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
On February 9th and 10th, Pat made his last visits to the sheep camps. On February 9th, Pat and I attended the junior high basketball games to watch our grandson McCoy play ball. McCoy’s other grandparents,Jeff and Georgia Stocklin, came down from Ten Sleep to enjoy the games. Since it was a while between the morning game and the afternoon game, we four grandparents decided to run out to Powder Flat, about 45 minutes away, to see how the preparations for lambing were going. We raise our own rams, and our Hampshire and purebred Rambouillet ewes lamb in March at Powder Flat. We have a winter crew who tend the one band of ewes who winter in the Powder Wash country. Things were in good order and the boys won their basketball game.
The next morning, Pat, Seamus and I headed for the Red Desert to visit with the sheepherders there and to bring home a trailer full of rams. They have completed their task of breeding the ewes so that we’ll have lambs in May and June. We were happy to see that, in utter contrast to last winter, conditions are great, with lots of dry feed which grew up last summer, and just the right amount of snow. It’s a “Goldilocks Winter”–not too much and not too little. We had a great day.
It is with a heavy heart that I report that these were Pat’s last visits to the sheep and the sheep camps. One February 13th, he had a severe stroke, and he died on February 25th. I will post more on this later. Here’s some photos from those visits.
Georgia, Pat and Jeff at Powder Flat
blackface ewes at Powder Flat
Anthony readying the corrals
ewes on the Red Desert
Happy ewes
Pat, Oscar and Jose on Cyclone Rim
Sharon and guardian dog
trailer, ready to load
Seamus bringing in the bucks
rams in their working clothes
Pat and Pepe
January 30, 2021
Tags: Anthony, Cyclone Rim, ewes, horses, Jose, Oscar, Pat, Pepe, Powder Flat, rams, Seamus
docking lambs
May and June bring us lambs, and lambs mean docking–cutting the tails, castrating the males, eearmarking,vaccinating and paint branding. This requires our crew to gather the ewes and lambs into portable corrals, which we move to the various areas on the lambing grounds. We sort the lambs into a smaller pen, then carry them, one by one, along an assembly line where they are prepared for their future lives without tails. The last stop is a paint brand. This year we have an exceptional multi-national crew, which includes Peruvians, Mexicans, South Africans and Americans, including our grandchildren and employees. We have had fair weather and great lunches. Soon the ewes and lambs will be ready to trail to their summer pastures on the forest.
Rhen, bringing up the lambs
ewes in the pen
Rhen and Aaron with the Dickum Docker
Maeve, Riley and Tiarnan docking
Robyn, Oscar and James
Riley and Seamus
Liza with lamb
Seamus and Riley
ewes and lambs at Cherry Grove
wagon at Cherry Grove
Tags: Aaron, docking, ewes, James, lambs, Liza, Maeve, Oscar, Rhen, Riley, Robyn, Seamus, Tiarnan
Shadows
As the elk and the deer
head down from summer’s grass
calves and fawns by their side
we gather cows, their calves and
hope for good weather.
We hook up the sheep camps,
move our community of critters—
ewes, lambs, dogs, horses.
The shepherds shift from early mornings,
lazy afternoons, fights with bears
and coyotes—
trying to find a camp spot among
tourists, campers, refugees from Covid.
At home, we stage the sheep, bringing them
bunch by bunch to pastures,
to the corrals
For sorting, for judging who stays,
who goes, some to the desert
some to farmers with soft fields and warm barns.
Lambs climb onto trucks—
first the heavies, born early,
next the lights,
and finally the peewees
headed for corn and lower country.
Now we follow the migration.
ewes trailing down from the Routt Forest
past the Bull Pasture
KIm supervising
Meghan at the sorting gate
lambs
under the sun
Anthony working the chute
ewes after sorting
Meghan loading the truck, with help
lambs loading on truck
Pepe and Oscar bringing them up
Pepe. Edgar and Bubba
Tags: Anthony, Edgar, ewes, lambs, Meghan, Oscar, Pepe, sheep, trailing
bucks relaxing in the meadow
Each fall we test the buck herd. Geri Parsons, Optimal Livestock Services, comes to check our rams for fertility and health. At the same time, we look at their teeth, their feet and their general condition to make sure they are ready to romance the ewes in a couple of months.
ready to test
Geri, Edgar and Rhen
Oscar, Geri and Edgar
Geri in her portable lab
evening dust-up between bucks
Tags: bucks, Edgar, Geri Parsons, Optimal Livestock Services, Oscar, Rhen, Seamus, sheep
ready for the shearers
heading up the chute
Alejandro helping ewes up the chute
bucks ready for a fleecing
shearing with skill
down the ramp
Ten pounds lighter!
shorn sheep
Cora with wool packer
wool ready to pack
Oscar and Meghan
Pepe processing ewes
all hands and the cook
Tags: Alejandro, Badwater, Edgar, ewes, German, Meghan, Oscar, Pepe, Powder Flat, rams, ranch cook, sheep shearing, wool
ewes heading for the sort
Ewes through the dodge gate,
dart left, duck right, straight ahead—
Destiny awaits.
Edgar at the sorting gate
guard dog hard at work
Avencio catching a ewe
in the corrals
Rhen helping Avencio and Oscar to doctor a ewe
crossing the Battle Creek bridge
Tags: Avencio, Border collie, Edgar, ewes, Livestock Guadian Dog, Oscar, Rhen, sheep
Ladies in waiting for Geri.
We raise our own replacement ewes from the best of our Rambouillet commercial ewes. We select about 1500 of these ewes, checking them for fine consistent wool, good body type, twinning, open faces, and other traits. The rest of the ewes, who are good but not as good, are bred to Hampshire (blackface) rams. We breed the replacement moms to the Rambouillet rams that we also raise.
When these lambs are born in May, they are more vulnerable to harsh weather conditions than the cross-bred lambs, who have hybrid vigor. The twin and triplet lambs are more at risk since their Mom has multiple lambs to care for. We have lambing sheds where we can give the ewes and their multiple lambs extra care and shelter. It is key to know which ewes are carrying the valuable and vulnerable twins and triplets.
Luckily for us, we can call on Optimal Veterinary Services to test our ewes mid-pregnancy. We set up our corrals, and Geri Parsons’ testing tent, on top of Cyclone Rim—a high range on the Red Desert. That’s where Avencio and his sheep are. The winter has been dry, so we have moved up chasing snowdrifts for water for the sheep. Geri, and her partner, Dr. Cleon Kimberling, “have lab, will travel”. Doc didn’t come this time (too far to ride his bike!), but we gathered employees and family members to work as the ground crew. We were lucky to have good weather with almost no wind—not always the case on Cyclone Rim!
Geri set up her tent next to the chute. As each ewe stopped, she checked them with an ultrasound machine, then called “single”, “twin”, “triplet”, and occasionally “open”! We then marked each ewe. The ewes pregnant with multiples will be sorted into a separate bunch when we shear in a few weeks. Then they will head to the lambing sheds for TLC.
Cora and Sadie on the job
view from the back
guard dog on the job
Friends
Siobhan and Tiarnan sorting
Tiarnan in Geri’s chute
Siobhan at the chute
Tiarnan with the sorting flag
Pat and Tiarnan behind the sheep
Meghan and Oscar working the chute, Geri’s tent in place
Brian working the chute
A perfect day on Cyclone Rim
Maeve,Meghan and Tiarnan
Day’s end
Tags: Brian, Cyclone Rim, ewes, Geri Parsons, labor, livestock guardian dogs, Maeve, Meghan, Optimal Livestock Services, Oscar, Pat, pregnancy testing, sheep, Siobhan, Tiarnan
Hampshire ewes with her twin lambs
For us, rain, sleet, snow or shine, March always comes in like a lamb. We raise our own rams, Hampshire and Rambouillet, and the ewes start lambing March 1st. After the winter wait, the long months of lambs growing in the womb, we get to see these babies. With them lies our future. Their future, likewise, depends upon us. It is a long time between lambs on the ground and rams, dusted with iron oxide, jumping out of the horsetrailer to join the ewes, starting the cycle anew.
In the shed
Ladies in waiting, protected by guardian dog puppies
ewes and puppies
Oscar helping a lamb find a mom with a skin graft
Edgar and Oscar conferring
plenty of feed on hand
Oscar with his lambing crew, Tiarnan and Seamus
Babies in a box,
waiting for milk replacer,
or a new mama
Luis feeding a baby lamb
Tags: Edgar, haiku, Hampshires, lambs, livestock guardian dog, Luis, Oscar, Seamus, sheep, Tiarnan
Ladder Ranch
