fourfarmdogs – Page 54 – Canfield Farms

KMC7002

Posted on March 17, 2017May 8, 2017 by fourfarmdogs

Offered for sale as a registered ewe $300- SOLD

This beefy girl is out of our very high growth EBV ram, Rugby. She is a red roan, and very substantial in size and growth. Very strong growth and milk EBVs, with moderate prolificacy, so shouldn’t be a high # of triplets here. She was the product of an accidental breeding last fall; one of a triplet set where all three lambs had a different sire (as determined by DNA test)! I raised her as an orphan-rear to give her mother a break, since she wasn’t on the right feeding schedule, lambing so early. This lamb is pretty friendly, and if you wanted her to be even more social, you could bottle feed her for a little longer, as a treat. She is weaned and ready to go to a new home today.

EBVs from 60 day data. Photo taken at 90 days of age.

BWT	WWT	PWWT	NLB	NLW	MBWT	MWWT	MAT$	HAIR
0.46	2.43	4.43	9.3%	4.6%	0.328	1.038	110.62	104.62

KMC7002 Triplet DOB: 1/5/17 QR or RR	KMC5088	WRN006	KRK00168
			BME006
		BC C 298	CMG10019
			BC T 14-33
	KMC4021	WRN006	KRK00168
			BME006
		KMC3034	KMC1016
			JPS60224

Seeking the Holy Grail of Livestock Supps

Posted on December 22, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

After seeing excellent results from offering the Purina goat mineral mix to my sheep, I decided to do a little more experimentation. Before I got my forage analysis results back, I decided to offer two varieties of Sweetlix brand of supplements as an option side-by-side with the Purina mineral.

I had several reasons for wanting to do this, at the time. For one, Sweetlix looked like a better brand overall, it had “more stuff” in it than the Purina mix. And, it offered me the ability to put two similar tasting minerals side-by-side, one with a lot of copper and one with a little copper, because they have both a sheep and a goat variation. I figured this would give the sheep greater control over their own copper consumption. I can’t do this with the Purina goat mix, because there is no low-copper version that’s otherwise identical. Purina and Land O’Lakes apparently don’t make sheep minerals.

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Christmas Chicks

Posted on December 21, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

I had put a batch of chicken eggs into our Little Giant foam incubator, mostly as an experiment to see if chickens would render a higher yield than ducks do in that incubator. And, indeed they do!

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New Computers- Whoo Hoo!

Posted on December 21, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

My five-year-old Compaq Presario laptop has had hardware problems and failures since the first year I bought it. Twice I’ve had the motherboard replaced, once on HP’s dime, and once split with them. I think it had a design flaw that allowed it to overheat, which in turn would end up corrupting something in the master boot record. So, ever few months, it would suddenly make a helpless frog chirp sound from somewhere deep in the hardware, freeze up and then could not be rebooted.

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Traction Footwear for Old Dogs

Posted on December 19, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

Our eldest Border Collie, Spanky, is about thirteen years old (I’m not sure if his exact age because he’s a rescue, but I know he is at least that old). He is having the same problem many old dogs suffer- weak rear quarters. This, combined with our wood floors, make it very difficult for him to get up from lying down. He lacks the muscle strength and coordination to get traction. Sometimes he collapses midway, sprawling out like a frog, and would need assistance to get back up. It’s sad to see once-spry dogs suffer these old-age maladies, and I’m sure it impacts their quality of life. So, we’ve gotten him some shoes to help!

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Country Living Expo & Cattlemen’s Winterschool

Posted on December 18, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

Here is a plug for an upcoming event in Stanwood, WA that should be well worth attending. WSU’s Country Living Expo and Cattlemen’s Winterschool is an amazing array of 135 classes on all sorts of topics,a jam-packed day of learning, plus a prime rib lunch. The hardest part is choosing which classes to attend! 😛

Here is a sampling of some of the topics:

Fruit Tree Maintenance, Hands on Hay judging, Frisbee Dog Training, Growing Giant Pumpkins and Vegetables, Building Your Own Greenhouse, Native Plants for Wetland Restoration, Arc Welding- Hands on, Soap Making, Cheese Making, Growing Vegetables Year Around, Wild Game Dressing in the Field, Raising and Processing Pastured Poultry, Palatability Control Points for Direct Marketed beef, pork and lamb, Plethora of Pasture and Forage Classes, Chain Saw Maintenance, Beginning through Advanced Specialty Canning, Frisbee Dog Training, Marketing Small Businesses, Cider Making, Honey Bees, Raising Beef, Sheep, Swine, Goats, Spinning, Weaving, equine classes and more.

How can you resist? Get yourself over to the Skagit County Extension website and register asap, as I understand the classes fill fast.

A Spell Caster’s Christmas-ey Complaint Letter

Posted on December 16, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

We got another anonymous note complaining about our livestock guardian dog’s living conditions again. It’s been a while since the last one. I logged another Sheriff report on it, and will keep the evidence, as usual, as the Sheriff has advised. That way, if anything ever escalates, we’ll have a clear history of harassment with handwriting samples and fingerprints, on which to prosecute.

The envelope said, in scrawling cursive, “To our neighbor” and was sealed with a cheerful Christmas sticker. 😉 Here is what the note said [sic]:

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Washing Down Comforters

Posted on December 12, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

When Kirk and I got married, he brought with him two favorite down comforters. I’d always chosen cotton and polyester blend bedding; because I let the dogs on the bed, I need to wash the bedding a lot! So I cringed as I saw this lovely pale pink comforter get dirtier and dirtier as Maggie slept on it every night. I know, we could just not let the dogs in the bed, and it’s really only Maggie who gets up there. But she’s such a cute snuggler, I just can’t resist! And Kirk doesn’t tell her no either! She usually sleeps by my pillow every night.

So, I went to the Web for advice on cleaning feather down comforters. It turns out, you can safely wash them in a front-loader washing machine; and I’ve done it several times now. The great thing about front-loaders is that they spin the load at such high speeds, they drive most of the water out of the load with centrifugal force before it goes into the dryer. So, clothes- and down comforters- are almost dry when they come out of the wash! One of the many reasons I love my front-loader so!

I’ve read several recommendations to dry the comforter with some tennis balls, or tennis shoes, in the dryer- to help fluff the feathers via some pounding action. I did this the first time (we have lots of tennis balls for the dogs), and it worked, but have since found that it’s not necessary, at least in my dryer. The only caveat is that the comforter does have a weird smell when wet-exactly like a wet chicken, because it is! But, the smell goes away once dry. It takes a little longer than a regular clothes load to dry the comforter, and I remove it and rearrange it several times during the cycle to make sure all sides get equally dry. But, it’s the same as washing any other large comforter.

I guess this makes sense, after all, chickens dry fine after getting wet, so a feather down comforter should too, given the right conditions. So, hooray, we can keep the down comforters!

Treo Hit By Truck, Literally

Posted on December 9, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

I was crossing the street the other day to get the mail. A large delivery truck appeared, driving very fast (like everyone does on this road…). I sped up to be sure I was off the road by the time the truck got close, and my cell phone fell off, it was clipped to the pocket of my pants. I looked back, there it was, in the middle of the lane, I looked at the truck: no time to dive for cell phone.

I tried to make eye contact with the truck driver and then look at the phone in its brown leather case, drawing his attention to it. If he would have stayed centered in the lane, the phone would have been safe. But, no, he veered, as if he thought he needed to give me more room as I stood on the shoulder. The tires went squarely over the phone. <sigh>

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New Laws For LGDs in SnoCo

Posted on December 8, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

Ok, I’m writing about something other than copper! 🙂 I read about some proposed changes to the Snohomish County leash and noise ordinances that relate to livestock guardian dogs (LGDs). As the law currently stands, dogs can’t run loose in our county, and they can’t make continuous noise (aka kennel barking, where they go on and on for more than a half hour).

But, there is an exemption for LGDs in the barking category, since they are doing their job protecting an agricultural crop. When people purchase land zoned R-5 or Ag-10 in our county, they must sign an affidavit that they understand there will be “agricultural activity, smells and sounds”. (Mmm!) And LGD barking falls under this umbrella. So if people call the county to complain about this, they’ll just be told, “sorry, it’s within the law for your area.”

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