Friday, April 15, 2016

Friday





Spent my day running between hanging gates and support boards on the posts I put in last week and delivering lambs. Back and forth.

We had another brace of triplets. This time it was the Ewe with the HUGE utter from the post I did a couple days ago.




Her utter is so huge she cannot even properly nurse her new lambs and of course she has to pop out three of them. This is her last year as a breeding ewe. She will officially join the Invalid/Retirement flock next year. Truth is she is getting up there in years anyway and I shouldn't have bred her this year but at the time I had forgot about her giant udder problem. I had to hold her while my mother milked her and then we bottle fed the lambs to be sure they are getting enough. Eventually the lambs will figure out they have to go lower to get their meals but this is too much work so I decreed her breeding days are over.

Besides that udder is pure torture on her and she has been a good ewe over the years. She deserves a break.

I went and hung the 16 foot gate....




Then heard another ewe go into labor so it was back into the barn. This time it was an easy single lamb birth. We had two of them this year so far which is unusual as well but to be expected as many of the ewes are getting older and slowing down some.

Apparently I miss measured the walk in gate space or the post hole drill moved more than I thought because now the opening is too narrow for a standard four foot gate along the side of the out building. I am going to have to custom make one or pull the post. I think I will make a gate though as waiting for the posts to settle is the main factor slowing me down on this fence project.

I am doing these gate posts a bit differently this time and not cutting a wedge out of the posts for the support boards. I am using boards on one side cut flush and then going to use cattle panels cut to size for the other side. This will allow rigid support on both sides and save me from making short wire runs. Besides as I replace the old rotting patched fences I have an abundance of left over cattle panels that are damaged I need to use up.

After this gate hanging is finished I need to go back into the woods and cut some more posts and buy some T-posts to get one side of the East pasture done then I can take down the temporary electric fence run, brush hog it out and clean out the eyesore wooden fence that is falling down to get ready for the next phase of the gate corral.

The gate corral is kinda where several pastures and paddocks will all come together and will end up being it's own little paddock to act as redundancy and so I can safely move the sheep between sections without exposing them to an open escape route. It's going to be expensive though with three 16' gates and at least two 8' gates plus at least one walk in gate.

I might make it by May.... but I doubt it. Probably going to be late-May at the earliest now. Maybe even June before this part of the plan comes together. If I survive that long.....

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!!





14 comments:

  1. So what were the new triplets? Enquiring minds want to know.

    Exile1981

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    1. Exile - Actually this second set of triplets were 2 girls and 1 boy. We got our first black girl of the season as well. I need to re-tally but I think we are at 18 rams and 5 ewes now? Around in there.

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  2. We sadly don't have enough grazing land to keep a retired flock of sheep, and we shall have to soon have to rethink the viability of keeping our two Tamworth pigs because they are being lazy about breeding and we need the space to bring new stock in. Sometimes we wish we had more land, although we feel we can just about manage the five hectares we already have.

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    1. Vera - Well the truth is I don't really have enough land for retired sheep either if I want enough hay to last the Winter. If I got rid of the retired horses I would but not as it stands now. I don't have to pay for the extra hay and feed though as that is my moms problem she is the one who foots the bill for retired animals not me. The one thing that bothers me is though that due to the retired horses and sheep we end up having to rely on others for hay and I do not like that. Seems whenever I have to rely on someone else it never gets done on time or right.

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  3. I enjoy hearing about your master fence building, not many do that any more around here. They tear down every fence they have because the taxes go down without fences. They eventually only have a small over used area to run animals and can't rotated the pasture and crop land.

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    1. Sf - Interesting. My county has never mentioned anything about fencing raising the property tax. Most of what I am doing is mostly internal anyway but with sheep and our proximity to a flat straight paved road that idiots like to drive 100MPH on having good fence is a necessity. I need to get the sheep rotating pasture too to clear out some of these broad leafed weeds the horses won't eat.

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  4. PP,
    Congrats on the triplets! This means more work for you and your Mom. Have you tried getting t posts off of Craigslist?
    Keep up the good fence work.

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    Replies
    1. Sandy - We got two sets of triplets so far this year!!! I have never seen ads for posts on craigslist that were cheap enough and close enough to make it worth my time over brand new. People seem to think knocking off a quarter per post is enough around here I guess.

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  5. So that 'udder' was "utter"ly huge? Sorry, don't usually resort to spelling police mode but couldn't pass this one up ;-)

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    1. Anon- That's the risk I take when I am so utterly exhausted :)

      Teach me to get more sleep:)

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  6. Sounds like lambing is going well! That's always a relief. And I was glad to hear we're not the only ones who end up with gate openings that are just off enough to require some creative intervention. :)

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    1. Leigh - The problem is the post hole drill is much larger than I need for some posts and I don't feel like buying one of each size nor switching one out each time. The implement moves when trying to place it on the ground and then the post gets moved to one side or the other when tamping it in. It happens. Usually the gate only needs to open one way anyway :)

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  7. MAN you never quit do you?? that i s a lot of work my friend and somewhere along the line you figured out retirement for that poor ewe - good on you..

    i just bought you a beer but you are not here so i drank it ;-))

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    Replies
    1. Jamby - One of the other retired ewes is jonesin right now though because she wants babies so bad. Jst can't afford the vet visits to make sure they survive it these days.

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