mind.  I don't suppose anyone has a need for a "spirited" rooster?

Weaning day is always a big event - for the lambs and for us.  For the last couple of years, we have split our lambs into two groups - the early group and the late group - and weaned each group at a different time.  Because there is a six-week span from the first-born lamb to the last straggler, we thought it might work better to wean the first, larger group last Saturday, and then wean the last dozen or so lambs in three weeks.

There are a couple of advantages to dividing it up like this.  First of all, when the lambs are weaned, they miss more than just the milk.  In fact, the milk is the smaller part of what they miss, in my opinion.  It seems that the biggest problem is the lack of adult leadership and "mothering" from their moms.  By weaning in two groups, we leave the later-lambing ewes in with the lambs, allowing them to continue to provide that leadership for the whole group of lambs.  That way, the lambs are not out there alone in the dark of night without an adult to assure them that it is all OK.

And, of course, they do miss the milk a bit.  By six weeks, though, they are not drinking much milk at all, and what they drink has dropped in nutrition over the weeks to provide very little of what they need - they are actually better off without filling up on the milk, and instead filling up on the grain and alfalfa or grass.

So, Saturday we weighed and evaluated all of the lambs for breeding and pulled out about three-quarters of the ewes, sending them to the south pasture - which is almost as far from our east pasture as you can get.  This was important because although we were locking the lambs and the remaining nursing ewes into the barn for the weekend, after that, we knew they would be grazing the east pasture - we didn't want any escapees making their way back to their mothers in the south pasture!

After sending the ewes off to their south pasture to "dry up," we enclosed the area right in front of the barn with sheep panels (42"high made up of 4" squares) to keep the lambs in for the weekend.  We gave them bales of alfalfa and dishes of grain and called the job done - or so we assumed!

The first problem appeared within an hour, and it was named Gianna.  All of our lambs learn at a very young age that they can get under our high-tensile fences because the bottom wires are not electrified.  I actually kind of like this because they can get to very nice grass that the ewes can't eat up, and they always scoot right back when we come along.  They never go far from their flock, so I don't really worry about them.  Eventually, they grow big enough and old enough that they don't continue their fence trick - they stay within the fences...that is, except for Gianna!  She learned the Houdini trick as a lamb and continues to this day to make her way out of the pastures to graze.  Like the lambs, she doesn't stray far, and she scoots right back under when we come to "talk to her" about it, so we haven't worried about it much - until Saturday!

Gianna is a very protective mother - the kind we really like.  She takes very good care of her lambs, and both she and her lambs always have exceptionally lovely fiber - which is why she is still here!  This year, her daughter, Jezebel, is no different: she is our largest lamb with extraordinary fiber, and an overprotective mother!  As soon as we got Gianna over in the south pasture, she began making her way under the fence, across the swamp, under another fence, across the pasture, under the last fence, and up to the enclosure where Jezebel waited, calling and calling.  You have to understand, they hadn't even been separated for an hour yet!

Thank goodness, we had the foresight to enclose the lamb area within the panels (See the photo at left of Gianna outside the panels with Jezebel jumping inside, trying to get out!)  Otherwise, moving Gianna back to the south pasture would have been that much harder!  As it was, it took two people and a dog to convince her that it was time to return to the ewes....  And it took three more times before dark, as she kept making her way over to the barn.  Finally, once it got dark, her better instinct prevailed, and she decided that it was too dangerous for a ewe to be traveling cross-country alone - but that was no longer true at sun-up on Sunday morning!

All day on Sunday, we had the same problem.  Luckily I found that if I sent Coda, my main dog, out to push her back under the fence before she crossed the swamp, that he could do so without my even leaving the front porch.  All of Sunday morning, that is exactly what we did.....  And then, in the afternoon, I realized that he no longer even needed to go down into the swamp to push her back in - she would go in on her own when she saw him in the front yard, on his way over.  Before long, she would pop back under the fence as soon as the front door opened - and then it got dark and we had a reprieve for the night!

I have to add that, during all this time of trying to keep Gianna in, the lambs were doing fine!  The ewes called their lambs, and the lambs called their moms for the rest of the day on Saturday, but by Sunday the ruckus had pretty much stopped.  By this morning, even Gianna had given up and all was peaceful, so I decided that I could let the lambs and the few ewes with them out onto the east pasture to graze a bit.  What a bad move!

As soon as I opened the panels, a whole flurry of lambs ran for the west pasture gate and scooted under....  This was terrible!  The rest of them moved into the east pasture as I had hoped - that was the gate that I had left open for them.  Those that made it into the west pasture were only two fences and a swampy area away from their moms!  What a mess!

I quickly put up panels over the west pasture gate so that no more lambs could get through, and took Coda out to convince the lambs that hadn't yet made it under the first fence that they had to go back.  Unfortunately, he couldn't catch them all... six lambs had gotten all the way through to their moms in the south pasture.  Grumbling, I hooked up the trailer, and Coda and I went for a "ride" (Coda's word) to the south pasture.

Luckily, the lambs are still young and small enough for me to pick up and carry.  I caught each one, including Jezebel (who weighs nearly 50 punds), and put them into the trailer.  While we worked, Coda and I had to keep watch for Martin, our new llama, who is now in that field.  As one of the sheep's protectors, Martin is not used to the fact that Coda is allowed to work the sheep and is not a threat, so we had to begin that training, too, as we gathered up the lambs.  Within about 45 minutes, all of the lambs were in the trailer on their way back to the east pasture.

So far, so good - no lambs have escaped since Coda and I dropped off the six about an hour ago.  I can only hope that now, when I say that a good number of our lambs are being weaned, that it is still true, and that I have no more trailer trips in my near future!  So, now to begin planning that final weaning group....

It seems like every spring since we started our flock, we've had a fairly major project on the drawing board, and this year is no exception.  As our flock has grown, we have had to graze early spring pastures farther and farther from our house to find enough grass for our ever-increasing flock.  We have plenty of grass for all of them, but the problem is with what we shepherds call "the creep." 

Because lambs are growing so much faster than even the yearling ewes (our lambs put on an average of nearly a pound a day), they need a higher level of nutrition than their mothers.  To feed them this higher level of nutrition and prevent their mothers from gobbling it all down before the lambs can get to it, we set up what is called a creep area.  The entry into this creep area is usually a panel with which  we can adjust the size of the opening, making it just large enough for the lambs to enter, but too small for the ewes.  This way, we can leave pans of grain and open feeders of alfalfa in the creep area without worrying that it will all be eaten by the ewes within minutes of our leaving.

The problem that we've had these past few years is that our creep area has been in our barn, and when the sheep graze in the more distant pastures, we need to leave all the pasture gates open so that the lambs can move to and from the barn for the creep.  When we leave all the gates open, the sheep graze not only the pasture we want them to, but also all of the pastures on the way there and back.  This prevents those pastures from regrowing and ends up reducing the grazing we have available for our sheep.  It's hard to rotate the sheep among different pastures (to aid in preventing parasites) when most of your pastures are being eaten down by ewes and lambs traveling to and from the barn....

So Rick's project this year was to "invent" and build a creep building that would keep the ewes out, let the lambs in, be light enough for us to transport, and keep the feed inside dry if it rained.  That doesn't sound so bad until you try to come up with one!  He has been busy, hunched over his design and mumbling to himself for the past month or two - I knew enough not to interrupt his thoughts!

Last weekend was the culmination of all that muttering.  Rick borrowed the truck on Friday night to get materials, and then locked himself into the barn for two days, coming out on Sunday night announcing that the building was ready to be moved into position after work on Monday.  I was almost afraid to find out what he had come up with.....  You see, I am more involved with the sheep than Rick is, and there are times when he comes up with great ideas that just won't work with the sheep because of...well, the way that sheep are.  I figured that I would find out very soon how this project would work in practice.

Well, as you can see from the picture on the right, he has come up with a wonderful little building for our creep feeding!  It is lightweight enough that one person can move it by herself.  It keeps the creep feed dry from the rain, and allows only the lambs to enter either end via the same creep gates that we use in the barn (see the blue end panel in the photo).  It is even tied down via stakes that are pounded into the ground, so we don't have to worry about finding it in the neighbor's field after a storm!  It's a wonderful answer to a problem that has plagued us for years!

So now our lambs can still get their creep feed, yet don't have to walk the quarter-mile back to the barn to get it, and we can just fill the troughs in the little building once a day to keep them eating grain on demand.  What a great job, Rick!  Now, I've got this other idea for a project....

It is really spring here in Iowa, so our feeding routine needs to change as the available feed changes.  Only a week ago, I was still feeding out about 300 pounds of hay each day in addition to forty pounds of grain.  Now that our pastures are green with the new grass, even our alfalfa hay doesn't entice the sheep anymore - fresh is always better than dried, and they spend most of their time grazing out in the pastures.  I'm down to feeding only a couple of bales (50 pounds each) every few days - if that.
 
We still need to check on the flock each day, though, to make sure that each of the lambs and ewes is healthy and well.  We do this when we feed grain up at the barn in the late afternoon or early evening.  Unlike the rest of the year, this is the one period of time that I don't have to send a dog out to bring the sheep up to the barn!  All I need to do is call out, "Hey, girls!" and usually they will all come running (see photo above right, taken today at the paddock gate).  Of course, if it is windy, I also have to bang the bucket on the board fence so that the sound carries far enough to be heard, but they all come running the quarter-mile to the barn.

Usually, I shut the gate to the paddock area where the filled feeders await so that all of the ewes get to the grain at the same time - otherwise, the fastest ewes would eat all the grain before the slower ones (including the ewes with the youngest lambs) could even get there.  Once all the ewes are impatiently waiting at the paddock gate, I open it up and they all charge in to get the "best" spot at the trough.

The lambs, too, take their part in this choreography.  Many of them now know that when the paddock gate closes, I am filling the grain troughs, and they run to reach the paddock first.  Unlike the ewes who are too big to creep under the closed gate, the lambs can run right into the paddock and fill up on grain as I fill the troughs and the ewes wait their turn.  This way, the nutrition goes to those who need it the most, and there is still plenty there for the ewes when I open the gate.

As the ewes and lambs all run through the gate, I spend a few minutes looking them over.... Are there any ewes limping?  Any that don't look interested in the grain, which might signal illness?  Any coats torn and need replacing?  Any lambs who have outgrown their coats?  Any coughing that might signal pneumonia?  I watch for anything that seems odd or out of place.  Sheep, being prey animals, will not show illness or injury unless they have no choice - illness and injury signal weakness, and to a predator, that is a signal to attack.  Sheep hide their illnesses and injuries well, so I have to be extra vigilant to spot a problem before it kills the sheep.  Feeding time up at the barn is the perfect time to look for issues that need to be addressed.

Once the grain is gone, most of the ewes will get some fresh water and head back out to the pasture.  The lambs often stay behind to take advantage of the food that is available only to them in the back section of the barn.  This area is entered through two "creep gates" that allow only the lambs through - one of our teen barn-helpers calls them "sieves" and I must admit that the word is a pretty good description of how it works.  Anyhow, the lambs can get in out of the sun and nibble the best alfalfa hay and all the grain they can eat - without the pushing and shoving of the adult ewes.  This helps them to put on the weight and growth that reflects their genetic potential.

Eventually, near dusk, the lambs group into their groups or "gangs" and begin to run in and out of the barn, up and down the manure pile, and 'round the mulberry tree in the pasture.  As dark falls and the lambs run out of energy, they reunite with their mothers in tha pasture and settle down for the night, protected from harm by Vinnie and Chachi - our two remaining guardian llamas.  Another day at Peeper Hollow Farm has come to an end, and all is well.  Hopefully, tomorrow will go as well as today....

The mowing season has begun!  And for us, mowing is a big undertaking.  We mow not only our lawn (which isn't really that big - thank goodness!), but we also mow our pastures in rotation.  I say "we," but I am really the one who mows in our family - Rick does the walk-behind mowing around trees, and the edging of the lawn.  I have a good-sized riding mower, which helps a lot, but the mowing still takes time.

The way it all works is like this....  The ewes and their lambs are put into one of our seven pasture areas to graze.  Our pastures are a natural mixture of bluegrass, clover and whatever weeds and plants happen to do well out there.  The sheep will eat down the area in a matter of days.  At that point, we rotate the ewes and lambs (plus their llama) into the next area, and move the rams into the area the ewes just left.  The rams get that field for the next rotation, taking it down a bit more until they are moved several days later to keep following the ewes and lambs.

The ewes get an area first because they need the nutrition at this time of year more than the rams.  After all, they are still lactating, so they need nutrition not only for themselves, but also for their nursing lambs.  The rams get what is left - and there's always plenty left for them.  There are only eight rams and one llama in that group, so they don't need nearly the grazing quantity that the ninety ewes and lambs need!  When the rams are done with the pasture, we mow whatever is left down to about two or three inches - in other words, pretty short.  What is left is what the sheep don't like.  By mowing it down to this level, we make sure that whatever the sheep don't like doesn't have the advantage over the grass and clover that were eaten down.  As the plants regrow, they all begin at the same level.  In fact, by mowing the pasture after the sheep leave it, we have actually improved the pastures to include more grass and clover, and less thistles and other weeds that the sheep won't touch.  It's been an inexpensive way to improve our fields over the years.  Inexpensive, that is, in cost, but not in time!

So, every five days or so throughout the grazing season (April through October), I mow one of the pastures, which each average about an acre in size - not including the lawn!  The lawn is on its own schedule, needing mowing once a week, more or less.  This time of year, the lawn gets mowed every five days or so, but in the heat of the summer when it goes dormant, it only needs it about every two weeks.

I mow a lot, but I like mowing.  Sitting on the mower, I can take the time to watch the flock as they graze, taking note of any sheep I need to check for unusual behavior or illness.  It is also a time to take a good look at our pastures, making sure that the combination of plants is high enough in nutrition for grazing lactating ewes - with no plants that could be toxic to young lambs.  Sitting on the mower, I have time to myself in the beautiful outdoors - and it's always beautiful!  You can't really mow when it's bad out!  It is a chance to settle myself and enjoy my surroundings. I can watch ground squirrels, swallows, snakes, eagles - all kinds of wildlife - while I'm on the mower.

So, the mowing season has started, and I am off to mow....  We moved the rams out of the east pasture last night, and it needs to be mowed down today.  While I'm out there, I might mow the lawn, too -  it looks pretty shaggy!  I hope I have enough gasoline.... 

"May I go up and see the sheep who wear clothes?" the elderly woman asked after I opened the door last  spring.  Seriously, this time of year we get lots of people who happen by our farm, ring the doorbell, and just want to see the sheep and llamas.  I'd estimate that we get about two a week through the spring and early summer!

Giving "tours" of the farm wasn't something I actually planned on or even thought about until people started stopping and asking; but now it's a regular part of what we do - as imbedded into our schedules as cleaning stalls or trimming hooves.  Seldom do I talk about my animals without inviting that person to come out and see the flock for themselves.

You see, Iowa is a meat-breed state.  We started ten years ago with dual-purpose sheep who provided us with fiber and meat (market lambs), and were told it would never work.  Fiber production is geared towards a lost art, I was told by sheep producers and university sheep experts alike.  There was little encouragement for fiber production from anyone involved in the local sheep industry at the time.

But we started our flock slowly, building it as we built our customer base.  In the process, I learned a lot, and I realized that some of the negative attitude that I had met was the result of a lack of information and understanding of today's fiber market.  That's when we started giving tours.... And giving demonstrations to school children....  And bringing young people in to help around the farm.  We found that the more people who came here and understood what we were doing, the more sense it made to them, and the more supportive they became!

So, the bottom line is that we encourage people to stop by and see us - well, come and see the sheep and the lambs, that is!  Now that the guardian llamas are out in the fields instead of hunkered down in the barn away from the foul Iowa winters, they attract lots of attention, too.  The fact that they are shy and not really "touchable" only adds to their mystery.

Last Friday, I had to have blood drawn for some tests, and as the technician tied the band to my upper arm, we talked about what I do and my sheep.  One of the technicians mentioned that she is an avid knitter, and by the time I left the office, I had invited Julie out to see our sheep and the source of some of her knitting yarn.

She came at the perfect time on Saturday evening - about six o'clock.  Our bottle lambs get one of their twice-daily bottles at about that time, and that's also around the time of day that the lambs begin to run in their little "gangs."  After feeding the bottle lambs, Julie and I leaned against one of the board fences adjoining our west pasture and just watched the lambs - they ran and jumped, gamboling from place to place.  It's hard not to smile as you watch them enjoy the dying sunshine at the end of the day.  There is just something so joyful, pure and innocent, that it can't help but lift you up a bit.

Sunday evening, we were surprised by the doorbell at about the same time of day.  It was a woman whose daughter was at the farm next door, working her horse.  Andrea figured that she had time to kill and brought her young neighbor over to see if they could meet the sheep and llamas.  We spent over an hour feeding the bottle lambs, letting the adult ewes eat out of our hands, and getting a closer look at the llamas.

To me, it's important for people to understand what it is that we do here at Peeper Hollow Farm.  There is a lot of untrue information out there about farming and animal management, and letting visitors peek into our daily lives gives them a better idea of our reality.  So, sure, come on over and let's take a look at those clothes-wearing sheep - and don't be surprised if you come away with a smile! 

It's been a big day at Peeper Hollow Farm - a very big day!  Today was 'blood test day' for the majority of our lambs, and the preparation started early.  You see, there is a disease among sheep, called scrapie, that is similar to mad cow disease - it is contagious from a ewe to her offspring, and also within the flock. The USDA has two different eradication programs - one voluntary and the other mandatory - in which we participate, but there is also a way to breed for genetic resistance to scrapie.  We've decided to work both approaches: participating in the USDA programs, but also working towards a flock where all of our lambs will not only be genetically resistant themselves, but also will pass on that resistance to every one of their offspring.  For those of you who want to get into the technicalities of this, we are working towards all of our animals having the genotype RR at codon 171.  This is still a ways off, but we are working towards that long-term goal.

So every spring, I set up a day for the vet to come out and take blood from all the lambs who are not known to be fully resistant (RR).  This year, we had twelve lambs who did not need testing because both dam and sire are RR - that means all of their offspring will be, too.  We had another thirty-two who needed to be tested, and we had to make sure to have them rounded up and confined in the barn's stall before the vet got here at 11 o'clock - no small task!

To make sure that I could get all of this done on time, I chose to schedule the vet on a day that the area kids were off of school - that way, I could hire in some help.  I have three young friends - Kate, Nicki, and Megan - who are great at catching lambs and, in general, helping with the sheep.  This was a parent-teacher conference day, so they woke up early and got here by about eight to get started.

The first thing we needed to do was to separate the ewes from the lambs - no easy task!  Some of the lambs are now six or seven weeks old - old enough to get away from their moms for hours with no problems.  There are others, though, who are still only two weeks old, and even an hour away from mom gets both lamb and ewe panicky.  We figured that if all went well, they would be separated at about nine, and back together again by noon - if all went well, that was an acceptable time of separation....

So, by eight-thirty, the girls and I were out among the sheep, trying to move them towards the barn so that we could lock the flock inside.  There was no way that they were going to go in for us - they knew something was up, and that it would happen in that barn - so we brought out Coda, my number one dog.  Because we have so many little lambs right now, the ewes are more likely to fight the dog than to move away, so Coda needed to be extra patient and gentle.  Also, the lambs had never seen one of our dogs - this was the first time.... He had to show them that he meant business without being too harsh - after all, they are still just little lambs!  He couldn't lose his cool - even when a few dozen little lambs surrounded him to see what this new creature in their barnyard was all about!

It took Coda about half an hour to get the entire flock into the barn so that we could close them in and begin to sort lambs from ewes.  We closed off two stalls for the lambs, and the other stall and lean-to for the ewes, catching the lambs and carrying them to their area.  Once we set them down in front of the barely-open stall door, and they could see all of their "friends" in the stall, it didn't take much to convince them to join the party.  By nine-thirty, we had all of the lambs separated from the ewes, in their own area - we changed a few coats on the ewes and let them go out to graze.  Of course, the newer mothers were not at all interested in leaving their lambs behind, so they stayed in the barn, crying for their lambs - but at least the rest of them left for the pastures!

Once the majority of the ewes were gone, it was time to do all of the "lamb tasks" on my list for the weekend. I figured that if we were going to be handling lambs today, we might as well do at one time all of the things that needed to be done....  We had immunizations that needed to be given to twenty-eight lambs, and twelve of those also needed to be weighed and initially evaluated for a possible future as breeding stock.  We completed all of these tasks by ten-thirty - just enough time left to sort out the lambs that didn't need blood drawn and send them out to their mothers!  That meant freedom for quite a little crowd!

By eleven o'clock, we were ready....  We took about a five-minute break in the sun, and saw the vet drive up the hill to the barn - it was time for the main show to begin!

I had put together a list of lambs who needed to be tested, in numerical order by eartag.  Basically, the way we worked it was this....  Megan took care of the clipboard with the list.  As I was handed a lamb, I called out the eartag to ensure that it was on the list for testing, and Megan marked it as tested.  I held the lamb as the vet drew the blood from one of the neck veins - a very quick and simple procedure.  When he finished, I made a pink 'X' on its coat (to make it easier to spot the untested lambs), and released the lamb back into the stall around us.  Either Kate or Nicki then handed me the next lamb and we did it all over again...and again...and again!  We finished testing thirty-two lambs in about thirty-five to forty minutes - not bad, I would say!  As the last lamb's test-tube filled, we opened the stall doors and let lambs and ewes reunite minutes before noon - still on schedule!

Now I had thirty-two test tubes of lamb's blood that had to be chilled, packaged and shipped before the post office closed.  Forms had to be filled out, and the chilled tubes packaged in paper towels (so that if they break, the box won't leak) and held together by rubber bands, all popped into Zip-loc bags, and packaged into a styrofoam-lined box with ice packs.  The whole thing was then shipped for testing at Gene Check, Inc. in Colorado.  We always test on a Friday and ship that day, so that the package makes it to Gene Check on Monday, still cooled by the enclosed ice.  I've done it this way for three or four years now, and it works great for us!

So, the package is gone, and I can sit back and enjoy the idea that another big milestone has been passed for this lambing year: the genetic testing is done!  Hopefully if all goes well, by next Friday we will know which of our lambs carry resistance to scrapie, and which will pass on that resistance to all of their lambs.  In the meantime, though, I think I'll celebrate this milestone and take a little time to enjoy the lambs - the "lamb gangs" are out in force on this sunny day, having forgotten the stress of being separated from mom, and are running up and down the manure pile.  This seems like the perfect time to have a seat out on the back deck and watch the lambs play!  Have a great weekend!

I knew when I went out to feed that something was wrong....  My usual routine this time of year is to sneak out to the gate that separates the paddocks around the barn from the pastures, and slam it as quickly and quietly as possible, trapping all of the grazing ewes and llamas away from the barn - that way, I can dole out the feed without interference, and then just let the whole crowd in when I'm finished.

As the crowd gathered at the gate after I had slammed it, I was missing one llama - Luca was nowhere to be seen.  Now, you need to understand that although I don't know a lot about llamas, in general, I do know about our llamas.  Our llamas are all grain-hounds - if any animal is getting grain, they will do what it takes to be there, just in case they might get a bit!  The fact that Luca hadn't responded to the closing of the gate was not a good sign.  My primary task at the time, though, was to feed the sheep - finding Luca would have to wait.  I am still feeding both alfalfa hay and grain to the ewes because most of them are still lactating heavily (and there isn't much pasture yet), and the creep feed for the lambs is increasing daily and hopefully, helping them to quickly grow to their potential.  When I finished putting all the feed into the feeders and went to open the pasture gate, I was already on the look-out for where Luca had gone - and I didn't have to look far.  Out in the middle of his favorite pasture lay our gentle giant, obviously having died earlier in the day from unknown causes.  He did not die in the heat of battle with unseen coyotes in the night, nor fighting off neighbor's marauding dogs - he seemed to have died peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by the sheep that he had protected for years.

Our farm cannot go for long without at least three llamas....  When you walk out onto the front porch at night, it isn't silence that you hear - it's coyotes!  It won't be long before those coyote mothers need to teach their new pups to hunt, and lamb is near the top of their list of favorite foods.  No, we need to replace Luca with a new llama quickly - so we've begun the search, both via Internet and word-of-mouth.

Yet at the same time, our hearts are heavy for our favorite llama - any animal so gentle with our newborn lambs immediately wins a special place in our hearts. (You can see more about him at the March 24 posting).  Luca will be exceptionally hard to replace.  You can't just order a llama "off the shelf" with the many positive attributes he possessed - he found joy in playing with even the smallest lambs; he was gentle enough to run with them, but not step on them, and even kept our lambs warm at night as they slept huddled tightly under his heavy coat.  Yes, Luca will be sorely missed....

Some of you may remember how much I agonized last fall about our order for hay (see the blog for Nov. 13th).  Getting it just right isn't easy - especially when the numbers of sheep change each year.  Our flock has been growing since we bought our first sheep.  This winter of '09/'10 is the first in which our flock is at full size, so it is really the first winter in which we have used the amount of hay that will become our standard order from here on out.  Ordering this past year, though, took a bit of math and a whole lot of guessing.

Basically, I estimate how many lambs each ewe will carry, calculate the weight of hay and grain based on the numbers of ewes and lambs, and multiply it all out, using grass hay until the last four weeks or so of gestation, and then switching over to alfalfa.  Then, all I have to figure out is when we will likely have to begin to feed hay in the fall - when will the pastures go dormant?  September?  December?  We never quite know....  I also try to guess when the grass will green up and grow in the spring - another huge gamble!  March?  May?  Usually, I figure that we will need hay for six months: begin feeding hay Oct. 1, and put the sheep on pasture April 1.

The other problem in buying hay is that it comes by the bale (which weighs anywhere from 35 to 55 pounds), and we feed out our hay by the pound, having calculated approximately how many pounds our flock will need each day.  I assume that the bales will average 45 pounds, and sometimes that is true, but sometimes not.  When the bales are light, we feed out more bales per day and, in the end, we run short.

All of this is leading up to the fact that we are in crisis....  We have run out of hay for the ewes and there is not yet enough grass in the pastures to support thirty-nine ewes, forty-nine lambs, eight rams, and three llamas.  In the past week or so, I started to ration out the hay, feeding the ewes who delivered in mid-February the poorer grass hay, and keeping the alfalfa hay for those who still have very young lambs and need to produce lots of milk.  That helped a little, but when you are almost out of hay - with only half a dozen bales left in the big ol' loft - it doesn't really matter what you feed to whom.  It's pretty much gone, regardless.

So, I started calling hay producers and checking the newspaper, but last year was a bad hay year, and this late in the spring, pretty much all the hay is spoken for.  I found nothing.  I really felt backed into a corner: we were so close to having enough grass in the pastures, yet not close enough, and I couldn't find enough hay to squeak by.  I was beginning to panic.

And so it was when I stopped by my friend Denise's place to drop off some lambing supplies that I had borrowed.  I finished lambing last weekend, and Denise is due to begin any day now, so I wanted to drop off the stuff before she needed it.  As usual, our small-talk covered the weather, our kids, and our livestock, and in the course of conversation, she just happened to mention that they had overestimated their flock's needs for alfalfa hay for the season and so were going to put an ad in the paper to sell a hundred bales.  A hundred bales!?!  Oh, my gosh - I could really use that hundred bales!

Within twenty-four hours, we had picked up the first thirty bales - to get us through this week.  The rest will come this weekend.  At least now I have more than enough to get my flock into the grazing season - in fact, I suspect that by the end of this weekend, there should be enough grass that we can stop feeding hay!  The extra hay will not be wasted, though: it will be used for any animals that we need to quarantine over the summer (new purchases, etc.), and the remainder will be fed out as we begin feeding hay again in the fall.  The fact that we now have enough hay to get us to green pastures is a huge relief!