sheep shearer through the door
It’s a wrap! or at least a lot of bales. Our intrepid shearing crew arrived just in time. The ewes had already trailed to the sheds on our lambing grounds north of Dixon, but it’s very important to shear first, lamb next. The shearers have two portable shearing sheds which they move from job to job during the shearing season. It has been a wettish spring so far, not that I’m complaining, but we do have to have dry sheep in order to shear. It takes several days with about 1,000 head per day. We had a couple of days when it rained and we had to shut down early, or wait a day, but we did get through the “main line”–the ewes with long staple fine wool–a couple of days before the first lambs dropped. The yearling ewes are still to the north in our Badwater pasture. They aren’t pregnant, so getting them shorn isn’t quite so time-sensitive, but the shearing crew needed to move on as soon as they finished with our sheep. It rained for several more days, but finally it was dry enough and they got the yearlings done in less than a day. Now it is time for us to secure the bales of wool until it is shipped to a buyer.
shorn ewes
corral full of ewes
fleeces coming out of the shed
wool bales with the baler
Maeve and Tiarnan are marking the bales
guard dogs keeping us safe
Tags: livestock guardian dogs, Maeve, shearing, sheep, Tiarnan
Hampshire ewes and lambs
It’s that time of year again. We shed lamb our purebred Hampshire and Rambouillet ewes in March (mostly) at Powder Flat. This year we are blessed with good weather and a great crew. Our crew includes three Peruvian employees who have each worked for us for more than 20 years. The sheep are all in good hands!
pregnant ewes waiting
“Ayuda” ewe (“Help” in Spanish). She looks green due to the translucent green panels in the ceiling.
guardian dog and pups on the job
new mom with twins
LGD puppies with pregnant ewes
Anthony and Meghan
Rambouillet ewes with their lambs
Anthony, Oscar Tiarnan and Modesto
wild horses on Racetrack at Lookout Rim
Jeep after looking for sheepcamp on Lookout Rim
Tiarnan with a new lamb
Tags: Anthony, Border collies, Edgar, ewes, Jeep, lambing, lambs, livestock guardian dogs, Meghan, Modesto, Oscar, Tiarnan, wild horses
sheepcamp at sunrise
It is time for our annual trek north with the sheep. Most of our ewes spend the winter on the Red Desert, on the Cyclone Rim and Chain Lakes grazing allotments. This didn’t work out so well last winter when we had record snow fall, cold and terrible wind.We had to evacuate the sheep at the end of January. This year, so far, has been on the dry side–hard to believe when I look at the photos from this time last year. My Dad used to say that more sheep have starved to death in a snowbank than on dry ground. Still, we need snow for the sheep to water on, and for next year’s grass. We are hoping for a Goldilocks winter–not too snowy, not too dry.
Here’s some pics from the sheep crossing from the Badwater pasture north to Creston Junction, where we cross under Interstate 80 and head north to the Red Desert.
the herd approaching the Rodewald gate
passing the fireworks store
heading for the underpass
trailing under the schoolbus
Jose
under I80
on to winter pasture
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Border collies, Creston Junction, Jose, livestock guardian dogs, Red Desert, sheep, trail
Alejandro on the trail with the yearlings
After lambing, we trail the ewes and lambs to grazing allotments on the Routt and Medicine Bow National Forests, where they find green grass, fresh water, and bears and coyotes. The on-date is the first of July, and we stage the trailing, one day apart–one bunch after another. When the ewes, lambs and herders and settled on their summer grazing grounds, it is time for the yearling ewes to start on the trail. They have been grazing in the high desert Badwater pasture since shearing in late April. They follow the traditional trails, including the Savery Stock Driveway, to their high mountain allotment in the Medicine Bow.
Solano with his backpack
The yearling herder Alejandro likes to keep an orphan lamb each year, and raise it as a pet. This summer he has two bum lambs, including one which was lost on the trail and picked up by our neighbor, Jock–an avid bicyclist. Alejandro still has his pet from two years ago, Solano. I was startled to see that Alejandro had “repurposed” a dog food bag into a backpack for Solano. I’m not quite sure what he was meant to carry. Solano is quite the sheep. Sometimes he follows Alejandro on his horse, and sometimes he hangs out with the dogs or the sheep. I like to say that Solano is “no ordinary sheep.”
Jock bringing me the lost lamb on his bicycle
Tiarnan with Alejandro’s pet lamb
lamb and Tiarnan
midday break at Loco Creek
Guard dog mom and pups catching a ride
yearlings on the march
Tags: Alejandro, livestock guardian dogs, Medicine Bow National Forest, Savery, sheep, Tiarnan, yearling ewes
ewes grazing on Cyclone Rim allotment
Today was a Goldilocks Day–not too hot, not too cold, and not windy at all. I took our banker, Kim Brown, from the Yampa Valley Bank in Craig, Colorado out to the Red Desert to take a look a the sheep. Conditions were perfect, with enough snow for the ewes to water on, but not so deep that they couldn’t access the dried grasses which we count on for winter feed. Everyone looked happy–the ewes, the bucks, the dogs, and Pepe, Leo and Guillermo.
Pepe unloading dog food–we buy a pallet a week
guard dog checking us out
a curious Hampshire ram lamb, also checking us out
the last of the corn
sheep on the skyline at Chain Lakes
guard dogs on the job
Guillermo, Kim and Pepe in Cyclone Rim
Tags: Chain Lakes, Cyclone Rim, Guillermo, Kim, Leo, livestock guardian dogs, Pepe, Red Desert, sheep
crossing the Battle Creek bridge
Fall days are the time of year when the cattle and the sheep come down from their summer grazing on the the national forests. We bring them all to the Home Ranch, and sort them through the corrals. The ewes bring with them their whole entourage–herders, horses, Border collies, livestock guardian dogs. For a couple of weeks, we manage a rotating menagerie of sheep, dogs and–pigs? We keep a few feeder pigs over the summer to provide winter pork, but in the meantime the pigs consider themselves free-range critters who are likely to show up about anyplace. The guard dogs are suspicious of the pigs, but the pigs don’t care. I am reminded of “Babe” and wonder if we couldn’t train them to herd livestock. They are utterly indifferent to the dogs, who are puzzled by the pigs.
Meghan bringing up the ewes and lambs
multiple guard dogs relaxing as the sheep come in
Mike watching the gate
That’ll do, pig
Meghan bringing the sheep into the pens
another bunch across the bridge
boys, bales and Squaw Mountain
Pepe and Eamon working the chute
pigs on the job
fall sheep with Squaw Mountain
Tags: Border collies, Eamon, ewes, lambs, livestock guardian dogs, Meghan, Pepe, pigs, sheep, Squaw Moutain
Hampshire ewe with comfy lamb
Each March, we lamb our purebred ewes, Hampshire and Rambouillet, in the sheds at Powder Flat. We raise our rams for the commercial range ewes from these two farm flocks. Luckily, we have a good crew and the early weather has been mild.
Pat and Edgar with pen for outdoor dining
guard dog hard at work in a circle of ewes
guard dogs on the job
Hampshire ewe and twins
bum lambs in warm straw
Leo feeding the bum lambs
Meanwhile, Maria is hanging out with the bucks
Tags: bucks, Edgar, ewes, lambing, lambs, Leo, livestock guardian dogs, llama, Pat, Powder Flat
Dog Days of September
October 1st is drawing near. In our world, that is the off-date for most of our National Forest permits. We are now staging both the cows and the sheep to trail down to the Home Ranch in a few days. Here’s Pepe and Modesto, our excellent long-time herders, with their ewes and lambs, ready to come off the Forest. We have had a record year for predator losses, in spite of their efforts and the efforts of our valiant Livestock Guardian Dogs. Since we know how many ewes and their lambs went up in July, and Pepe and Modesto (and the other herders) keep track of other deaths, we will soon have an idea of how terrible these losses have been.
Pat and Pepe in Big Red Park
Pat and Modesto near Independence Creek
Modesto’s ewes and lambs
Tags: livestock guardian dogs, Modesto, Pat, Pepe, routt national forest, sheep
ewes in the Bighorn Basin
Faithful blog readers know that due to extreme winter conditions in the Red Desert, our usual wintering ground, we have trucked most of our ewes north to the sugar beet fields in Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin. The Bighorn Basin is several hundred miles to the north of us, almost to the Montana border, but is also several thousand feet lower, and less snowy. We have some ewes who experienced “early conception,” probably due to a rogue buck lamb who escaped docking. At Powder Flat, we are set up for shed lambing (usually in March) and have a great crew. Pat and I went up to visit the ewes and herders, and to collect the pregnant ewes and bring them home to lamb. The Bighorn Basin is also experiencing an unusually snowy winter, though for them it is several inches of snow, not several feet. We have a good crew there too–Pepe, Modesto, Alejandro and Joel. It’s a long ways from home, but has feed available for the ewes.
ewes near Burlington
Border collie on the job
Tres Amigos
pregnant ewes ready to load
Modesto and Pepe
Home at last
Dogs give a welcome home
Tags: Bighorn Basin, Border collies, livestock guardian dogs, Modesto, Pat, Pepe, sheep, winter
Ladder Ranch
