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Hoof Trimming

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Monday night, I caught the lame ewe to work on her feet. I took Gene, my 5-year-old Border Collie, down to  help catch her. It took about 20 mintes to catch the ewe, both because the sheep aren’t dogged, and because Gene can act like a idiot sometimes. Her lack of confidence always manifests in squirrely behavior and the sheep figuring out they don’t need to take her seriously.

But, I do find that after she gets tired and yelled at quite a bit, she starts to settle down and work nicely. The tiredness makes her choose to work more efficiently, and me taking her self esteem down a few notches softens her demeanor so the sheep respond better to her. We got the job done; and to give her credit, I don’t think there are many farm dogs that can help single an undogged sheep in an open field! We cheated a bit by putting them into the corner, but still, it’s a trick that can’t be done by yourself without a good stock dog for sure.

So, the feet… I used to work my dogs at a place where the sheep had really bad feet, and I spent a bit of time every day I was there trimming hooves to try  to ease their discomfort and make them more workable for the dogs. A friend of mine who has an animal sciences degree showed me the basics. I find that not only do you have to create a good flat foot surface so they walk right, you have to be ruthless about hacking away diseased tissue. Making them bleed is actually good, as the blood washes out the wound and encourages fresh tissue to grow. And, you have to open up the bacteria-laden pockets to the air so they can dry out. I also find that the more you  trim, the harder the hoof works to recover, and it’ll grow very rapidly. The body wants to heal, after all.

On this girl, only her front feet were bad. Here is one hoof beforehand: you can see the side edges of the hoof curling over. This creates a pocket in which material tends to pack and retain moisture, and then works its way upwards, splitting the hoof. I thought this might be all there was, but as I trimmed, I could see that much of the hoof wall was detached, which is relatively useless. And, where there are tiny holes, if you work the points of your trimmers into those and start opening them up, usually you find lots of “stuff” in there, and a bad smell to boot.

Here is the “after” photo–I’ll take off more material in a week or so, but this was all I wanted to do in one sitting. Despite having a lot of raw, exposed tissue, she was walking better already. Before I let her go, I sprayed her feet with Shreiner’s Herbal Solution. I really like this stuff, it’s a very old-fashioned, natural wound dressing spray that I use on absolutely everything, including myself (though it’s not labeled for humans, so don’t tell them I said that! 🙂 ). I learned about it from a pig farmer, and get it at my local feed store.

We are Sheep Farmers!

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Today the sheep got dropped off. They all look very nice, except one who has hoof rot bad enough that she’s walking on her knees a lot. But, the seller did disclose that in advance, I decided to take her, since I’m pretty good at healing hoof problems and she was lower priced. It helps to have the dogs, who can hold the sheep I want to catch and treat. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to treat and handle sheep without dogs, I guess you just have to grain-train them and still do a lot of wrestling.

Here is the ram, he is six-year-old “Hershey.”

 

Here are the six ewes:

 

They are settled in well and enjoying the nice pasture. Heshey is locked up for 17 days in a mini-pen inside the pasture, the “magic number” of days to kick all of the girls back into heat. Three might already be bred, so I need to ensure that enough time passes before he covers them to be sure I know which sire goes with which lambs. The pre-bred ewes should lamb by Feb 19th, and the ones bred later won’t lamb until after March 1st.

I have yet to decide if I’m going to “flush” the ewes–grain them up until the ram is let out. Supposedly, that helps ensure twinning; but the sellers assure me these girls twin and triplet regularly just on grass. I’ll figure it out tomorrow!

I let Maggie work them just a tiny bit, just push them gently around. They were very calm, much less reactionary than I expected for non-dog-broke shep. Here she is, “meeting” the ram and doing her best to be brave and show him who’s boss! She was a little chicken, though, I’ll confess!

Sheep on the Way

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I made a deal on some sheep last night: two ladies who live close to each other, and about 2.5 hours away from me, are selling me six ewes and one ram, all registered Katahdins. The prices seemed very average for registered animals. And it’s a breeding set that will have me organized for a couple of years: three of the ewes are already pregnant from a different ram, and the ram I’m getting can be bred to all of them.

 

Normally, I’d go inspect the sheep first, but I’ve decided to gamble this time for a few reasons. First, I’ve seen the websites of both women, and their operations and animals in general look pretty clean in the photos. Second, it’s a long drive for me to go down there just to look, and since I don’t yet have a way to haul livestock, I’d still have to arrange for them to deliver the animals on another day.

 

Third, one of the ladies regularly shows her sheep, so this gives me greater confidence that she surrounds herself with a knowledgeable peer group, keeps quality animals, and spends a lot of time with them. Fourth, in reading the website of the other woman, she and I are like-minded in a naturalness philosophy: no vaccine, clean food, etc. So, I’m going with my gut: I think I’m going to like these women and learn to rely on their advice in the long run.

 

I had to chuckle at the serendipity of the match of these ladies to me. I can be really indecisive. I had already been corresponding with one of the women for a few weeks, and have probably reviewed her website a hundred times. I talked to her friend on Tuesday night, outlined my goals: registered animals, and a starter flock of about eight animals that would set me up for a breeding program for meat production.

 

She called back the next night, and started out the conversation with “ok, we’ll be there around noon on Sunday, we’re bringing you x, y, z animals at these prices, yadda yadda, and you should be all set!” She did give me a chance to confirm later in the conversation that I did want them, 🙂 but it took me a little by surprise because mentally, I was still at step one. Left up to me, I may have waffled and been arranging the details until Christmas!

 

So, I realized it was exactly what I needed, and was unconsciously looking for—someone to mentor me a little bit in this, help me make a decision, and then just say “we’re bringing them up in two days, be ready.” Phew!

My Ducks Are Too Noisy

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Only the new ones, though. They are the most obnoxious sounding ducks I’ve ever heard, they honk not unlike geese. They chatter continuously, not just when there is something to quack about. They are way noisier than the older Magpies I have, the crossbreds, and the Runners I used to have. My mom took care of them over the weekend and also commented on their sound, saying they were way different sounding than hers as well.

I’m keeping my eye on them, if I can identify one or two that are louder than the rest, I’m seriously thinking they are destined for the dinner table. I certainly don’t want noisy duck genes going into future generations. 

On the bright side, predation has not been an issue in several months, so the one instance I had was hopefuly an isolated one. And, they are all flocking nicely together; and the young ones are starting to breed. They are sticking close to the house, which is good from the standpoint of staying safe, but annoying because they are messing that area up, and eating out of the container garden. I’d like to move their houses soon, to get them to hang out somwhere else.

I’m switching their feed to a lower fat poultry diet, because the one adult I have is not laying much, and I think she may be too fat. I gave her the benefit of the doubt that maybe she was moulting, but her performance this whole year has really been poor. The crossbreds are just four months old, so hopefully will start laying soon.

Elope Isn’t Really the Right Term

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Well, I said I’d explain later why we went to Orcas Island, so here it is: we got married! We opted not to tell anyone (well, almost anyone) in advance, or include anyone we knew in the ceremony. There were a variety of reasons for this, here’s a few that come to mind:

  • I’m not just a bride kind of person, I’m not into girlishness and all the things that come with that stereotype.
  • We didn’t like those figures thrown around that claim the average wedding costs around $20,000. We could think of a million better things to do with that kind of money.
  • We didn’t want the planning stress, the requisite family weirdness that has to crop up at almost every wedding, the pressure of putting on a good show, manging out-of-town guests, the awkwardness of feeling like we’re on display, worrying over the guest list, and all that jazz.
  • Most of the people we could think of whom we know who have done a “big” wedding have later outright said, or at least implied, that they regretted doing it that way.
Mr. & Mrs.
Mr. & Mrs.

With all due respect to people who love “big white weddings”, they’re just not my  thing, and fortunately Kirk concurs, so our decision was easy. We just wanted to be married, without all the complication and fuss. We considered different options: Vegas has kind of a stereotype of a marriage that’s possibly done on a drunken whim and without much forethought or seriousness, so we opted not to go that route.

We thought it would be really cool to do an Alaskan cruise and have a quick ceremony in some port. But, the ol’ US government makes that overly complicated, getting the license sorted out etc (I WISH we did not have to get authorization from the government–that’s what our license said, was “authorization”– to marry in the first place). We found several cruise ship services that will set it up for you, but they charge a LOT of money for the service– over $2K!

We found that Rosario Resort on Ocas Island has a little “elopement package” where they will set you up with a nice suite, a “wedding officiant,” the two witnesses you need to sign the legal papers, a little cake and a bottle of champagne. The price was reasonable, and they had a good weekend open at the end of the summer.

We had a great time, the ferry ride to get there is beautiful, we drove the Porsche all over the island (and fortunately did not hit any mutant deer), we ate a lot, enjoyed the pool, sauna, hot tub, jacuzzi tub, and the great weather. Our “wedding officiant” was great, her husband played a few guitar tunes, she had a succinct but meaningful delivery, and it was all very easy. There were big weddings happening on the grounds while we were there, and we felt so thankful we chose to just relax and enjoy our weekend by ourselves while observing those big-dollar events from afar. I guess we are both introverts, so it seems pretty fitting; most of our friends and family were not too surprised. All we had to do was get the license, the rings, and show up!

A lot of people have commented that we “eloped”; but I think I have to disagree with the term. Dictionary definitions of elopement give it a negative spin- marrying without parental consent (from the days when culture dictated parents should have consent), running away in a hurry, or married people escaping with a lover. We got married in an official, pre-planned way; we just chose not to include family or friends in the ceremony. I don’t think there is really a term for that.

A little review on Rosario: we were intrigued by the place as it has an interesting history, and the owners do a good job of educating visitors on that. But, the place is, in general, a little rundown, the service is mediocre, and the food not-so-hot. So, anyone who is thinking of eloping on Orcas, I’d recommend checking out a different place to stay, and finding the wedding officiant on your own. It probably would not have been that much more work to do this extra web research. But, we were happy to have the easy route, and it was still pretty great, so I don’t regret it. (Besides, I would have been tempted to make a big spreadsheet of all  the options, and make the planning way too complicated if I had gone that route, defeating the goal of “simple.”)

The picture above is a snapshot taken of us; Kirk doesn’t like it, so I made it tiny- I wanted to post something! I’m hoping we can schedule some time with a portrait photographer soon, so that at least we have some nice photos of each other. I don’t have any good photos of Kirk, so all that’s on my desk at work are dog pictures, which is a little too “dog lady-ish” :-} I hope to remedy this soon!

Mutant Deer on Orcas Island

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We went to Orcas Island last weekend, more specifically, we stayed at the Rosario Resort. Why we were there, I’ll get to that. But, first: the deer. I had always heard and read that the San Juan Islands have some deer problems-overpopulation and inbreeding, due to the population being isolated. So, I was curious to see some firsthand.

They delivered: there seemed to be a resident population at Rosario that was completely tame, hanging around in the evenings shamelessly begging for food from the tourists. And, indeed, we saw some weirdness amongst them. For one, they are about half the size of normal (well, normal for the mainland) blacktailed deer. One buck we saw had a deformed front food that twisted out to the side, so he walked pretty awkwardly. They all had poor hair coats, I didn’t see a single one I would consider healthy looking. On Sunday when we left, one was dead on the side of the road (the hotel staff was scrambling to get rid of that non-tourist-friendly eyesore!).

And, we saw this cool pinto (piebald) colored one- a very predator-friendly color, so lucky for him, the island doesn’t apparently  have cougars, coyotes or wolves.

Pinto Deer
Pinto Deer

No Wensley’s for Now…

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Well, I did make the Wensleydale sheep owner an offer, but she could not give up her dog for any price, and I just feel too squeamish making such a big investment without a guardian dog. And, her price wasn’t consistent with what she originally led me to understand either, so that firmed me up on deciding these weren’t right for me at the moment.

I snooped around on the Web a bit to assess how accessible adult, working LGDs are. Not very! A friend of mine did tell me she purchased one, so they do exist, but I think they are hard to find. There was one listed on craiglist from a woman who was getting out of farming due to health reasons. But, when I emailed her, she said the response for the dog was overwhelming. So as I expected, they are in high demand, low supply. So that’s not going to help me with the Wensleydales.

So, I’m back to considering Katahdins again, there are a few options of them on the market from some good breeders. I like the idea of buying from an active breeder, because I know I can rely on that person for advice and support in the future as I learn the ropes. Though Katahdins are kinda plain looking, they are very practical– good feed converters, no shearing hassles, and they are fairly easy to find, so I shouldn’t have trouble maintaining a breeding program.

Decision Now Required on Sheep Purchase!

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We went to see the Wensleydales yesterday. They are lovely sheep, the wool is luxurious for certain! The animals had sound temperaments, they looked healthy, and the one I was able to catch had good feet and teeth. They weren’t quite as big as I expected based on photos I’d seen, but when I caught one, it was still a substantial and tall sheep. They were mildly flighty, but not freaky; they’d be easy to work with.

I pressed a little for more details on how much, precisely, the owner makes on an average year from this flock; but she seemed reluctant to talk specifics, as many people are when it comes to disclosing income. But, in a roundabout way, she cited expenses, how much she gets for wool, how much others have been getting for lambs, etc. So, I think (I hope?) I have a pretty good picture. I think that this may be a good wave to catch–while this breed is early in development here, it’s in high and growing demand. That may change in another decade, but there is a certain fad phenomenon with new breeds, I think, that can be most profitable at the beginning.

The biggest snag is this: I was hoping the owners would be willing to part with one or both of their livestock guardian dogs. I was figuring that since they are liquidating their livestock, they might not mind throwing a dog into the package too. But, when I inquired, she indicated they are very attached to the dogs, and had already decided not to sell them.

This is a conundrum for me: if I’m going to buy really expensive sheep, I want the best insurance policy against coyotes I can get. I had originally planned on trying out a llama or donkey, and I’d still do that if I were buying $100 sheep, because I prefer those to dealing with a big dog. But I think it’s too much to risk with expensive animals. And, it doesn’t appear that you can just pick up an adult, trained, fully-functioning LGD just anywhere. I think you pretty much have to buy your own pup and raise it up (and thoughtfully too, so it doesn’t learn bad habits).

So, I think I may have to tell the seller that one dog is a required part of the deal for me. I don’t mean to drive a hard bargain, but it’s a lot of money for me to lay down knowing that coyotes or loose dogs could destroy a large part of the investment in a one-hour spree.

I have such a hard time making big decisions, I’ve been waffling back and forth on this, dreaming about it, boring other people with the details about it! 🙂 But, I think my mind is made up that I want to at least make an offer on them, so the only thing left to decide is how much.

As a side note, the town where the sheep owner lives is a very tiny, old Northwest town. We had a greasy, but tasty lunch in a hole-in-the-wall diner there where the waitress sat down with us at our table to take our order. I was highly amused to observe and overhear some locals talking loudly and with strong opinion about the presidential election. It made me smile– a real piece of Americana– very ordinary people talking about their main concerns over the candidates. They weren’t discussing foreign policy, health care reform, the national deficit or the war– they were mostly concerned with Obama’s former pastor, Palin’s five kids and past beauty pageant win, and to which church denomination each candidate belonged. I love it.

A Day’s Mowing

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Mowing Progress

Yesterday, I mowed the whole center field. In the picture, it’s about half done. It doesn’t look too exciting from up top, but this grass was almost waist-high, so definitely needed a cutback before fall. My Farm Planner materials recommend doing your last mowing early enough in the fall that the grass has time to do its final sugar storage in its roots before going dormant for the winter. So, this seems to be a good time. It took me five or six hours to do this field. The first field, that’s completely fenced, I’m hoping will have sheep soon enough to maintain it during the winter so that it doesn’t need any more mowing. 

My duck flock is doing well. This 5-week old batch of ducks seems to be a big enough group, and noisy and flighty enough, that the older ducks don’t pick on them much. So, I’m able to let them all loose during the day, so they can forage. They are even starting to loosely flock together. I haven’t had any more predation after losing one Magpie drake almost two months ago. I hope it stays that way!

We had a good dinner at the local Thai restaurant last night, and I spent a few hours at the fair getting the final information ready for state fair entries to be prepared. Fortunately for me, another volunteer handles that part!

Sunsets and Weekend Work

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sunset
Sunset View from the House

August is the time for sunsets, and we’ve been getting a lot of fabulous ones lately. But, I’ve struggled to capture them in their full magnitude on camera. These modern day digital cameras–even with their special “sunset” and “night” settings–just don’t do them justice. This is the best one I came up with, and I admit, I digitally altered the colors a little bit to bring it closer to what it looked like in person.

 
I have a four-day weekend ahead of me, with hopes of high productivity (as always). I came to realize that the tractor’s brush cutter is just fine and needs no adjustment– the blades I thought were “loose” actually are supposed to spin on their bolt axes. It took me a while to think that through, and then of course when I re-read the manual, it confirmed this. I just didn’t interpret the instructions correctly the first time. So, I’m good to go, I can mow again. And I have the $75 socket set ready for the time when I do need to remove the blades to sharpen them!
 
Other to-do wishes for the weekend: smooth the driveway by the house and order gravel. Machete the blackberries around the duck pen. Build a sheep shelter in the pasture. Get ready for our weekend away next weekend-we’re going to Orcas Island.
 
And, of course, the fair– I need to go there Fri, Sat and Sun to finish up press releases, state fair entries and anything else that needs doing. Sunday we plan to visit the Wensleydale sheep flock.