Not only are we happy to feel the heat in the sun, but this picture pretty much sums up how the sheep are feeling; She couldn't look more content! March is here and with it the birth of a lamb!? What? We aren't supposed to lamb till mid-April! Oh well. It was born on a -30 day and it's first 2 days alive were some of the coldest this winter. But it's strong and happy and other than some cold ears, the first-time mama had him cleaned off and dry by the time I found him that morning.
We are taking our last load of lambs in to the buyer - finally! We had some trouble with worms last year which delayed their growth. With the wet season we had last year it created the perfect habitat for worms to thrive, and thrive they did! We choose not to deworm at regular intervals as we don't want resistant worms on our property. Instead we monitor by doing fecals and checking for anemia and then deworm only those that require it. We also had some feed issues with the ram lambs in the fall. Turns out some of our feed was high in nitrates and we lost several to nitrate poisoning. Very sad but a lesson learned. With feed prices being low we decided to feed them out rather than take a low price for them in the fall. Prices are up so it's time to sell!
It seems like every year we learn something new and we think, "ok, now we've seen it all!" but the next year it's a new lesson! Though with that, we are improving and changing our operation to better suit us and to raise better quality, healthier sheep.
We are taking our last load of lambs in to the buyer - finally! We had some trouble with worms last year which delayed their growth. With the wet season we had last year it created the perfect habitat for worms to thrive, and thrive they did! We choose not to deworm at regular intervals as we don't want resistant worms on our property. Instead we monitor by doing fecals and checking for anemia and then deworm only those that require it. We also had some feed issues with the ram lambs in the fall. Turns out some of our feed was high in nitrates and we lost several to nitrate poisoning. Very sad but a lesson learned. With feed prices being low we decided to feed them out rather than take a low price for them in the fall. Prices are up so it's time to sell!
It seems like every year we learn something new and we think, "ok, now we've seen it all!" but the next year it's a new lesson! Though with that, we are improving and changing our operation to better suit us and to raise better quality, healthier sheep.
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