The joy of discovery

We have discovered how some lambs have wriggled out of the fenced enclosure.

The men who did the fencing used the field fence upside down along one stretch such that the small gaps are on top and the large gaps beneath. The lambs, not being quite as stupid as one might think based on the reputation of sheep, discovered this and squeezed through.

We can't really blame the sheep, but we are a trifle disappointed in the men who did the work. Our disappointment continued while we were pinning chicken wire to the fence to block ovine excursions, and using plastic tent pegs to pin it to the ground so that they couldn't wriggle underneath.

We didn't have quite enough chicken wire for the whole length, so we blocked off the rest with piled douglas fir branches, but we will finish the job as soon as time permits.

A hard day's night

Today started late, since the farmers both slept in to make up for lost sleep over the week. However, once we got under way it was with a vengeance. Today's task was to separate and tag as many ewes as we could, then get them in the ewe enclosure.

This task, simple as it sounds, took us until night fell. Tedious, but difficult. We did manage to tag what we believe was the last untagged lamb - Bo Peep's lamb. She's beautiful, big and elegant with wool as soft as a cloud. At our best count we have eight rams and forty-nine ewes including this year's lambs. This is still subject to modification.

With this task mercifully out of the way we can focus on other things, like clearing up and building more fences. Ultimately we should have the whole farm well subdivided.

Recovery

The week goes out, and with it some of the heaviest rain of the season. The turf is rich green, thick and soft. The sheep have been confined all this time, so the rest of the farm's grazing is recovering well. The side with the rams, and hitherto the bulk of the ewes, has been fairly well cleared but we have put the feeders in with them and started giving them hay.

Today there was such a scrum around the feeders that a farmer could quietly prowl around and pick out ewes to toss (gently) into the other side. Thus we work on separating them further.

Tlingit was a particularly fortuitous catch. She's a large, strong ewe (for a Soay), and we've been meaning to grab her anyway because the tags in her ears don't meet the standard of the USDA for the scrapie program. Carrying a fifty pound bag of feed is one thing, but a fifty pound fighting ewe is quite another. Still in the end she was tagged, her hooves trimmed, and she was driven in among the other ewes.

Tlingit's ram lamb is only about half a year old now, but he is already large. His sire and dam are the largest of their sex in our flock, so we expect him to be a gorgeous flock sire.

We intend to be cautious in pairing rams and ewes, so that the smaller ewes are only tupped by smaller rams. This results in fewer birthing complications, and was recommended as sound practice by the vet.

Among the tasks we intend to tackle in the near future are building more enclosures. This will let us put aside the ewes in groups for breeding, or not, depending on their condition. Some of the ewes which bred this last season have not completely recovered their condition, so it seems prudent to give them a rest.

In sickness and in convenience

It has been a rainy week. September is closing in, here in the Pacific Northwest, and bringing the first really sustained rains of the season. The duckpond is up to capacity, the rainbarrels likewise, or nearly. The farmers unfortunately fell prey to a seasonal affliction and consequently not a lot has happened over the past week.

The good news is that one half of the fenced pasture, with the bulk of the sheep (around forty) has in that week been largely cleared. Allowing for some losses, we can call it a third of an acre. This means that with roughly a hundred sheep we could clear an acre off undergrowth in roughly a week or ten days, should that be our goal.

At any rate, the scotch broom has been aggressively chewed, the blackberries heavily trimmed, and even the lower tree branches nibbled. The visibility within three feet of ground level has improved immensely - where it has been dense shrubbery it is now airy and open.

The lumpy ground enabled a few sheep to escape under the wire until we blocked that gap. There was another gap between two corner posts - ours and a neighbour's - and a lamb escaped there, but a few carefully placed bindings of baling twine block that gap now, and we have had no escapes since then.

The Hobhouse File

Here we see the gate of the new enclosure, or half of it at any rate. The support posts are sunk a few feet into the ground and set in concrete. They are really going nowhere. The gate itself came with this nice galvanised mesh which should resist the elements well. One can see in this picture the young trees and some of the brush (including much scotch broom) which the sheep will be able to attack when hunger strikes.

The sheep have realised the true cynical nature of their captors, and Jojo and Double Nickel are conspiring to confront and defeat the forces of oppression. It is also possible that they hoped that the photographer would feed them carrots or sweet feed.

Nobody knows the trouble they've seen. Nobody except the wicked, uncaring farmers, and the geese, who are bullies anyway. If the fence looks a little skew, that is because it is, if only slightly, to deal with some unevenness at ground level. It is not as tight as a drum, but has a little give. It is still clipped firmly to each post, so it will not pull loose at any given point.

This image has nothing whatever to do with the desperate plight of the sheep, but much to do with the nimbleness of the rodential extermination team. There are very few places where vermin could hope to escape their razor-sharp claws of feline death, and they survey their domain from on high, waiting for the weak and foolish to stray into their clutches.

Stalag Schaf is complete.

We have the east pasture now enclosed, split into two paddocks. The sheep are currently all in one, but they will soon be split into two flocks; ewes and rams separated so that we can control breeding.

This is a big step in convenience for us. We had hoped to use devon hedges, but it soon became quite clear that the sheep were far too nimble for that to be a viable solution. Four foot tall steel field fence (a square mesh with squares each about four inches across) will keep them firmly where they belong, or so we hope and believe. It was not too hard getting them in there, but separation might be trickier. It may have to be a staged event with multiple efforts. While it is possible that the sheep might jump that fence in panic flight, it is definitely more than they casually jump. The temporary fencing was only jumped by Bolivar when it sagged.

The temporary paddock area will be thoroughly sowed with pasture seed mix so that it can recover well. We will have to undo everything there. We have not yet moved the shelters to the new paddock, but there are lots of trees which afford the sheep excellent shelter, so it is not a major concern for now. We have however put a trough with water for the sheep in the new paddock, and siphoned water from a rain barrel to meet their needs.

Labour day indeed

It has been a productive time.

We finally found a couple of men who will do some of the fencing we need, fencing off the easternmost pasture. This is good, given the amount of time we have had to pay attention to the movements of the sheep. Within another week, all should be done with a pair of gates hung to afford access.

The weather has finally taken a firm turn for the moist, and the plants are clearly responding. Many of the deciduous plants have already lost their leaves, but the bulk of the leaves are still to fall. The apples on our property don't seem likely to be good cider apples, but we shall see what we shall see. Some are attractively scented table apples. The sheep like them as well, the windfalls which they can reach.

The process of getting fencing under way means that we have started to trim tree branches as well from the lines of douglas fir on the property. With any luck, once we have finished this and a few years have passed, we will get a good price for the timber.

The raccoon depredations have continued, and we are back to sixteen ducks (of which eight are juveniles), but we hope to address this in a fairly final way soon.

We are investigating, given the rapacity with which the sheep attack scotch broom, bracken, wild carrot and even nibble at thistles, the practicality of renting them out as weed control. How this will play out remains to be seen.

1 September 2010
cool & damp

There has been another minor explosion of ducklings in the vicinity. Drawn by various peepings, we observed another 8 ducklings pecking on the lawn in front of the porch amid the towering giants of geese. They seemed quite unafraid, thanks to their superior numbers.

The barn cats were confined, not for the duration, but due to the weather, which was quite rainy. The sheep were grateful for the shelter during the rains but have learned to eat around the clock lately, which means they eat even after dark. The upside of this is they are getting quite fat. The downside is that they are quite ready for more food first thing in the morning.