Livestock – Page 7 – Canfield Farms

LGD Introductory Training

Posted on February 11, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

lgd2 Here’s how I think it’s going to work integrating the LGD into the mix. I’m not confident that all will play out as planned. But I’ll have to be flexible and adjust the plan as I see how things are going, because I don’t really know how things will go!

Now:LGD is in a small pen with all the sheep. The idea being that she will be lonely and bond with them, not having much other company to prefer. And, that they will acclimate to her presence, having no way to get very far away from her. This part is going swimmingly- she already easily moves amongst them with little disturbance on their part, they tolerate her calmly, and she really seems to like them.

She is starting to try to play with them dog-style a little bit, which is not ideal, but expected. The lamb is already a good 20lbs, so should be able to remove himself from her silliness if he needs to, and the rest of them are big enough to butt her if she gets on their nerves. As the other ewes lamb, I’ll remove them to a separate pen for as long as I can, to give the lambs a chance to grow a little before having to contend with the dog.

The other good thing that’s happening now is the LGD is barking at night and barking at anything that approaches the pen. This should be putting the coyotes on notice that there is now a big dog in the picture. Hopefully they’ll just start steering clear of anyplace they hear her barking. And she’ll be gaining confidence that when she barks, she is able to make intruders leave.

ASAP: get that dog more tame and leash-broken. The 1st day she was here; she was stressed, and fairly demure. The 2nd day, she was feeling her loneliness, so was very solicitous of our attentions. But by the 3rd day, she’s bonded to the sheep, and is playing a bit of keep-away with people and getting very silly. Before she can leave that pen, she needs to come when she’s called and be able to walk reasonably on a leash. I suppose those are the only two people skills she’ll ever need to have!

Soon: catch the llama and move her up to the pen, so she can also acclimate to the dog. Fill in the gaps under the gates to make it harder for coyotes to get into the pasture.

At the end of the month: move the dog and all but three sheep back down to the pasture. Keep the three ewes that are due in March up by the house, with the llama, until they all lamb and can be turned back out. Since I don’t know when the Jacob ewe is due, I may let her take her chances pasture-lambing rather than have her potentially penned up all spring, waiting for her due date.

I’ve been planning to buy portable electro-net fencing in the future, so I can utilize it to do rotational grazing. That purchase is now higher priority, because I feel it’ll be safer to move the dog and sheep down into a smaller area within the big pasture. That way, the dog and sheep can spend more time bonding, the sheep won’t get too far away from the dog’s protection, and the hotwire will offer some protection from coyotes to all of them until things are more stabilized.

A Little Home Llama Dentistry…

Posted on February 7, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

Our llama is an older lady, and we don’t know her whole history. Suffice to say it may not have been ideal. One thing I noticed as soon as we got her is that her teeth stuck out of her lips and grew at an odd angle. I’m not a llama expert, but llama teeth look like they’re configured the same as sheep- they have lower front teeth for grass cutting, that mesh with a hard upper dental plate/gum. Ideally, they should line up so that they can tear grass. Dolly’s clearly did not. I could see that when she grazed, she had to flip her head quite a bit to rip grass off, which is probably not efficient.

I’m not sure what causes this condition, but I suspect the primary cause may be no natural grazing, in an animal that’s fed hay and grain year-round (which I believe Dolly was before we got her). Eating hay and grain only requires gobbling up feed and grinding it with the back teeth, so the front teeth probably get no wear. The front teeth are designed by nature to continually grow, to compensate for incredible wear they’d normally experience from grazing. Dolly’s teeth were not only too long, however, they grew more horizontally than I would expect, and were curving to the side. I’m not sure what to think about that- perhaps it is congenital, or perhaps her too-tight halter played a role. Anyway, it needed to be fixed, because at our house, she needs to graze.

I searched for information on this condition, but found relatively little in my books at home and also on the Internet. Most mention of llama teeth is in relation to cutting fighting teeth off of male llamas- so at least I knew the teeth can be cut. I found this $219 value, intimidatingly large tooth cutting implement, the Tooth-A-Matic, but I can’t justify buying such a thing for possibly a one-time use. (It does look like it might be great if you found yourself needing to cut llama teeth very often!)

Finally I found this really helpful article, written by Eric Hoffman, complete with clear pictures, on using a Dremel tool to grind teeth down. Ok, that didn’t sound so technical once I read that. Dolly’s place on our farm is to protect our sheep investment (and she’s not doing a very good job of that even), and I really don’t want her to become a big investment in her own right. So I’d prefer to avoid vet bills if at all possible, and I am pretty comfortable doing a lot of basic medical things on animals. But, I’d avoided tackling her to do this kind of dentistry experiment, knowing that it would only add to her wariness of us, at a time when I want her to become more tame and trusting.

But, while she was in the barn recovering from her surfing stunt, I decided it was time. I didn’t want to let it go too long, because I was concerned about her ability to keep weight on if she cannot graze effectively. I didn’t know when I’d have her as a captive audience again, and I figured it would be better to do something “mean” to her in my parents’ barn, so at least she’d not associate it to being caught in our field.

So, I did it, and it turned out to be really easy! I had envisioned a possible rodeo with her bucking all over, and me and my Dremel tool going flying, resulting in me crying Uncle and calling a vet. But, not at all, she was very good. I used a metal grinder attachment for my Dremel, the kind with diamond-shaped scores along a wide cylinder. My mom helped me, and at first we did stick a broom handle in her mouth to help keep her lips and tongue out of the way. But at some point, it fell out and I ended up finishing the job just with my leather-gloved thumb holding her mouth open. She was surprisingly calm about the endeavor, and it only took a few minutes. I nicked her once in the lip somewhere just a little bit, such that there was a trickle of blood, but that was the worst of it.

I wasn’t able to get her teeth as aligned to her dental plate as I would have wished, because they are not growing at a vertical enough angle towards the plate to make a clear location of contact/meshing. And I didn’t want to take TOO much off- I wasn’t sure if I’d eventually hit the roots of the teeth and cause her pain. But, I was pretty satisfied with the result- at least they are all pretty even now, and closer to ideal. And now they only stick out of her lips a tiny bit, so she looks a little less dorky too! Poor girl, little by little, we may get her back into shape again.

Scrawny Ewes and Scraggly Poodles

Posted on January 31, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

shiveringsheep I keep an eye on sheep listed on craigslist, mostly because it’s helpful to see the price ranges out there, and how cheap a buyer could get an animal compared to what I might be wanting to charge. My opinion of animals listed on craigslist is that they are generally “bottom of the barrel” quality; with a few listings maybe being lucky hits for nicer animals that people are just clearing out of their herd for acceptable reasons. In general, it is my opinion that breeders of good animals often don’t need to advertise, especially in a forum like craigslist, because demand for their animals is already pretty high via word-of-mouth.

All that said, I am tempted by things I see on craigslist, especially when there are seemingly good deals, and the animals conveniently nearby. In the back of my mind, I’ve been thinking I’d like to increase my flock size a little bit more, right now, with some unrelated animals. And, with all this scrapie reading I’ve been doing, it occurred to me that if I add animals quickly, before my official start date, I’d be a little bit ahead of the game. Katahdins are not very common in our region, so this is what led me to express interest in a certain ad I spotted, offering for sale two 50% Katahdin ewes, both bred.

The advertiser explained they were mature ewes, proven breeders, good feet, one was black (I really want a black one!) and that they were bred back to a nice purebred ram. She wanted $100 apiece, which is pretty fair for middle-aged, bred ewes. None were registered, but I was thinking, that’s ok, I’ll know their breeding, and I can register the 50% offspring next year. She also mentioned she was selling them for a friend who was in over her head with her own pregnancy and needed help re-homing some animals (but was a knowledgeable and experienced breeder), and that one of the ewes was “a little thin.” Ok, so, I can deal with that, I’m graining now anyway, and ooohhh, a solid BLACK ewe!

I didn’t ask for pictures, because it all sounded good, and I didn’t think anything in a photo would convince me not to buy them. She was a 2 hour drive away, so I made a Sunday appointment to visit. Kirk decided to join me, which would turn out to be a good thing. I drove the van, brought cash, and halters and lead ropes, ready to haul them away if I/we decided to buy them.

Well, when we get there, there is a lot of hubbub and things going on-kids, pets, livestock, toys and fowl all over the place. Someone else is there with some not-very-purebred, scraggly-looking poodles, which she explains, she just procured by trading them for a saddle (and she’s got another poodle she’d like to unload, and wants to know if we’re interested in buying it off of her). This kind of thing strikes me as odd, the idea of trafficking poodles. I’m not so keen on that, coming from the venerable dog show community where a purebred dog purchase is a serious lifetime commitment. But, I let it slide, change the subject, and we go check out the sheep.

The black sheep is a cool sheep- a bit small, but otherwise nicely put together, good feet, good udder, good teeth. But, the other sheep- ooh boy, she’s not “thin,” she’s a pregnant skeleton! But some part of me says, “aw, poor thing, I can fix her…” Both sheep are flighty, ramming into gates to try to escape us, which is suddenly making me appreciate my calm and stable flock.

The lady won’t sell just the black ewe. So I tell her, well, that other sheep has no value, as I’ll have to put a lot of feed into her to bring her back, and her lamb may not survive or thrive. So, how about I pay you $100 for the black one, and I’ll take the other one off your hands as a favor? She hems and haws, she’s got money into them in feed already, she wants to recoup her investment of helping out her friend. I come up to $150 for both, but she still doesn’t bite, she’s wanting at least $175, and then, $160.

While she’s waffling over $10 increments in price negotiations, Kirk is starting to give me the kind of look that says, “let’s get out of here! This is crazy!” He says, “it’s up to you, but I don’t think this is a good idea, we don’t have the right setup to take care of that ewe…” I waver, then realize he’s right, retract my offer and thank the lady for her time. She’s lost the sale worrying about $10, which she’ll easily dump into those sheep in feed over the next week or two. But I’m relieved that her flea market haggling gave us both enough time to realize this was a dumb idea.

On the 2 hour drive home, and later, I reflect upon this decision, and that Kirk talking me out of this purchase may have averted disaster. What if that sheep had scrapie or some other contagious disease? I could have risked the health of my entire flock, trying to save a buck on some new sheep, getting lured by superficial characteristics like color, and feeling sorry for a pathetic case that needed nursing. Saving a skinny kitten or puppy is one thing, but you can’t be a softy when it comes to livestock intended for food and profit. And had passers-by seen that animal in my field, they’d question my ability to care for my animals- not good PR!

Ok, so from now on, I think I’m going to stick to slightly more expensive, but good breeders, who have an established breeding program, registered animals, are in the SFCP or NSEP, and just generally have it together, with nice, well conditioned animals to sell. No more poodle traders for me!

Flooding and the Llama

Posted on January 9, 2009 by fourfarmdogs

llamainwater — Llama is swimming, or is that the loch ness monster?

Today was a pretty challenging day! The flood gauges were getting high, and we tried to move the sheep last night, but they didn’t want to go out of the field in the dark. We waited til this morning, and I was able to move them smoothly and with little fanfare to their pen up by the house. Phew.

But, the llama was a different story. She has been getting more wilyas the weeks go on. We’ve caught her a couple of times, just handled her a little, and then let her go. But, each time, she remembers what we did last time and she won’t let us do that again. Today, she was not to be convinced to leave the pasture, let alone caught. I opened up all the gates and tried to push her through with Maggie. No go. Later, our neighbor Dan and both my parents came over– the four of us tried to make her go through a gate- any gate-no way. I brought sheep #33 down and tried to lure her up. She called to the sheep, but still refused to budge. If anyone would get within 100 feet of her, she’d just bolt past and run to the other end of the pasture. Running in front of her waving hands, etc did not work, she’d obviously run over someone if she had to, to get where she was going. She is one stubborn animal!

I went to work briefly this morning, but came home around 11 because flooding looked imminent. Sure enough, the dikes were just over-topping. The best I could hope for was that the llama’s wily instincts would kick in when the water stared flowing into the pasture, and she’d fiind an open gate, and head for higher ground and her sheep. The flood waters were proceeding really slowly across the valley for a couple of hours.

But then things turned for the worse, water started coming fast, and surrounded her in the pasture. She stayed put at a high spot until the water was up to her back, and then she started to swim. Our neighbor Dan brought out his canoe and went out to try to help her. By this time, water started rushing over the road and making a focal point of current, with a several-foot waterfall on the other side with rough-looking rapids.

The llama got caught up on the fence by the road for a few minutes, and as Dan tried to help her, she got free and was pulled by the current over the road. She almost gained her footing there in the shallower water, but the current got the best of her, and she went tumbling through the rapids, her skinny little legs kicking in the air upside-down. Ugh! It was hard to watch. There was a large crowd by this time, and we all gasped.

But she came right back up and started swimming on the other side. Dan re-launched his canoe on the other side of the road, reached her, and managed to to guide her near to the edge of the water where she could stand up. Kirk and several guys ran down to help. Dan had a leadrope on her halter. But that’s when she started to get stubborn again, or hypothermic and shock-ey, it’s hard to know which. She kept “kushing” or lying down, refusing to move. She was getting floppy, so the guys finally flipped her into the canoe upside-down and towed her to dry land! Keep in mind that they were all standing knee deep, and deeper, in very cold water! Kirk and Dan had hip-waders on, but some of the other guys were in tennis shoes and blue jeans! I was worried, but people seemed to be willing to risk their own lives to save this llama!

When they got her to the edge, a whole bunch of people helped carry her up to the road. Some people brought blankets and a horse blanket to warm her. We pushed and pulled and prodded, and she was not helping the whole way, she just wanted to lie down. I racked my brain to think of the quickest way we could warm her, and realized that my van was the answer– I could drive it right down to her, and crank up the heat, and we could warm her much quicker than any building. So, that’s what we did, with one last big heave-ho.

I put hot water bottles in her armpits and near her thighs. I put a heating pad under her chest, and Kirk ran a blow dryer on her head. There was a bale of hay in the van, and she started snacking within a few minutes, and then getting annoyed with us a few minutes after that, throwing her head around and laying her ears back. So some part of me thinks she was faking her hypothermia and she was actually fine, just tired and traumatized, and probably afraid of all those people. We left her in there for a few hours to continue to warm up and rest, until her skin was toasty-warm to the touch.

My parents rigged up a stall in their barn with lots of straw and two brooder lamps, and we left her there in the evening with the horse blanket draped over her. They said she seemed fine at 9pm when they checked on her. So, now I suppose the biggest concern would be if she aspirated water and is at risk for pneumonia or something. But she seems to be out of the woods. Probably just tired and bruised up.

There were some funny moments. One lady kept trying to feed her a carrot- but a carrot was the last thing she wanted after nearly dying! It’s funny what people do under stress, when they want desperately to help, or make things OK. And, a mouse was riding on her head while she was swimming, and later, a dead mouse fell out of her wool! There were mice swimming everywhere out there, and we even saw a salmon swim by!

Lucky llama that there were so many people there to help. It really took a crew, and Dan’s canoe, to pull it off. I’m not sure what her future will be with us– if she is this recalcitrant, she may not have a place at our farm. We need our livestock to move agreeably when there is a flood. I never expected to have an animal be so difficult to move or even get through a huge gate into a big, open space. I’m almost afraid to let her back out there in the pasture again, knowing there is no way to catch her or get her to leave the pasture. Oh, boy, we’ll see. At least I have a week or so to think, while the waters recede.

Meanwhile, we have ocean-front property; our house is safe on the hill, but we now look out on a valley full of water! This has been a wild weather year for Washington!

Winter Storm 2008!!

Posted on December 21, 2008 by fourfarmdogs

twomaggiesinpano Wow, we have a lot of snow– at least for us. I think it’s about a foot deep. Which, I’m sure, seems trivial to people in the Midwest or the East. But in the Northwest, that is a ton– I don’t have many memories of there being this much snow here in my lifetime. We’ve had snow falling for the last week, and more in the forecast for the whole next week- incredible! Usually it doesn’t stick around more than a day or two before melting into a muddy slop. Here is a panoramic photo from the pasture, in which Maggie appears twice– she got in the frame more than once!

mapletreeandivyinsnow The temperatures aren’t bad– a few days it’s gotten into the teens, but it’s mostly hovering right around freezing. We got our first official complaint to animal control about our animals- from a well-meaning citizen who felt concerned for them. An animal control officer came out to investigate, and chuckled to himself, “well, the DO have wool, after all!” A friend of mine teased me that we should get wool coats for them!

It’s true, the sheep only have a tiny shelter out there, it may not seem like enough to we non-furry humans. But, sheep are amazingly hardy. We are giving them hay, but they are choosing to go paw through the snow to graze, and only picking the hay. (And I swear it’s not moldy or poor– this is a $19 fresh bale from the feed store!) 33_insnow_small1 They really look like they’ve grown more wool in the last week or two, they are quite bundled up and puffy. The llama has so much wool insulating her that snow accumulates on her back and stays there– it doesn’t melt! Once a day I break the ice out of their trough with a pickaxe, though I suspect they are getting their water from eating snow and not going to the trough.

Our ducks seem equally unfased by the chilly weather. I put a heat lamp in their house, but they all slept as far away from it as they could get. Their ranging during the day is curtailed because it’s hard for them to walk, but they still get out in the morning, and still bathe when I give them fresh water! Ugh! ducksinsnow

The dogs, of course, think the snow is fabulous. Here is a picture of Gene standing on ice in the ditches, barking like crazy. She seemed to know this was incongruous and was demanding our attention and skating all over like a silly, as if to say ” look at me! I’m walking on the water!” They so make us laugh with their cleverness and spunk. Poor Mr. Spanky is getting old, and walking through the snow and ice is harder for him, but he’s always game for it, he just takes it slow. geneonice1

Sheep Check

Posted on November 25, 2008 by fourfarmdogs

This weekend we had beautiful weather, so I went out to trim all the sheep’s feet again and check things out. The sheep all look very good, they are at good weights and seem generally healthy. A couple of the girls are looking big, I think those may already be four months along.

A couple of them still have foot rot, though none are currently showing lameness. This is frustrating. Part of me questions whether I should have had higher standards in only buying sheep with perfect feet. Certainly a lot of books and experts recommend this. But, sometimes I wonder if those experts are all in desert states! For, I don’t know anyone in our area who can claim zero foot rot on their place, our climate is just so damp and warm. I do think I can get them fixed with aggressive trimming, I’ve had good luck with it working on others’ animals at least. But, it is a drawback, for sure, to have this extra work to do.

A couple of the ewes have really good feet, so I do think there is some genetic component, that these two are resisting it better than the rest. I’ll have to note that when I decide which lambs to keep and cull this summer. But, #33 has the worst feet, and her daughter has the best feet- so they must not share that trait in common!

I also wonder about diet deficiencies. I recently read Pat Coleby’s Natural Sheep Care. Hers is an interesting book, that revolves almost solely around mineral supplementation to compensate for deficiencies in the soil. She makes a bold assertion that if you can get this corrected–either in your soil or with custom designed mineral supplements, that all problems (foot rot, parasites, birthing issues, wool quality problems, low production yields etc) should virtually disappear!

Intriguing notion indeed. I do believe that diet plays a big role in health, and we all know that unwise past farming practices have created deficiences in almost everybody’s soil. So, it’s on my to-do list, to have the soil tested, and figure out what I need to supplement and how I’m going to get it and offer it. Pat’s book asserts that just buying a general sheep mineral isn’t enough, that you need a custom one for your soil, so that the sheep eat what they crave/need, and don’t overdose on things they don’t need. She also asserts that most pastures are deficient in copper, and that most sheep need copper in their supplement. But, this goes against common advice, since there are issues with over-dosing sheep on copper; so all sheep supplements exclude it entirely. Food for thought!

Little Opossum, More Flood Prep, and Selling Stuff…

Posted on November 16, 2008 by fourfarmdogs

I enjoyed spotting this little opossum in the duck pen one early morning a while back. He looked half-grown, maybe this year’s baby. I wonder if he (and maybe his kin) are partly responsible for the extraordinary amount of duck food I’ve been buying lately? I’ll have to remember to shut the door on that pen at night (the ducks are sleeping in the other pen, just because they are in that habit now).

Opossums are such funny behaving animals. I only noticed him because the dogs did, and yet, he just ignored their poking and prodding. And he wasn’t too disturbed by me either. It’s no wonder they get hit by cars all the time, they seem to be rather oblivious to big things moving around them.

We had to move the sheep again midweek, more flooding forecasted. This time, it was different. The ewes marched up the hill calmly and smartly, and penned easily. The ram decided he didn’t want to. I ended up having to halter him and drag him the whole way. Uff da, he is heavy when he doesn’t want to walk! I imagine a few drivers-by found amusement to see me tugging him inch by inch, in the pouring-down rain.

And, the llama didn’t cooperate this time, she refused to come with. I ended up leaving her down there, during part of the danger time with the gate open so she could save herself if she needed to. I do believe llamas have retained enough wiliness that she’d probably be fine finding her own way up the hill if water started coming across the valley. I’m pretty sure sheep are not capable of that, however. I think if I work the dogs on her a little more, I can have her ready to move next time. She is just so new to the place, and very unsure of her safety.

I wrongly decided it would be ok to move the sheep back down after dark on Thursday night. It’s hard for me to be at home during daylight hours to do this, due to my work schedule and the short daylight we have right now. I think it would have worked fine, had Maggie not made a critical error. I retired her from working once the sheep were headed down the hill, as I figured they’d run down, and stop at the gate and wait. But, Maggie ignored my command and tried to cover them. I didn’t see her doing this in the dark. By herself, she caught up with them, split them, sent a couple sprinting down the driveway, and the rest into the drainage ditch!! By the time we arrived down there, the sheep had crawled out, but were stressed and wet. And it took us a few minutes to find the other two. The ram decided to be stubborn again, and was tangled in the blackberries, so we had to heave him out. But, in the end, we got them put away. And I know next time to bring a leash for my dog when I don’t want her to cover! 🙂

I’ve been trying to sell some things on craigslist and eBay, we have too much stuff from combining households. It feels good to clean out, somethings I’m just selling for the cost of shipping them, just to avoid throwing them away. So far, I’ve found takers for: some computer RAM, a PCMCIA LAN card, an old-fashioned 35mm film camera, a printer, a Dogloo, and a dog crate. There is much more to list, but I’m just doing a few at a time.

We’ve gotten three inquiries on the house sale, so that’s not too bad! Hopefully someone will fall in love with it.

Flood Plain Fire Drill

Posted on November 8, 2008 by fourfarmdogs

Our house is on a bench on a hillside, and it overlooks all of our pasture. The pasture itself is in the 100-year floodplain (the house is not). Though many people think that term means that the area floods once in one hundred years; the actual definition is that any given year, it has a 1% chance of flooding. That’s a little different! 🙂

The valley where our pasture lies is very rich and fertile bottom land that holds water all summer, thus it’s highly desirable for farming and grazing. This area was homesteaded in the 1880’s, and at that time, neighboring farmers collaborated to clear and drain what was, then, a marshland. So, this entire valley is cut with a network of very deep drainage ditches. These carry excess water to the nearby river, and lower the water table in the fields so they are suitable for agriculture.

Since that time, these cooperating farmers also build a network of river dikes, in an attempt to tame nature and minimize semiannual flooding in the valley. In the early years of these tries, the diking sometimes made flooding affects worse. If the dikes are not of an even height across the entire valley, when the river does exceed one dike section’s height, the concentrated force of all that water flow will do severe damage to the dike in that section and anything close by.

So, over time, these farmers and dike owners created cooperative, government-overseen organizations to manage the dikes. The chief goal is to make the dikes a consistent height, and to keep them under vigilant maintenence. We pay special taxes to the local flood control district, and they provide us with the service of managing the floodway. This also includes regular dredging of the drainage ditches in ours and our neighbors’ fields.

In recent history, our pasture was under water once in the ’70s, twice in the ’90s, and again two years ago. The last flood was an “overtopping” where the dikes all held, and the water simply exceeded their height and gently flowed over the top. That year, our pasture was under about five feet of water for several days. These are the most desirable types of flood, very calm and following the engineering designs laid out for them. If any portion of a dike ever breaches, then the force of the water will destroy a section of the dike, and general damage is much worse. This was true in the three earlier floods, with the one in the ’70s being probably the most devastating to the region.

We are especially lucky because we have a pump station nearby. So, when it does flood, as soon as the river receeds, the pumps can be turned on, and all the water sent back where it came from. This reduces the wait time for the fields to dry out, from weeks or months down to a few days. So, it’s not a bad deal– we work around a few floods, and in turn, we have some very rich agricultural land and much natural beauty that will never be filled with housing developments.

These days, working around the floods is actually not too inconvenient. Now we have water height and flow guages in many places along all rivers, and this data is automatically published to the Internet via various monitoring websites, most of it real-time. The graph to the left is the guage for the pump station near us. The National Weather Service monitors all of these guages and uses sophisticated computer modeling systems to predict and warn of potential flooding. Obviously, when major rains or snow melt are predicted, we know to start watching these guages!

Friday was one of those days: we’d had several days of rain already, and more predicted to be on the way. I started checking the guages a few times a day earlier in the week, and when the graph starts going up, I started checking them once an hour.

This is the first year where it really mattered, since we now have livestock down there. And, of course, I’d procrastinated a little bit on being truly ready. I had enough hog panels to make a pen “up top”, but they were still down in the pasture with the sheep, where I had fashioned a temporary pen for the ram. It was on my to-do list to bring those up to the house and get the pen ready, but we’d just been so busy with other things! And, I knew I’d have some time to react if it started raining.

I went to work Friday, but by noon, I could see the guage shooting upward at a pretty steep slope. If it kept on at that rate, it would flood around midnight that night. So, I headed home early. It took a couple of hours to dismantle the pen, bring it up, and rebuild it. I kept watching the graph, but by 2pm, it was not cresting. So, it was clear, the animals had to come up before dark. My dad and Kirk stayed up top near the pen, to help if needed. I took Maggie down the the field to round up the sheep.

The path the sheep needed to take was on the vacant neighboring property, across a culvert, and up a steep embankment. None of this is fenced, so it is essential to have a fast dog to help, or I could lose the sheep and not be able to run fast enough to stop them. I already knew the sheep would go ok, they are pretty calm and have been worked a little by the dogs. But, the llama was another story, I really didn’t know what to expect, and knew we might have to get creative!

The sheep were very reluctant to go through the gate, they are always fearful of new places. I got them through once, and left the llama behind, but I didn’t latch it properly, and they ended up spooking and pushing their way back through it. The second attempt left two sheep behind– #33 and her lamb, along with the llama (#33 seems to really like the llama…). So, fine, I brought the five of them up, it was a little bumpy, but we did it, and with only a small amount of messing around, got them into the pen. It did help to have my dad and Kirk there, though I think now that I’ve done it once, I’d be confident enough to do it alone with the dog. When I went back for the other two, that was easy too. #33 comes to me when a dog is present, so I just put a lead rope on her, knowing her lamb would follow. But, the llama… I got to the gate, took the sheep through, and tried to open it a crack to tempt the llama so I could grab her halter. Not happening. She would not come close enough.

But, by this time, I could see she was distressed. She did NOT want to be left behind from those sheep! She was making her funny llama sound, a sort of quiet, buzzing cry. She sounded very pathetic and she looked very concerned and torn. It is amazing how much she has bonded to them in such a short time. It became obvious that she would stay with those sheep no matter what. So, I figured, what the heck, even if I can’t catch her or get her in the pen, fine, I know she’ll stand right outside it all night. So, I just opened up the gate and had a loose llama free to roam the valley! 🙂

It felt a little risky, but I was right, she stuck to those sheep like glue. Once up top, I shoved the two sheep in the pen, had the dog hold them all to the back of the pen, and then opened the gate back up for the llama. She was very cautious, but it was easy to slowly edge her in. And that was that! They were penned in a small, 10×20 area for the night.

I figured the river wouldn’t actually flood, so I decided to wait and see. In the morning, I’d either have to buy some hay and set them up with water to wait out a real flood, or the river would have crested and they could go back down. The latter was true. As you can see by the graph, the river crested late at night and was well on its way back down by morning. So, I had Gene help me take them back down. Same thing this time, I just concentrated on moving the sheep where I wanted them, and the llama went right along. They were happy to be back in their graze and comfort zone. And, we’re done with the flood plain fire drill until next time!

Quick Shelter Using Wedge-Loc & T-Post Construction

Posted on October 19, 2008 by fourfarmdogs

Goal: a quick-to-construct, non-permanent rain shelter for the sheep.

Rationale: I’m not sure yet if I want permanent structures down in the fields, and where I’d want them.

Concerns: shelters are, by nature, hangouts. The soil around them gets muddy. Mud is bad for livestock feet, besides being unpleasant for everyone to walk in, and unsightly. Adding bedding to shelter areas to dry them out is costly and a lot of work.

Potential Solution I’m trying: creating temporary structures from T-posts, which I can hopefully move without too much effort. The Wedge-Loc hardware caught my attention, as it promises easily built structures. Unfortunately, their marketing materials are poor– just a pamphlet with hand-drawn sketches. They leave a lot to your imagination (and maybe on purpose?). But, lacking other ideas, I decided to give them a chance. The first picture you see is the finished product, a very simple shed roof, 4’x8′.

The first Wedge-Loc widget I bought was the all-purpose angle bracket. The pamphlet suggests you can use this for a roof. But, I found that these are very flexible, intended to be bent to the desired angle just with your hand. So, not strong enough to hold up a shed roof. I think wind forces would bend and mangle them. So I set those aside for some other project.

The next bracket I tried and stuck with was the 2×4 holder. I just ran two 10′ treated 2x4s across four T-posts set to accommodate a 4×8′ sheet of plywood. I found the 2×4 brackets were also very flexible, so I had to put screws and washers through them on both sides to make sure they’d stay formed around the board.

So, here is how the Wedge-Loc brackets work. There is a main piece that slides over the top of the T-post like thus:

Then, a “wedge” slides in on the back part of the T-post, holding the bracket in place. It sort of wedges around one of the nodules on the post, so that it cannot slide down or up.

Once this is in place, you can attach a variety of other brackets to this to hold things. Here is a U-shaped bracket inserted, that holds a 2×4:

Here is the trouble with these, they bend:

But, with some extra screws, it seems to hold well, like this:

Here is a side view of the finished roof. I put corrugated roofing on top of the plywood, which now leads me to realize I can probably skip they plywood and just screw roofing into the 2×4 cross-pieces.

It seems to have worked; though it appears it may wiggle in the wind, I think it’s strong enough to stay put. And, it should be easy to un-wedge the brackets, lift off the roof, and move the shelter with minimal effort. The one thing is cost- the brackets are fairly expensive. So I don’t think this is any cheaper than builing a “real” shed from wood; the only advantage is the quick assembly and portability. Not to mention, it’s not terribly attractive. But I think I may make a few more of these, because we are just not firm yet on where we want permament buildings.

Salt Lick Holder

Posted on October 2, 2008 by fourfarmdogs

My sheep book had handy advice for making a salt holder, this is a modification of the book’s design, because I had an extra piece of 1×8 laying around. You just cut off a square from the end of the board, split the rest of the board in half, and cut those two pieces into sides and angled edges to hold the box up. Nifty!

The sheep immediately went for their new salt, they seem to like to snack on it midway through their grain meals.