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Working the yearlings in winter

27 Dec

Meghan at the Terrill corrals

 

Today was the best day we’ve had in a while to vaccinate the ewe lambs. They are on their wintering grounds near Powder Wash. Last week was bitter cold as a “bomb cyclone” with the unlikely name of Winter Storm Elliot swept down from the Arctic. It caught us on the southern end, and we only had two or three days of wind and terrible cold. It was far worse to the east of us as the storm swept across the Midwest and the Northeast. Today, it warmed up to about 30 degrees, with only some wind, so Meghan gathered up her crew of Eamon, Chandler, Filomeno, and McCoy, Maeve and Rhen to vaccinate Alejandro’s ewe lambs. The ewes on the Red Desert “blew out” as they walked before the wind. The herders waited out the storm in their camps, then found the ewes when the cold and wind died down. The Farmer’s Almanac says we are on the borderline between a harsh winter and a mild one.

coming down the chute

Alejandro with his ewe lambs

Meghan, Filo and Aleja

Meghan with vaccine gun at the ready

time to relax

 

 
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Posted by on December 27, 2022 in Animals, Dogs, Family, Folks, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep

 

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Bucks–all dressed up and someplace to go

04 Dec
bucks in their working clothes

bucks in their working clothes

Jumping out of the trailer

Jumping out of the trailer

 

The bucks have been waiting all year,  or at least since February, to hang out with the girls again. They spend most of the year hanging out with each other, and plotting to escape from the buck pastures. At long last, breeding season has arrived and they can find romance. We sprinkle their wool with red powder to make it easier for the herders to count and identify them, load them into the trailer and take them to the pasture where the ewes are awaiting them. For the ewes, it means a very brief moment of passion, five months (less five days) of pregnancy, and four or five months of raising lambs. They probably find their lives to be a lot more interesting!

on the run

on the run

Filo gets ready to move the bucks

Filo gets ready to move the bucks

 
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Posted by on December 4, 2015 in Animals, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep

 

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Hasta la vista, wool! or Shearing the early lambers

16 Feb
Jamie shearing

Jamie shearing

When I told folks that we were shearing sheep, the usual reaction was, “Whoa! Isn’t it a little early?”

It’s  true that most of the sheep are shorn in late April (if all goes well), right before they lamb. Since we raise our own rams, we have two farm flocks of ewes–one Rambouillet and one Hampshire. These ewes lamb mostly in March. It helps a lot if they can be shorn before lambing. If a ewe feels a chill, she will take her lambs to seek shelter. If her belly is bare, it is easier for the lambs to find her nipples and get a first good meal of colostrum.

Shearing is always risky if the weather can turn cold. In 1984, a quarter of a million sheep in Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas died after a long and severe April storm. A few days wool growth offers some protection. Our shearer, Cliff Hoopes of Hoopes Sheep Shearing, came with his shearer Jamie and nephew Kyle, wool handler. Cliff and Jamie used course blades, which leave some extra wool on the sheep.

We were blessed with several days of warmish weather, and got through with a good shearing. Thank you, Cliff and crew!

Meghan and Oscar bringing up the unshorn ewes

Meghan and Oscar bringing up the unshorn ewes

whiteface ewes waiting for the blade

whiteface ewes waiting for the blade

blackface ewes waiting for the blade

blackface ewes waiting for the blade

Seamus on the job

Seamus on the job

Oscar at the chute

Oscar at the chute

Time ropes the escaped wooly ewe

Time ropes the escaped wooly ewe

It's not easy!

It’s not easy!

Back to the woolies

Back to the woolies

Siobhan and Raelyn capture the ewe

Siobhan and Raelyn capture the ewe

Siobhan: they went that-a-way

Siobhan: they went that-a-way

Siobhan, Maeve and Raelyn taking a break

Siobhan, Maeve and Raelyn taking a break

The bucks were shorn too. (The red powder is their working clothes.)

The bucks were shorn too. (The red powder is their working clothes.)

The Hoopes Shearing Crew and the Ladder Ranch Crew

The Hoopes Shearing Crew and the Ladder Ranch Crew

 
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Posted by on February 16, 2014 in Animals, Events, Family, Folks, Folks who help us out, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep

 

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Dry season

29 Nov

The days unfold–one warm dry sunny day after the next.  The neighbors gather and talk of only one subject–when will it snow?  We all have tales to tell.  Only two years ago, we were lamenting because we had to start feeding hay two weeks before Thanksgiving.  This year, some of us still have some rough feed we can use for the cows and horses–the tall dry grasses left under the trees that couldn’t be reached by the mower during haying season.  Some have been feeding hay for months, after the summer pastures came up short and the fall pastures were used early.  Some have shipped animals out because of the lack or expense of feed.  Drought in the corn states and demand from ethanol have made corn–the staple of livestock feed–prohibitively expensive.  The government’s mandates, and lack of action on disaster programs mean that the livestock sector has been sacrificed as farmers are being encouraged to grow fuel in place of food.  Cattle and sheep, but also dairy (especially dairy!), poultry, hogs, and even catfish are being driven into loss as corn prices soar.

We continue on, unhampered by storms or ice or cold.

the Hampshire bucks at Powder Flat

Bucks drinking from the tank at Powder Flat

Filomeno and Antonio with horse they are breaking

Dunkin with ewe friends

Maeve, ready to load truck

wagons at Cottonwood

 
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Posted by on November 29, 2012 in Animals, Family, Folks, Issues, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep, The Bellwether: Dunkin

 

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Transitions

27 Oct
Transitions

October is a month which starts with glorious colors as the leaves drop their summer green and segue into the yellows, reds and browns of a brief, glorious orgy.  Now, as the month winds its way down toward Halloween, tans and greys prevail, as the trees stand bare and the fields lay fallow.  In the last couple of days, we have had wet welcome snow.  The growing season is long past, but after this record dry year, moisture is a miracle, and we hope a portent of things to come.

It is also a season of endings.  After the burst of life that comes forth with the births of new lambs and calves, it is now shipping time.  The lambs are being loaded onto trucks, destined for the feedlot in South Dakota, and the calves have been sold.  Both will be fed until they are the right size to be slaughtered for food.  We have also retained ewe lambs, which will become our replacement ewes next year, and sold replacement heifer calves, which will become someone’s cows. We also have replacement heifer calves, destined to become our future cows.  Soon, all this season’s babies will be gone, or at least weaned, and we will go into our winter season with the animals who stay.

lambs in front f the cow barn

Pepe at the sorting chute

lambs

Edgar and Richar pushing the short term ewes up. They go to Iowa.

Edgar, Meghan, Filomeno and Richar at the loading chute

Filomeno working the chute

Meghan risking all to load the truck

Tiarnan and Pepe greet Maria

Cows, watching the calves being loaded

calves, bound for the feedlot

Ned inspecting the sold replacement heifers

heifer loading crew: Meghan, Dan, Gaylon, Eamon, Ned, Marley

Abby is hitching a ride toward Massachusetts on Dan’s truck

 
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Posted by on October 27, 2012 in Animals, Cattle, Events, Family, Folks who help us out, Llamas, Peruvian sheepherders, Sheep

 

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Along the Savery Stock Driveway, and beyond

03 Jul
Along the Savery Stock Driveway, and beyond

Late June brings our annual trailing from the lambing grounds, north of Dixon and Savery, to our Forest grazing permits on the Routt and Medicine Bow National Forest.  We start the sheep on the trail for the Colorado permits first, since it is a longer drive.  All has to be planned throughout lambing and docking, so that the oldest lambs are in one bunch, and ready to go first.  It is about 40 miles for the sheep who are heading for Farwell Mountain, near Columbine, Colorado.

We try to stage the sheep so that they are one day apart, which makes it easier to move the camps as we go along.  We count the sheep through the government corrals on the Stock Driveway.  This gives us an accurate count as we head into the Forest, and is required by the Forest Service as part of our permit rules and regulations.

It is also our last easy chance to corral the sheep and dock any lambs which have been born since the last docking, put paint brand numbers on the marker sheep, and pull out any bum lambs who need to go to the Home Ranch for TLC.

Once we leave the corrals, we are officially on our summer country (even though the Colorado bunches still have days ahead of them on the trail).  It is time to face the bears!

working sheep at the Government Corrals

Pepe, Bahnay and Salomon putting numbers on the marker ewes

Salomon, sheep and guard dogs headed for Farwell Mountain

guard dog leads the way

Ewes drinking at the ditch near Three Forks

Filomeno on the job

almost to the Routt Forest

dust along the road

heading into a tinderbox

Modesto, Bahnay and Riley

Oscar at Haggarty Creek, Medicine Bow National Forest

Teofilo at dawn

looking for her lamb

First day on the permit

 
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Posted by on July 3, 2012 in Animals, Events, Folks, Folks who help us out, Sheep

 

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