Shearing The Sheep

 

Our first attempt  with Deer

First attempt with Blackwell

The wool sheep needed to be sheared and Teen Son’s FFA sheep needed to be sheared. Teen Son’s FFA teacher loaned us her shearers.  We decided to start with one of the sheep that will not be shown at the county fair.  We started with Deer and the shearers did nothing to her fur, we actually pulled more off with our hands than we cut off.  So we it tried on Blackwell and it started going through but it was a long slow process.  It took 30 minutes to get one hip done. 

Teen Son contacted his teacher and she told him to wash Penelope before we tried shearing her again.  Penelope did not enjoy being washed but we got her done and then the shearers worked a little better but still very slow.  Poor Penelope got immensely board, we got tired and frustrated. We stopped torturing her when she was about 1/3 done.

 We called the feed store we normally use and they do not carry shearing supplies so we went to the other store and bought Large Animal Clippers.  A man at the store said he had just used them to shear 20 sheep so awesome! We bought them.  We were able to shear Penelope but still painfully long and not beautiful so we cleaned them and returned them.  By now poor Penelope was about ½ sheared. 

I ordered Oster ShearMaster Shearers.  $300 and a few days later as soon as UPS dropped off the shearers we sheared Penelope quickly and easily after school one evening.

Penelope finally sheared.

The other sheep checking out Penelope.

 

Let me take a break to talk about the process of sheep shearing.  If you look up how to shear a sheep on You Tube you will see lots of videos of people (mostly large men) flipping a sheep up on their butts and holding the sheep against the mans body with one hand and shearing the sheep with their other hand. When the sheep are flopped on their backs or buts they seem to pass out or relax.  Blackwell would lick me while we were trying to do it.  This works great if you are over 6 feet tall and strong. – I am neither!  We watched hours of the videos looking for a way that didn’t break my back.  When it came down to it, it was much easier for me to hold our sheep either on my lap or them standing and me sitting in a chair.  Maybe if we had wild sheep the flipping them around might be better. 

Maxwell

Saturday morning we start shearing, I held the sheep while Teen Son used the shearers.  We started with Maxwell because I caught her first and she is the most skittish so we thought we would get her done first.  Maxwell was sheared quickly and easily with our new shearers.  She had one slight cut.  We were super confident.  We grabbed Dot and she was so relaxed while we were shearing her she kept reaching for grass to eat she took a step while we were not holding her skin tight enough and took a slice out of her leg.  We called College Girl and asked her to bring home some antibiotic spray for Dot's cut. 

Blackwell before

Then we started on Blackwell and decided to have fun with her hair cut and we left the wool long around her neck like a lion’s mane.  We were able to trim Blackwell with just a few nicks.

When we finished shearing the sheep and they all were together again Penelope realized she was not the smallest sheep she was the biggest!  She spent a few hours pushing the others around and butting heads to make sure everyone knew she was a big girl. 

Blackwell after, being told by Penelope "I'm Bigger than YOU!"

Teen Son took Penelope to be weighed and his teacher felt she needed to be resheared, again, so her wool would be shorter.  Teen Son contacted the breeder we bought Penelope from and asked her to help us.  She came with a shearing stand!  It is pretty similar to a goat’s milk stand and we put Penelope on it and she gave us a lesson on shearing.  Unfortunately her shearers were not working right.  She showed us how our shearers are shaped badly and make it easy to cut the sheep.  She and Teen Son got the wool on Penelope much shorter.  We felt very successful.  

The Birds

Palm, Laurel, Hardy, and a Stooge

It has been a long time since I sat down long enough to give an update.  We were given the opportunity to purchase our neighbors house.  I had hoped to get it and keep it as a rental but it has turned out to be way too expensive for us to keep.  Buying it has allowed us to take care of some drainage problems it has that leads to drainage problems for our property.  It has been a lot of work but it will be worth it every time it rains. 

I will try to update you on all the animals as quickly as I can. 

Palm trying to impress the new ladies.  The Shrew told him she was not interested and to stay away from her and Tomas.  

Las time I wrote we had 1 Tom turkey, Palm was hopefully a girl, we had the 2 turkey hens, and four babies.  All the baby turkeys died; 2 died in their box, 1 ran off and we couldn’t find it, 1 went in to the roosters pen and was killed.  While we were fixing our Flip House we forgot to lock up Dakota and he broke out of the house.  He killed one of the turkey hens and one of the chickens.  A few weeks later a coyote got the other turkey hen.  So we were left with just Palm and Tomas.  Palm is looking like he is a boy but Palm still has not started getting any black marks on his feathers so I am starting to think he may be a different breed than the Royal Palm.  We were looking new turkey hens but it took a while to find some close. 

Tomas strutting his stuff.

 We found 2 mixed breed hens.  We brought home Lolita and The Shrew.  They are 1 year old and we are getting an egg about every other day from them.  I have made some awesome scrambles! 

The chickens stealing fodder.

Most days all the birds roam free so often we find eggs in unexpected places.  Letting the birds free range has cut down on our bug population.  I had hoped they would break up more of the sheep and cattle poop but so far they are not going into the cattle pasture unless they are stealing fodder in the morning.  

Baby Turkeys

Henny’s eggs started hatching.  Her nest was not in a good place for her to have her babies so I planned on waiting for one of my kids to help me move her into a “maternity pen”.  I couldn't wait for help. I am too impatient so I set up and moved the maternity ward pen by myself. Then I got brave and moved Henny and her poults to the new area. She was not happy with me - tried to bite me a couple times succeeded once. At first we had 11 baby turkeys and one working frantically to get out of its egg. Then Henny sat back on the eggs and told me to give her some privacy.

I was so thrilled.  Day old turkeys are easy to sell for $10 each.  I was thrilled.  One of my animals might actually start helping pay for herself!  I wanted to wait until they were at least a week old just because I have read that baby turkeys are so fragile.

13 poults hatched.  One died the first night.  The babies thrived.  The eggs that the other turkey hen put in her nest never hatched.  When the poults were 6 days old my son discovered 4 dead in the pen.  We cleaned out the pen, made sure the rest were healthy, and continued checking on them throughout the day.  One died after escaping the cage.  Everything was fine at 2:pm, then we got busy. 

When we went to feed the animals and put everyone in a pen for the night, we discovered 3 more dead.  Henny appeared to be trying to protect the poults from the wind by grabbing and stepping on the babies. 

We put the 4 surviving poults in a small cage with a heat lamp.  I was very worried when we went to check on the babies but they seem to be thriving. 

 

Problems With Growing Fodder

Trying to grow fodder in a room that is not climate controlled has it’s challenges.  It’s our weather.  We are blessed to live where we have very few days that freeze.  BUT as soon as we set up my fodder room outside we had a record cold wave.  Durring winter/cold weather it was taking 10 to 12 days to grow the fodder.  We kept a heater on at night but that just kept everything from freezing.  Then we had some hot humid weather and I started having mold problems.  They were taken care of by adding H2O2 to my routine.  Last week we had near record high heat with humidity in the low teens and I couldn’t keep my seeds wet enough.  The seeds that had sprouted already LOVED the warmth and grew to record (for us) heights.  I tried setting empty seed trays on top of the seeds that had not sprouted to keep the moisture in and that seemed to help but also started some mold growth.  Then our hot weather was followed by a late storm.  It was cold and wet, but not wet enough to help with our rainfall.  The fodder growing slowed down with that weather change.  That was followed by record heat again.

The fodder room has 6 shelves long enough for 12 trays of fodder.  I had been putting the trays for each day going across the shelves horizontally but because of not being able to climate control the room for probably months now I need to figure out how to keep everything growing.  Keeping the seeds and early sprouts moist has been my big issue; so I am in the process of moving all the trays so each day is vertical.  This way when the seeds need extra water I am not giving it to the trays of fodder that do not need it. 

Add to that problems with both well and city water and I am just thankful to keep the fodder growing.. but that’s another story.  

Brooding Turkeys

Our turkeys are amazing fun animals.  I do not know why everyone doesn’t have one.  They are so fun – we have only had them a few months so that opinion could change. 

When we got the turkeys, Penny, one started laying eggs the first day.  The problem was she would lay them in bad places.  When she lays the egg or makes the nest she looks like she is dying.  My cats have learned to leave turkeys and chickens alone but when they are laying with their neck stretched out flopping about in the dust one of the cats couldn’t help herself and jumped on the poor hens head.  The hen walloped her and the tom then chased her away from their area for a few days.  She also placed them under trees that cannot be fenced around or under a stack of building scraps.  We would find these eggs sometimes after they had been broken but IF we found a whole one we put it in the turkey coop and hopefully she would eventually start having eggs in there. 

The other hen, Henny, started laying eggs after they had been here about 10 days, in one of the nesting boxes we put in the turkey coop.  Yay! One of my animals is behaving properly.  After she laid 17 eggs she started sitting or brooding on the eggs.  She gets up once or twice a day to eat and drink then goes back to her nest.   One thing I started noticing was Penny would sit on top of Henny for a while and push her around and then walk away.  So I did an egg count when Henny was up for a short walk and we have 24 eggs in Henny’s nest.  Penny has been putting her eggs there!  Some of those eggs will take an extra week to hatch.  I could find nothing on the internet about if the last ones that were put there will hatch.  

We moved Penny into the chicken coop, gathered up all the eggs we could find of hers and put them in a nesting box in the chicken coop.  The first night Little Palm chirped and cried for hours.  The second night we put Palm into the chicken coop too.  At first the chickens were not real happy but when the temperatures dropped down at night they moved over on their roost so they could enjoy Palm’s extra heat.  

I am working on getting a camera again but it is back ordered.  

Fodder and H2O2

I love H2O2 or food grade hydrogen peroxide!  As soon as weather warmed up I started fighting mold.  I tried fans, bleach in the water and still mold problems.  Currently there is no way for me to a/c my fodder room.  Then I remembered when I first joined a fodder discussion board on Facebook they were talking about H202 and ordered it.  I have been using 4 drops in my soak water and 1 drop in each tray of seeds once a day.  Twice during this time the door to the fodder room has been closed so the air couldn't circulate causing the room to get over 100 one day and high 90's another and still no mold.

I apologize for no pictures.  My husband took the new camera on a kayak trip.   

The Problem with Rescue and Gift Animals

Photo by www.porterturkeys.com

When we bought our first sheep, the owner said they were registrable but is wasn't something he did.  Then when we went to get them we didn’t know anything about sheep I looked up on the internet so we would know what to get.  They were supposed to be Shetland Sheep and maybe they are Shetland crosses but even though I had looked up information as to what to look for I was so excited to get the sheep I didn’t pay attention to anything I had read the kids fell in love with 4 sheep and we brought them home.  While we were talking to their owner it became clear he ran a kind of private rescue operation.  At the time all our animals have been rescues or pets people didn’t want so it didn’t bother me.  We thought they were Shetland Sheep but,  I have no idea there real breed.  Deer I think is crossed with a hair sheep.  Blackwell looks like a Shetland – except she is larger and it looks like she had horns removed.  So here I am with 2 sheep who’s breed I really know nothing about. 

Palm (formerly known as Butter Ball) with the chickens.

When our friend gave us Butterball I kept asking her what it’s breed was.  She thought it was something broad breasted and since BBW or Broad Breasted White is a pretty popular breed we went on that assumption.  Today I went to the feed store and asked if he knew what he had sold to my friend.  Butterball isn’t a BBW at all.  Butterball is a Royal Palm Turkey.  http://www.avianweb.com/royalpalmturkeys.html

A beautiful, beautiful breed but we need to change it’s name, I don’t know if I will want to eat it if it is a boy.  But I don’t want a Royal Palm Tom around with the Bourbon Red turkeys.  Royal Palms are lawn decorations and not usually eaten.  If it is a girl will I want to cross breed it with the Bourbon Reds? 

Palm follows Tomas everywhere!  At first Tomas would try to herd Palm back to his enclosure but now he looks for Palm when he isn't within 5 feet of Tomas.