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.