wooly ewes waiting for the shearers
It’s that time of year again. The shearers have shown up and shearing is underway. Each year it takes a lot of moving parts for fleeces to roll off the sheep and into the big bales. Our shearing crew are contractors who come out of California. We are their last client of the season. This is good because they are not under pressure to move on to the next producer, but nerve-wracking because we want to have the ewes shorn in time to trail to the lambing grounds north of Dixon. Lambing starts around May 10th.
We were fortunate with the weather this year. We had a snowstorm right before we were ready to start. The weather cleared and was warmish and nice for most of the week, allowing us to get through the “main line,” as the wool buyers call the running age ewes. The yearlings were next, followed by a brief, but not killer storm–always a worry for freshly shorn sheep.
Our crew packed up their portable shed–the shearing equivalant of a food truck–and moved to Powder Flat. The early lambers and the rams were there, and soon they too had given up their winter coats. Beulan and Maria the llamas were also shorn, much to their spitting disgust, but they are ready for summer.
wooly ewes with wagons
waiting in the corral
shorn ewes, ready to lamb
Frank and Gramps, son and father, on the job
Modesto and Eamon counting sheep
shorn ewes with birds
Edgar with unshorn llamas at Powder Flat
shearer at work
Meghan and Maria
Megan with Beulah
Beulah, freshly shorn
the wool packer baling the fleeces
bales of wool
fleeces in line
Tags: Border collies, Eamon, Edgar, llamas, Megan, Meghan, Modesto, shearing, sheep, wool
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
ewes and lambs in the Johnson corral
July 1st brings the on-date for the Forest grazing permits. We worked Modesto’s bunch at the Johnson corrals, in the Routt National Forest. We not only counted the ewes and lambs, but put numbered paint brands on the “marker” ewes, and gave Rhen an opportunity to practice his mutton busting.
Cora keeping an eye on the sheep.
Belling number 2, Juan supervising
numbering the marker ewes
Rhen practicing mutton busting
Siobhan and her team of Border collies
Counted, belled and numbered–heading for summer pasture
Tags: Border collies, ewes, Juan, lambs, Modesto, Rhen, routt national forest, sheep, Siobhan
Dr. Cleon Kimberling at the microscope
Each fall, before the bucks join the ewes, we ask Optimal LIvestock Services to fertility check them. Renowned, and sort of retired Dr. Cleon Kimberling and his partner Geri Parsons bring their traveling lab to ranches around the West. Dr. Kimberling started this service when he was the extension sheep vet for Colorado State University. Back in the day, Dr. Kimberling would arrive with a crew of veterinary students. Dr. K would bicycle over the mountains from Fort Collins while the students drove the van. CSU no longer offers this service, but luckily for us, and others, Dr. Kimberling and Geri Parsons are keeping up the good work. He is still an avid bicyclist, and a working vet. Rhen was fascinated by the whole process, and told his parents that we had “preg tested” the rams.
bringing in the bucks
Modesto holding the foot securely
Oscar and Geri
Geri testing, Rhen learning
free at last!
Rhen checking the results with Geri and Dr. Kimberling
Tags: Dr. Cleon Kimberling, Geri Parsons, Modesto, Optimal Livestock Services, Oscar, rams, Rhen, sheep
If it’s March, it must be time to pregnancy test. We breed the best of our Rambouillet ewes to Rambouillet rams, thereby ensuring a new crop of replacement ewe lambs, as well as their brothers/cousins. Since purebred whiteface lambs are more vulnerable at birth, especially the twins, we pregnancy check the moms so that the ewes carrying twins can lamb in the sheds. The rest of the Rambouillet ewes are bred to our Hampshire rams. Their lambs have hybrid vigor and usually do fine with drop lambing on the range. Our friend Geri Parsons from Optimal Livestock Services comes up each March at mid-pregnancy to check the ewes and call out “single”, “twins”, “open” and even “triplets”. Meghan and her crew appropriately marked the ewes with a paint dab on their heads to signify their status for later sorting. Geri usually braves chill winds and long drives for several days to accomplish this task. Here’s some photos of this year’s pregnancy checking.
Ewes, waiting for the verdict
Pepe at the chute, Geri’s office in the tent
It was REALLY MUDDY!!!
Chris bringing up the ewes
Pregnancy testing crew–Sam the Border collie, Modesto, Maeve, Meghan, Pepe, Tiarnan, Geri, Chris
the view from Eagle’s Nest, looking east
Tags: Border collie, Chris, Eagle's Nest, ewes, Geri Parsons, Maeve, Meghan, Modesto, Optimal Livestock Services, Pepe, pregnancy testing, Red Desert, sheep, 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
