A fun day! And it didn’t take us all day to do either! We are getting better at all of this!!! Enjoy!
What we were doing was sorting out our breeding animals and our non-breeding animals into two groups.
We had our ram, Lukkus, up front with his two little whether pals, Fennel and Huldur. And back in the main group we had to remove several animals that didn’t belong for various reasons.
Angus, the whether, feels he is the protector of the girls and he interferes with the breeding ram. Just too much competition and so he needed to go for a break.
Bonnie, a ewe, is our mixed breed rescue gal who is not exactly a spring chicken. She had her two sweet girl lambs this year but I think that is plenty for her. She will be a good babysitter and protector of the up front, non-breeding flock.
Rosemary, Ginger and Raspberry, yearling ewes born this spring are really just too little. We have found that yearling moms are just not always that good at it and size is important. Too little and they just seem to have very little babies, or worse, stillborn. It’s just not a risk we like to take. Size and maturity really matters.
So, this is now the little group up front for a few weeks, waiting out their time and enjoying a little smaller group action. Angus and Bonnie will be the babysitters and the three yearlings will get a little time to grow up!
Lukkus will hopefully cuddle up and show off his manly prowess to the following girls… Iris, Beulah, Pearl, Emma, Galadriel, Lydia, Willow and Laurel. Eight ewes should give us about 10-12 lambs. That is a good number. We will keep a few, but the rest will be sold or traded late in 2016. After we see how they are maturing and all. A few boys will probably end up in the freezer. Someone’s freezer. We are not big lamb eaters but I have heard that lamb sausage is pretty darn good and we could always sell some shares and sides or even entertain the idea of home grown dog food. How wonderfully natural would that be? It’s all a part of homesteading… encouraging the animals to help pay for their way and their lovely life here. They are not pets but livestock, but we do love and care for them and their humane treatment and content good life is VERY important to us! It’s all good!!!
Now if we could only have a litter or two of piggies soon!!! Common’ girls… we are waiting!!!
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