The bucks have finished their winter work.
It’s a buck’s life. These boys only work six weeks a year, but it’s an important six weeks. Without them, we would have no baby lambs in the spring. Of course, it falls to the ewes to be pregnant for five months, and then to spend another five months or so raising lambs.
As for the bucks, they are ready for some rest. In a few weeks, they start looking for something to do, which usually involves trying to escape wherever we want them to be. They were glad to see the ewes on Cyclone Rim in mid-December, but now it’s time for them to leave the ewes and return to their bachelor ways. They go home the same way they left–one horsetrailer at a time.
Guillermo, Tiarnan, McCoy, Rhen and Seamus bringing the bucks up
up the chute
Oscar and Guillermo loading the trailer
Oscar and Guillermo and the loaded trailer
last buck jumping out
Home at last! Here are the bucks with fresh hay in the Mouse Pasture.
Tags: bucks, Cyclone Rim, ewes, Guillermo, McCoy, Oscar, Rhen, Seamus, sheep, Sheep Mountain, Tiarnan
ram heading for work
The rams hang around for ten and a half months, waiting for the day when they are called to go to work, fathering lambs for the next season. We put the bucks in over a period of days and weeks. We figure that the first bucks to go in with the ewes are getting tired, so we send reinforcements. They sometimes resent being worked through the chutes, but are happy to jump out of the trailers to join the ladies. When we were loading them, I said, “Hop in boys–all the corn you can eat.” Meghan said, “All the ladies you can breed!” I added, “…and all the wind you can tolerate.” Such is the life of a buck in the winter.
through the chute
Siobhan and Sadie facing a reluctant ram
Avencio
guard dog on the job
guard dog watching his ewes
Avencio, Pat and Oscar
Guillermo and Pat
Leo
Oscar with the dogs jumping for joy
on his way!
Oscar too!
Tags: Avencio, bucks, dogs, ewes, guard dogs, Guillermo, Leo, Oscar, Pat, rams, Red Desert, sheep, Siobhan
Lemmons Meadow.
It’s been a weird winter so far. We’ve had lots of snow, lots of thawing, and a lot of bare ground for February. The critters are glad for the warmer temperatures.
cows with puddles
Bucks in the Mouse Pasture
horses in the Wyoming Field
Casey training horses
Tags: bucks, Casey, cattle, horses, Lemmons Meadow, Mouse Pasture, sheep, spring thaw, Wyoming Field
from our Christmas tree
New Year’s Eve morning dawned bright and clear. We had a huge pile of wood to burn from an old building we had taken down. We had livestock to tend, bucks to work, and resolutions to make.
Ewes on winter pasture
Adopted wild horses eating hay at sheep camp
Hampshire buck saying “Put me in, Coach!”
Bringing the bucks up the chute
The All-Girl sheep moving crew–Taylor, Siobhan and Meghan
Meghan and Pat sorting
Rambouillet ram out the cutting gate
Meghan, Siobhan and Taylor with the bucks
McCoy checking things out
Pat, with his fire-tending assistants–Seamus, McCoy, Tiarnan, Rhen and Maeve
Sharon with the fire-tending crew (McCoy un-photo bombed)
Maeve, Seamus and Meghan
Out with the old, in with the new
Horses grazing with the last sunset of 2016
Tags: bonfire, bucks, ewes, fire, Hampshire, horses, Maeve, McCoy, Meghan, Pat, Rambouillet, Rhen, Seamus, Sharon, sheep, Sheep Mountain, Siobhan, Taylor, Tiarnan
Rainbow over Powder Rim
Feral horses on Racetrack
Yemerson with his sheep near Upper Powder Spring
Guardian dogs chowing down on whole kernel corn
Filo with guard dogs
Yearling ewes and old ewes
Unloading the bucks
Bucks spot the girls
Horse on the Red Desert
Lambs on Harper feedlot
Almost Solstice sunset
Sunset over Sandman Mountain
Tags: bucks, Eamon, ewes, Filo, livestock guardian dogs. Racetrack, Meghan, Modesto, Pepe, Powder Rim, Rhen, Sandman Mountain, Siobhan, sunset, Upper Powder Spring, wild horses, Yemerson
Ladder Ranch
