Monday, November 11, 2019

NaBloPoMo - Day 11 - Sheep in the Mist

Some people may not know that we have sheep. Seven of them... which is 1 more than what we started out with... It was a kind of experiment.

My husband thought that we needed to make something of a hobby farm on our 25 acre property. We started off with goats, but after the first set was killed by a bear, and the second set ate his blueberry bushes one too many times, and then the youngest one died and broke my heart, we gave the two blueberry eaters we had left to a friend who had lots of bushes she really wanted eaten.

We then tried a cow.... and her calf... They were ok. Big beasts that I wanted to call Ham and Burger because, well, yeah, that was the point in raising them. I didn't want to get too involved knowing their time with us was going to be kinda short, but they didn't work out either because they got to like being around the house and wouldn't really go any where else to graze... plus, we had to start thinking about getting a bull, or bull stuff, or haul them to be with a bull... so they went to auction.

Then we got sheep.  Six of them. One ram and five ewes. Six turned into 14 as we had several sets of twins and a number of singles. Spring was amazing around the farm with all the little ones running around. Four ram lambs and four ewe lambs...

We knew the males were going to be sold, and one by one they were. Then came the ewe lambs. I picked my favorites and we sold a ewe lamb and an older ewe. Then our oldest sheep died. So now we have 7... trust me I've done the math a bunch of times...

Two of them are actually "on hold" for sale at the moment. So we'll be down to 5 but our ram Billy has been busy, so this spring will bring a whole bunch of new lambs... and the cycle of life will continue here on the farm...

The picture is from one of our trail cams as the sheep make their way around the property... ignore the date, I had to reset a bunch of the cameras and didn't reset the dates.

2 comments:

betty said...

Kind of neat to read about the various farm animals you have and that new ones will be coming along next spring! Circle of life indeed!

betty

Lori said...

Ah, I had remembered correctly that you used to have goats. Did not know you are now raising sheep though. (Do your Aussies herd them? My Aussie used to herd my sister's ducks when they got our of her yard and into my Mom's. She'd neatly herd them back to their own property.)

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