Keeping vegetative organic matter from the wool of a sheep is paramount. Fine wool gathers debris down the centre of the back where the wool naturally parts, but on medium wooled sheep, this does not happen. The sheep with the more 'solid' wool coats are ones that do not have dirty wool, because the fibres are so tight that nothing gets in. It is like a water shed, only a shed for organic matter. 

Observe the different species of sheep and the amount of debris in the wool. The more debris, the more difficult or impossible to clean, rendering the wool unsuitable to wear next to the skin. It can still be used for felting, but for carded products, like wool batting for quilts and pillows, or spin wool for knit garments, the debris would itch and scratch. One of the most beautiful wools is cashmere, which is not wool at all, but the winter downy coat under a goat's long fibres. This must be combed out from the goat twice yearly, with different goats rendering more or less cashmere. There is no one breed of cashmere goat. 

Now that I have learned about the wool, and why some is more apt to gather debris, there are two options. A feeder which is lower and does not damage the throat wool when the head is stuck through, plus placing the hay in the feeder without sheep present and coats. Coats for sheep eliminate the problem all together. For the Cotswolds this might just be a good idea since their long lustre wool is very sought after, if it is clean. No one wants dirty wool, unless it is free and then that defeats the purpose of having a fibre farm, now doesn't it.?

Brrr. The little woodstove can barely keep the farmhouse warm. The furnace has come on a few times this evening. It is set at 14 degrees so that gives an idea of just how much heat is necessary. The woodstove is stoked full and running red hot, but the only warmth is within a few feet from it. Even the kitchen, which is open to the stove, is cold. Two of the dogs are in the porch tonight. One of the goats slept out of the shelter, most likely because a herd boss threw her out. This is not at all good. Goats get pneumonia and can die easily if they get a chill. She did warm up inside for part of the day. I should check to see if she is outside again and at least stack some straw bales around her if so. 
It is minus 32 with a wind again dropping the feel to below 40, but the rest of February, according to Accuweather.com, will be warmer and warmer, thank goodness. Then spring is truly just around the corner. 

Tonight the supper in the farmhouse is bunny and lamb, slow roasted separately until tender and fragrant. Along with a spinach salad with fresh banana, it will be a supper fit for a farmer!

Moab, 
This farmerette runs hot most of the time. My bed has a wool mattress pad on organic foam rubber from a tree, then a wool comforter and I am never cold when I sleep. Surrounding oneself with wool is the most comfortable sleep one can have, despite the air temperature, warm or cold. Wool breathes and insulates. I have a winter wool weight comforter that I cannot use because it is too hot. 
Today it is snowing and blowing and the temperature is minus 29 with the windchill keeping it near minus 40, but it is the last day of frigid weather according to the weather report. Spring is on its way!

The weather was coming. The forecast was to batten down the hatches and stack lots of wood for the night, and sure enough, the temperature plummeted to minus 32, but the windchill factor made it feel like minus 43. This was the first day that the sheep used their shelters. Even when it was snowing, they would simply lay down and sleep the night away, then wake in the morning, give a big shake, shake, shake and the snow would mostly fall away. The spot in which the sheep lay was hollowed from the body heat, but they did not use their shelters. I am quite sure there were two factors that made it feel colder than the thermometer actually reads. 

The day before it was terribly foggy. The whole farm was covered with a huge hoar frost and when the sun broke through the fog later in the afternoon, the air was glittering with ice crystals. This moist cold air penetrates the bones, unlike the usual cold dry air in this country. Then that wind, oh that wind...when it began to blow from the north west, I am sure some of the Arctic was in it. 

And wouldn't you know it! That was the night, last night, when the second heat lamp bulb burned out in the chicken coop. Fortunately, with the wind from the north west, the coop stayed reasonably warm with the heat from the single lamp and the 25 chickens. It was the poor ducks and geese I felt so sorry for. They have no heat, no insulated shelter, just a shed sided with hay bales on the south and plywood on the other sides. They had not been outside when I arrived in the late morning and that is highly uncharacteristic. So, I put nice dry fresh straw down in their pens and gave them hot water from the house. A few of those crazy ducks climbed in the water to have a bath and froze to solid ice when they emerged. Goodness, they are fortunate to have that down under those feathers, but even they were shivering. 

And the poor goats were cold. The one who raised triplets had not recovered fully from being a mother when winter set in. She is thin and does not want to come out to eat or drink when it is cold, so today she got a dog coat and fresh hay delivered to her house. Three sheep and the goats share a shelter. The sheep are there to add warmth and last night was the first time they all crowded together inside. With that many bodies to heat the shelter, the temperature must have been quite a bit warmer than outside, plus they did not have that frigid wind to contend with. 

Tonight is the last night predicted for frigid weather and then the forecast for February is consistently warmer. Spring is on its way! I am grateful for the cold so when it is not so, I appreciate it more. 

Robbie is full of it. Always. Mischief and trouble with a capital T. He should be working on a cattle farm where he could bite the cows and move them along all day. That is where his lineage lies. We have been working on his commands for some time now and also on watching, not herding and not biting. He is slowly coming around and is especially good with the baby Berkshires. Today, I let the piggies out for a jaunt around the birds areas. It is good for the species to intermingle so that when the birds free range and the pigs are older, chickens and ducks do not become snacks for the grown up pigs. It helps the animals all become used to one another. The piggies were very good too, and Robbie made it his job to keep an eye on them. I eventually had to tie Robbie up with a leash and take him with me to get the piggies back to their own pen, because he would always head them off and send them away. They finally went in and were fed and watered and the door was closed. I can now pet them both, giving them some good scratches on the belly and behind the ears. They are so cute!

Last spring the farm acquired 5 supposedly purebred Embden Geese. They were adorable little yellow fluffballs, but one had a bit of a tuft on his head and some grey in the yellow feathers. Never having owned geese or even been around them before, I simply assumed that is how they were. They grew incredibly fast, eating mostly grass and whatever they found in it. Two others were eaten by the raven, right through the wire of their cage. The raven sat outside and waited for the opportune moment to strike, grabbing the gosling and killing it, almost. I saw this happen and as I was running to save the little fellow, his feet were propelling like riding a bike in mid air and then nothing more. The raven had already taken a toll on some other babies on the farm which is why the goslings were in a cage. My mistake was the cage was in a fence, not in the yard where the dogs could have watched over the babies. 

So, the five goslings soon were big. I really enjoyed watching them and they greeted me loudly as I approached. They also greeted any others with an even louder voice. I suppose that is how they earned their watch dog reputation. 

Then the opportunity arose to buy some American Buff goslings from a local friend.They only had two and a different cross, Toulousse and Buff as well. The three joined the farm with the Saxony ducklings that also came along. The trio of geese and the Saxonies formed a bond and do not like to be separated, that is until lately. 

The Embdens hang around together. Today was bright and sunny and only -14, so I let the waterfowl out of their enclosures for the day. The geese all formed a group, sans the Saxony ducks, and waddled around together, bathed together and slept together. Then when it was time to go home, they went to their respective pens. i was sort of wondering if they were beginning to mate for spring, though there is no sign of that behaviour and I have no clue which are males or females. They sure were beautiful basking in the sun together. The Embdens have blue eyes, but are loud and chase the dogs and cats and chickens. The big Toulouse cross must be a gander because a few times he has raised his wings and hissed at me. I just raise my wings and hiss at him and I am much bigger so he quickly backs away, sometimes running.  It will be interesting when they start to mate too. Baby goslings are soooooooo cute!


Moab.
The chickens, ducks and geese do not lay in the dead of winter. Here in the frozen north, it is a rare chicken who feels so inspired to continue to produce eggs. Their natural rhythms are such that when the days are short, they instinctively know that it is not the time to reproduce. Many chicken farmers add heat and artificial light to induce laying all the time. The Fat Ewe Farm does provide two heat lamps for the chickens, though the ducks and geese do not require heat, even in 40 below. They must be sheltered from the wind and are grateful for some straw on the ground so their feet do not freeze, but otherwise, they are very hardy. They do not lay in winter though. 

Geese are seasonal layers. Once they know it is the time, usually late spring or early summer, they will pair off or sometimes a gander will take two ladies, but not usually and the geese will make a crude nest and begin to lay. Geese are excellent setters and great mothers, so usually can have successful hatches of their own. Some breeds of ducks will become broody and raise a clutch of eggs. Last year, this was so. There were also two hens that raised 10 chicks between them and those 10 birds are now half grown and part of the flock. The chickens have been laying from 3 - 7 eggs daily. Some excess go to the animals, but usually cooked as they can utilize the protein better and for the dogs, it discourages egg stealing. Fluffy is not much of an egg eater so the eggs are gifted to the two seniors who help out on the farm and to friends who come by. Eventually the farm will have fewer hens and only one or two roosters, but winter is not the time to downsize. The more bodies in the coop, the warmer they keep it. Thanks for asking.

The goats do not much like the cold weather. As a matter of fact, they would prefer never to step on the snow at all. Daphne, the pure Nigerian Dwarf doe, is the shiest of all when it comes to cold, followed by Weezie and then Sarah, but Sarah is making new friends with the new goats. She is still going to be the largest goat of all when she is a full grown Alpine, three times the size of the miniature Nigerians that just arrived. She used to fit in a dog igloo house along with Weezie and Daphne, but now she can barely fit by herself. Sometimes she puts her head and forequarters in with her butt sticking out and sleeps that way. I can't imagine it is very warm. Now that the other goats use the shelter, she has been using it too, something a lot more her size. 

Weezie and Daphne have not been out very much the last three days. This is serious business. If the goats do not eat and drink enough during the cold spells, they will suffer dehydration and become weak, then then , then they die. They die easily and are very picky eaters and very finicky to deal with, not at all like most people think they are. After the blizzard, the snow had blown and drifted two to three feet high in some places. There is a bale windblock in front of any south facing entrances, including to the dog igloo goat house. So, I went to look for Weezie or Daphne in one of the houses. 

Weezie poked her head out but it was quite clear that she was "snowed" in. The drift had completely covered half of the entrance. She could have gotten out if she was desperate,though I suspect it was warm and toasty in there after being covered by snow, which is a good insulator. I brought some fresh hay to entice Weezie out after I cleared her doorway. She began to eat and so did some one else! There were two goaties in the house, Weezie and Daphne!

He was still bleeding this morning. I do not know how much blood he lost, but I don't think it was too much. His eyes were bright and he was alert, just tired. I brought him inside by the fire and cleaned up his wounds...just a few bites it appears, though it was hard to tell with all his fur. He was grateful for some treats I had saved for him as well, the fat and bones from some pork chops and he got to lick the pan clean. Then he had a drink and laid down to rest. Once he got too warm, he started to pant and wanted to go outside again. He does not like being inside, but I guess wearing that thick fur coat, it would make him uncomfortable at temperatures I find comforting. He slept most of the day in his dog house outside. The wind had died down, thank goodness, but the temperature is still minus 20 with a drop to -24 tonight. He had a snack of some dog kibbles and a drink and went back to bed in his house. 

Harley came to the farm a year and a half ago, at age 2. He was very malnourished, weighing a meager 68 pounds when he should have weighed double that. He was kind and gentle, but so large I did not know quite what to make of him. His previous owner seemed anxious to get rid of him, but Harley has proven time and again to be a very valued member of the Fat Ewe Farm. He fought coyotes fearlessly and had many cuts and bite scars to show it. He liked to come up between my legs from behind and look up at me with those big brown eyes. 
Harley was gentle with the livestock and never showed any signs of agression,except once when the whole pack went into pack mentality in the middle of the night last summer as the male llama was trying to breed the female. I am sure the dogs thought and still do think that when the male llama bites the females and orgles, which is their singing to entice the girls, that he is hurting them. That is the only time Harley has ever shown any agression to livestock on the farm. 
I love Harley so very much.  The weather is frigid, snowing and minus 28 tonight with a wind chill factor on top of that. If he is injured, there is little chance he will survive the night. I took Robbie out earlier to look around the quarter, but we found nothing, no tracks even. I drove the truck around the intersection and down the highway a little in case he was struck, but there were no tracks and no Harley. He was such a beautiful soul, such a wonderful dog. I am wishing to see his face looking at me when I wake up tomorrow. I love you Harley. 

I don't think boar goats are so attractive. The pure bred Boar doeling that used to live on the farm was a baaaaaad goatie. She got out all the time and into the grain, wherever she was able to find it. She was not mean, just hard to handle. Boars have floppy ears and a very distinct fur pattern with the head and neck being caramel brown and the body white. Her mother was bred to a caramel Pygmy buck. The result is this goat. 

She is not too tall, but certainly outweighs the other goats by double. I suspect that if she has male babies, they will be much more meaty, which is what the Boar breed is bred for - meat. She is slightly more docile than a Pygmy as well, which is a good thing with her size and horns. Basically she keeps to herself. She is bred to the Pygmy buck, Bil, so her babies will be 3/4 Pygmy and only 1/4 Boar. Summer will show us what that looks like. She is kind of pretty, don't you think? I think I will name her Brenda.