Thursday, April 29, 2010

Another Pig Escape

Can I just say again how much I love these Guinea Hogs?  They are just so funny and charming!


The youngest and most skittish of the pigs escaped through a gap between the gate and the gatepost tonight.  I had done the chores already, hours before, but I just got that feeling that I should go out and check on everything one more time before dark.

When I got out to the pasture where the ewes and lambs are, Circe the pig came running up to me, squealing at the top of her voice.  This was NOT where she belonged, and she had plenty to say about it!

She wouldn't let me touch her at first.  She was all wound up from finding herself suddenly in a pasture full of about 70 sheep, plus I think she imagined that she might be in trouble for being in the wrong place.  As I kept talking to her, asking her all about her big adventure, she sat down next to me and let me stroke her head while she kept vocalizing her excitement and anxiety, nonstop.  Squealing, grunting, a whole long articulate story in pig language!  I was laughing the whole time, and asking her, "Really?  Is that what happened?  That must have been very upsetting."

When she was done telling me about it, I walked her back to where she was supposed to be, opened the gate for her to let her in, and gave her a second dinner for being such a good girl and coming to me when she was confused and worried, instead of running away.

Any animal that is this comical and easy to deal with, and makes me giggle instead of swear when it escapes is fine by me.  I just LOVE these pigs!

More Lambs

Lambing season is winding down now.  I'm back to sleeping in my own bed instead of out in the barn.  I only have three new lambs to report this week, and only 2-4 ewes who have yet to lamb (the variation is because a couple of them I'm not sure whether or not they're pregnant). 

Anyway, some of you have been telling me that you're getting impatient for new lamb photos, so, here they are!  :-)

First are Sabrina's very, very cute black spotted twins.  The girl (on the left) is named Xing.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Stephen Pappas (no web link given),  Laurel McGilvery (no web link given), and  Beth at www.cotondogs.net

The boy (on the right) is named Xerox, because he's almost a perfect copy of his sister.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Laurel McGilvery (no web link given), and Carol at loafkeeper.com.


And next is Wren's teeny tiny moorit gray ram lamb.  He's nearly identical to Whippoorwill's teeny tiny moorit gray ram lamb, that I posted photos of earlier.  His name is Xap.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Stephen Pappas (no web link given) and Elizabeth Brockman (no web link given).

Storm Senter

Meet Storm Senter!   He's a 2-year old Oldenburg-cross gelding.  His sire is my (former) Oldenburg stallion, Senter Stage, and his dam is my beloved Spotted Draft mare, Charybdis, who now lives with my sister Donna.

Storm is being lightly started under saddle this spring, and is for sale.  Contact Donna Chase for more information.


He's going to be a BIG boy.  Tall with a lot of bone.

Like all of Senter's foals, Storm is kind and sweet natured.  Just a big teddy bear.


Here he is with his 3/4 brother, Senter Fielder ("Willy").  Willy will be standing at stud at Siberia Farm.

The Great Sheep-Milking Experiment

Last year, when Tansy lost her lamb at birth, I decided to try milking her a little bit, to get milk for making sheep's milk soap.  Twice a day, I'd tie her to a post with a dish of grain under her nose, and try to milk her while she leaped and kicked and struggled.  While I did end up getting enough milk for a small amount of soap, the experience was not a pleasant one for either Tansy or myself.

This year, for some unknown reason, Tundra lost both of her lambs at birth.  I have no idea what happened.  When I found them, they looked fully formed and uninjured, but dead, as if they had never gotten up after being born.

Anyway, since Tundra would have no lambs to nurse, I decided that I'd milk her, but this year I'd use the shearing stand to restrain her.  The shearing stand turned out to be a great idea.  Unlike Tansy last year, Tundra stood still for the milking.  However, it had been about a day since her lambs had been born, so she was already starting to dry up.  Everyone says that the more you milk, the more the ewe will produce, so I kept at it for a week, but Tundra's production was still very low.  Unfortunately, me with the Udderly EZ Milker twice a day is just not the same as a pair of hungry lambs, as far as stimulating milk production.

But my sheep's milk soap has been selling quite well, and I want to make a much larger supply of it this year.  So I needed sheep's milk.  Lots more than Tundra was producing.

So, the Great Sheep-Milking Experiment was born.

What if, instead of milking one sheep twice a day for the whole summer, I instead milked ALL the sheep once or twice and was done with it?  After all, the other ewes were actively feeding their babies, so I knew they were producing much more milk than Tundra was.

So, I rounded up all the ewes whose lambs were at least a couple of weeks old, and separated them from their lambs overnight.  What a racket they made, bawling for each other!  They could see each other and touch noses through the fence, though, so they could each see that the other wasn't lost.

In the morning, armed with the Udderly EZ Milker, I set out to milk 18 ewes who had never been milked before.  Little did I know it was going to take most of the day! 


I had to round up the ewes into a catch pen, then physically drag each one to the shearing stand, fasten her in, then crank the stand up to a comfortable height.  Wash the udder, and attempt the milking.  Some of the ewes kicked, but I was able to use the milker with one hand while encircling the kicking foot with my other hand, to guide it away from kicking the milker.  Once the kicking ewes discovered their struggles weren't working, they eventually settled down and stood still.

Over all, I was surprised on how well behaved most of the sheep were, but it was still hard work manhandling them on and off the stand and taking them out afterward to the paddock where their hungry babies waited.

Between each milking, I took that ewe's milk inside, filtered and labeled it, and put it in a Ziploc bag in the freezer.  When I make my soap, I like to be able to tell my customers exactly which sheep provided the milk for that soap.  So now my freezer has lots and lots of labeled bags!

I've been told that experienced milkers who milk their Icelandics regularly can get 1 quart per milking.  My average was probably closer to half that, but for a first attempt I feel like the sheep and I accomplished quite a lot.  Because I kept a list of how much each ewe produced, I also have a better idea of which ones are the most worth milking again next time.

Mostly, I already knew which of my ewes were the milkiest (Paris, as expected, was the best.  She gave me 3.5 cups).  But there were a few surprises, a couple of adult ewes I had not realized were as milky as they were, and one yearling first-time mother who gave as much as the adults. 

So in addition to getting enough milk to make more than 600 bars of soap, I also got valuable information about the productivity levels of my ewes.

I'll probably do it again one more time, to meet my goal of how much soap I want to make this year.  I won't do so many ewes at a time again, though.  It took me so long to milk them all, I felt it was too uncomfortable for both the ewes and the babies to have to wait so long.

I ache from all the exertion yesterday, but when I think that with just one day of hard work I got more than half of my milk-supply goal for the year, I think the sheep milking experiment was a big success!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Last Week's Lambs

It's been more than a week since I last posted pictures of new lambs, so there are quite a few new ones to show.

Let's see, where were we?  Last time, I posted about Regina's new lambs.  So that means the next in line would be Tara, who had a pair of black mouflon twins by William.  The girl is named Xolaris.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).


The boy is named Xolar.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).
 
Then Whisper had a moorit spotted ram lamb by Wotan.  I was WAITING for a lamb to be born that was marked like this, so I could use Steve Pappas's very cute name submission:  Xox.


Then Undra had a black gray girl and a moorit gray boy by Scimitar.  The girl's name is Xolani.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Beth at www.cotondogs.net, Jeanne (no web link given), and Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).



The boy's name is Xolano.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).


Then Sadie had a black mouflon girl and a moorit mouflon boy by Scimitar.  The girl's name is Xavia.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Tika at theyellowjournalist.blogspot.com and Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).

The boy's name is Xavier.  This very popular name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Elizabeth Brockman (no web link given), Tika at theyellowjournalist.blogspot.com, Carol at loafkeeper.com, Channa at http://www.ohsewnice.co.uk, Robin at www.mommymommyland.com, Laurel McGilvery (no web link given), Rowena at http://cherrypik.blogspot.com/, Beth at www.cotondogs.net, Jeanne (no web link given), and Pat at http://www.patelliottpaintings.co.uk/.

Next, Teasle had a moorit badger girl by Ukraine.  This lamb's name is Xummer.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).

Next, Tawny had triplet girls, but only the two white ones survived.  The older one is named Xynthia.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Donna Chase of http://siberia-farm.com.

The younger one is named Xarlene.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Debra Chase (no web link).

And finally, Whippoorwill had a teeny-tiny moorit gray ram lamb, who weighed less than 3 lbs. at birth.  But he has a lot of determination, and is doing well despite his minuscule size.  His name is Xabriel.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Runaway Pigs

We had our first pig escape today. 

I was walking through the lamb pasture, checking on all the moms and babies.  The two sows were in the next paddock over, where they have been doing a fine job of rooting up all the old hay that had accumulated there over the winter.


But when the piggies saw me out in the pasture, they got very excited and thought perhaps I was coming to feed them.  Some excited squealing, a little pushing and shoving, and suddenly---ZIP!---the bigger sow scooted right under the one weak place in the fence.

Suddenly loose in the nice green lamb pasture, she forgot all about me and pranced off excitedly to explore!

With a bowl of food (and Ken to man the gates for me), I managed to sweet-talk her ("Here Pigpigpig!  C'mere piggypiggypigpig!") out of the lamb pasture and into the back yard.  At that point, we figured it would be easier to get her into the pasture where the boar is than try to put her back into her own paddock where she'd likely just escape again instantly.

It's a couple of weeks earlier than we'd intended to put her in with the boar, but she's gotten pretty big now, so she'll be fine even if she isn't the full 10 months old  yet.  I don't think she's due to go back into heat for a while yet, so even though she's in with the boar a bit early, she may not actually get bred any sooner than she would have if we'd waited.

Of course, while we were dealing with Cerridwen, Circe got all worked up and eventually scooted under the weak place in the fence too.  So we had to go and lure her back into a different paddock until we can fix the place where they got through.

Now both the sows are quite put out that their routines have been changed.  Circe's all by herself, and Cerridwen is in a much larger pasture with lots of green stuff to eat, but it's all new and different and her roommate is a BOY!  For all of the foolish way she was pining along the fence line towards him when she was in heat, she sure wants nothing to do with him now, and isn't afraid to tell him so!

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Box Turtle

As a break from all the lamb photos, here's a brief visit with one of our farm's other residents.  We have lots of box turtles here, and I do my best to protect them from harm.  They are so beautiful and interesting to watch!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Unidentified Flying Lamb-Pod

Transporter pod on standby.  Prepare to beam up.

Bad Rams

Nothing like a little bloodshed to liven up the day! 

With a mighty crash of horns, the three rams who are supposed to be mowing the grass in the back yard broke through the fence and liberated the fourth ram who was in a separate pen for the EXPRESS PURPOSE of preventing this sort of rowdiness!


Except during breeding season, my rams all live together peacefully and are great buddies.  Once they get to know each other, and have established who's boss, that is.  But the "discussions" to establish who's boss can get quite violent.

My senior ram, Nicholai, has been King of the Flock ever since he came to my farm.  But now he's getting old and stiff, and is permanently lame from a couple of previous injuries (one fight with another ram, and one episode of getting badly tangled in the fence). 

So when big, burly Scimitar, in the prime of his life, came to the farm last fall, I deliberately kept him away from Nicholai because, frankly, I'd like to keep Nicholai alive and undamaged for as long as possible.  I knew Scimitar could kill him it he tried hard enough.

Unfortunately, Nicholai still thinks of himself as King of the Flock.  So, after a couple of days peacefully mowing the back yard, Nicholai and his two young ram companions thought it was about time to have some words with Scimitar in his pen.  Scimitar wouldn't take that challenge lying down, so between the four of them, they knocked down the fence.

Poor Nicholai was in for a rude shock, however, when he had to face Scimitar with no protective barrier between them.  I heard the crashing and looked out the window to see all four rams fighting.  By the time I got outside, Nicholai was running for his life!  I'd feel sorry for the poor old guy, but he did start it!

With a bucket of grain, I lured everybody back to where they belonged, and Ken repaired the fence.  We'll have to wait and see if Nicholai learned his lesson, or if there will be more fence breaking later.

He does look a bit (pardon the phrase) sheepish now, doesn't he?

Monday, April 12, 2010

Regina's Lambs, and Others

Regina had her lambs yesterday:  a moorit gray girl and a boy who is either moorit badger or moorit gray badger.

The girl's name is Xafari.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).



 
The boy's name is Xadrian.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).

Now here are a few pictures of the other lambs.  This one is Xcaliber.

Another of Xcaliber.

Xaria:

Xelia:

Mighty Xcotia tears down a tree with her fearsome lamb teeth:

.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Are You Sick of Lamb Photos Yet?

Are you completely overdosed on woolly cuteness yet?  Look away!  I'm giving you fair warning that the blog is going to be flooded with lamb pictures for a while yet.  This time of year, lambing season pretty much takes over my life.

But stay tuned, I actually DO have a wide variety of other activities and creative projects that I'll be writing about after lambing season is over!

Meanwhile, resign yourself to basking in the cuteness.  :-)

Xabella:



Xabella and Xcaliber


Xanthus:

Xelene isn't really twice as cute as all the other lambs, she's just good at always striking a photogenic pose:

Xolo has grown a lot since his last photo was taken:

This Week's Lambs

We've had quite a few new lambs born this week, but I haven't been able to get photos of them all until today.

First up are Moriah's black badger twins.  They are 75% the same bloodlines as my best fleece sheep, with 25% of improved meat build added in.  So their fleeces should be super nice when they grow up.  The girl is Xena.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by:  Chris Conrad of http://www.facebook.com/chris.conrad, Tika of theyellowjournalist.blogspot.com, Laurel McGilvery (no web link given), and Skye (no web link given).



The boy is Xergei.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by:  Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).

Next are Pandora's white twins.  They are going to be very broad and "beefy" when they grow up.  The boy is Xanthus.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by:  Laurel McGilvery (no web link given), Elizabeth Brockman (no web link given), and Beth from www.cotondogs.net.

The girl is Xanti (pronounced "Shanti").  Pandora has a history of occasionally producing a lamb that is not just white, but ultra super-dooper white.  Xanti is one of those.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by:  Tika of theyellowjournalist.blogspot.com, and Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).

Titania had a black solid girl named Xalome.  This lamb is a cross between my most parasite resistant ram and the ewe who gave me the most parasite resistant lamb last year, so I have high hopes for this girl.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by:  Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).

And finally, Paisley had twin girls.  This is a cross between two of my most parasite resistant sheep, so again, high hopes for these lambs.  The moorit solid is named Xaria.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by:  Tika of theyellowjournalist.blogspot.com, Stephen Pappas (no web link given), Molly Bailey of Bailey Girl Five, and Laurel McGilvery (no web link given).

And the moorit badger is named Xelia.  This name was submitted to our Name That Lamb contest by: Monica of Crazy House Quilts

Congratulations to all the naming winners!  We are approximately halfway through lambing now, so there are plenty more lambs and plenty more chances to win coming up.