Lambing is Over

Our 2011 lambing season is over. 58 nice lambs but way too many open ewes. Desert Weyr Logan will be guest of honor at Revolution Brewing later this year in smoked kolbassi sausages. He didn't get a single one of his ewes pregnant. The other ewes will get evaluated. They were all part of the AI experiment and may not have had a chance with a live ram during a full heat cycle. I have some calendar homework to do to figure that all out. Some will be culled for teeth issues anyway.

Lost a Ram

The ram Desert Weyr Kirk died today. We had a veterinarian do a pm. He had a perforated stomach from an ulcer and had peritonitis. Probably the result of the injuries sustained in his feeder accident back the beginning of May.

Lamb Box & Second Solar System

We've had a lot of cold and rain and we had some lambs born in the irrigation ditch that were cold. So we made a small lamb box to put the one colder lamb in for a few hours. It worked well and by the time the lamb got warm and climbed out everything was fine. The hay in the box ensured mom stayed with her nose right in there to talk to the lamb.


Brad Burritt is back to start the second large sola PV system. It's going on the shop roof and will be a grid intertied system that supplies power to the Little House, Shop and Red Barn.

Rebuilding the Sheep Sweep - Ewes on Pasture

We've had some problems with the sheep sweep over the years. The sheep have worn a path down the middle and the panels have sunk into the ground. This year we decided to put some gravel down on top of weed block and then use old mine belt to make a more durable surface.


Adding gravel to the sweep area.


More Gravel

We also got the ewes out on some pasture. We still have to do their spring dewormer but this pasture can be grazed before that. The main lambing pastures in the orchard are still too short with not enough grass for the sheep to go there so we started them in the front.





Lots of Happy Sheep!

Black Sheep Power & Light

Black Sheep Power & Light, a photo by Oogie McGuire on Flickr.

One of the solar arrays providing sheep shade.

Off to Wales!

While Ken stayed home to care for the farm I headed off to Wales again to continue training to become an approved judge for Black Welsh Mountain Sheep.

After a relatively unevventful plane flight from Grand Junction to Dallas, then overnight flight from Dallas to London Heathrow, tube to Paddington Station, Train to Newport, Train to Abergavenny and lastly taxi I finally arrived in Abergavenny Wales to the Beavan Family Butcher Shop.

The Beavans' were featured in the BBC program Lambing Live. I made e-mail contact and had arranged to come visit and stay at their B&B for the first couple of days.

Most tourists are not that interested in butcher shops, but I enjoyed talking to Huw & Jan about the issues of running a small butcher shop that caters to the local trade and provides good fresh locally raised meats and eggs.


Huw Beavan


Jan Beavan


Then it was off to Great Tre-Rhew Farm and home of Kate, Jim, Trevor & Anne Beavan. The B&B portion is to the left of this picture.


As soon as I got my stuff in it was off to watch and try not to get in the way as Jim sorted out the lambs to be weaned and checked his ewes for teeth and tits. He was sorting out which ewes would be culled and which would stay for another lambing. Culls got a spot on their rump so they are easy to sort out later. Hopefully I didn't get in the way too much.

Ewes in catch pen.


Checking teeth.


I really liked his chute set-up. I don't think it would work for us because of the horns on our rams but it was sure convenient to work a bunch of sheep around. If we had all polled sheep it would be fine.

Then we moved the ewes to new grazing.


Lambs got moved to a different field



I really liked the old stone water trough. I wonder how long that's been there?


Beautiful cottage garden.

Yoda the Sheep and Pasture

Yoda looking particularly majestic. He's doing well for an old sheep.


We have some sheep on the front pear orchard pasture.

More Snow and Lambs

Got more snow today.


We started putting more dog houses out. Most of the ewes put their lambs inside and stay outside the dog house.


This ewe, Morwenna figured out how to get herself in side as well.


We are feeding more hay out on pasture to the ewes.

Major Snowstorm

Today we got a major snowstorm. Putting the ewe and her twins in a jug with a dog house to protect the new lambs. Had another lamb today too.




We had one ewe lamb born during the storm. We put a dog house and jug panels to keep her and mom in one place.

The twins from yesterday are also jugged with a dog house.

I hope no more ewes decide to lamb for a while yet. We are supposed to have snow and cold until Monday at least.

Harri Meets the Ewes

Harri is an Akbash protection dog. This is his first meeting of our pregnant ewes. They were doing well but he is a bit more active than Kimball so they are not yet used to him.

Spring Work Continues

The last couple of days we've been vaccinating the sheep and also doing toe trims. I can't do too many toes before my hands give out so we do them in batches. Pregnant ewes are now completely done except for the spring dewormer. I do that 24-48 hours before we turn them out on pasture so help keep the pastures cleaner. We're holding them in the winter corrals as long as possible because the grass is still not growing well.

Adult rams and ram yearlings all vaccinated. Ram yearlings toes all done.

Left on the list, ewe yearlings shots and toes and adult ram toes. We're slowly getting them all finished.

I've also been doing some farm tours. Yesterday was a group of chefs from Aspen learning about where the meat they buy from us really comes from. Some farms are charging for tours this year but I still think it's part of my job to educate the consumers about real local food.

Spring Tune-Ups Started

First part of the annual spring tune-up for the sheep. Yearling rams all got tags inserted and toes trimmed.

30 sheep times 4 legs per sheep times 2 toes per leg means my hands are tired!

Time for Tags

Time to put in the official scrapie tags in the sheep. It was a bit cold but sunny.


Tags in, the sheep are now racing back for breakfast. This was the yearling ewes.

Shearing Done

A bit late with my blogging. But we finished the shearing for the year. Several fleeces sold off the shearing floor. Skirting will start in the next few weeks and be up on our web site for sale later.

Rams Out!

We got the backup rams out of the ewe pens today. The 2 backups, Desert Weyr Kevyn and Desert Weyr Kirk, and the one live cover primary ram, Desert Weyr Kai, are now in a tiny pen to get used to each other. We've found that by cramming the boys in together until they all smell the same we avoid most major fighting. We are planning to put these 3 boys plus all the ram yearlings in a small pen maybe tomorrow or Tuesday to get them all living together. Later in the spring we'll combine the old rams and the younger rams back into one big bunch.

Backup Rams In

Yesterday we got the 2 backup rams in with the ewes. Desert Weyr Kevyn is in with the live cover ewes. He immediately started sniffing and chasing them and trying to mount the ewes but none are in heat.

Desert Weyr Kirk is the backup for the AI ewes. He went in and they all started to chase him and he ran away. He is rather low on the totem pole in the ram pen and I think he thought he was going to be butted. However by the evening he had figured it all out and has bred 3 ewes for sure with a fourth looking like she is coming in to heat.

These boys will stay with the ewes for 3 weeks and then they come out.

Big Snow Storm

We woke up to a lot of snow today.


The ram lambs are covered with snow.


A couple were just resting comfortably in their sheep nests.




Cwningwn AKA Bunny was staying in her private house. She is getting alfalfa pellets because she doesn't have many teeth left so she is by herself so the other sheep don't steal her food.


Ken shoveled a path to the chicken barn.


No heat from the solar system today. No sun and the panels have snow on them.

Sheep AI Experiment 2009 Part 4 - Inseminate the Ewes

Next day is the ewe insemination day.


this is the insemination pipette. It's a modified pig insemination device. It is carefully threaded into the ewe.


Ken had to hold all the ewes in the chute. Without a squeeze this time it was the only way to control them. It worked fairly well all things considered.


Threading the pipette into the ewe.


Insemination is simple.

We discovered that a maximum of 2 straws can be used or there is too big a volume of semen plus extender.

The live cover ewes are being bred by the ram Kai. We won't put a ram in with the AI group for 5 weeks.

Sheep AI Experiment 2009 Part 3 - More Ram Collections

With the USDA folks back we collected semen again. This time it will be a slightly different freezing protocol.
Here are the rams in the sweep ready to go. They are not happy, they know what's coming.



One ram Desert Weyr Kai got to go in with the ewes. He is in a bit early so we can see if our ewes come into heat sooner than the average.

Sheep AI Experiment 2009 Part 2 - Sync the Ewes

Next on the sheep AI project is getting the ewes heat cycles synchronized.

We put CIDRs in all the ewes today. First group will be the AI girls. The second batch is a control group that will be bred via a live cover ram to test the sync procedure.



Here is Beatrix, Ken and Caren after the procedure with the rest of the live cover ewes looking on.