I spend a small fortune on hay nets. They are supposed to do three things: Keep the hay off the backs of the animals thereby keeping the fleece clean, save feed because they take a while to get it out of the net and then do not waste it as they do when they pull a whole mouthful out and it drops, and three, keep the waste down. 

I have not seen the sheep so much as attempt to eat the green feed from their hay net. They do eat the grain heads from green feed and if it is green enough, they will eat some of the grassy part, but mostly they regard it as straw and leave it alone. The goats have discovered that green feed has a little grain in it, not much, but some and they have mastered eating the grain and throwing out the rest. That is contrary to what is supposed to happen. I will try with hay when they devour and waste most of the bale they have. I think perhaps now they have learned to pull out what they want and discard the rest, the theory of no waste will not work. It does one thing and that is help keep the hay off the backs of the other animals, though. For a fibre farm, if that is the result, then it is successful. 

I took a short video of the goats eating the green feed, pulling out the straws and discarding them, then continuing to hunt for the ones that had any kernels on the ends. They do not tend to pick anything up if it falls to the ground though, being browsers. So, the waste is more than ever. 

The cows will likely do the best because they will eat whatever they get out of the net. The cow net has larger spaces and they should be able to learn how to access the feed in the net. It slows down feeding so they eat constantly basically, except when they are chewing their cud or sleeping. This is purportedly healthy for ruminants of all breeds. 

For the goats, hay net feeding green feed does NOT work! Now I know that, on to the next feed. I think alfalfa would still get into the fleece though. We shall see. I have one bale of alfalfa left and when the green feed is gone, I will give it a try. 

Hay nets for goats….the decision is pending.

How much does it cost to get a lamb buchered cut and wrapped at a government inspected facility? Well, it is an hour's drive, so that will be 4 hours, 2 to take them in (there and back) and 2 to pick them up (there and back). Let's be ultra conservative and say .75 cents per kilometre. Total km is 2448 = $183.60. Kill fee per animal is $40 and disposal is $10 per animal. Cutting and wrapping is .80 cents per animal. Given that they will dress out at say 40 pounds each x 80 = $ 32.00. Add the $50.00 per animal fees and the processing of one small lamb is already$82.00. Add the transport cost of $45 per animal and the lamb is now $127.00. That does not include raising the animal nor ANY of the farmer's time. If the meat was sold for an average of 7 dollars a pound (40 pounds dressed, cut and wrapped) the cost of one lamb would be $280 leaving $153 per lamb profit. But wait, the farmer has not been paid, the food has not been accounted for either and any losses are not figured in. If the lamb is 6 months old, it was fed and watered every day. If the lamb was a wool sheep, it also required shearing. If one of 10 lambs became ill, medicines would have been purchased, and possibly even a vet involved. 

Here lambing in the dead of winter, January, will get a good sized lamb by the end of summer when they come off pasture. But to do that one must have a good barn and excellent personal stamina to ensure lambs are not frozen before they are dry. That does not work for me, since I don't have a barn. Later lambing means either keeping the lambs over the winter or butchering them very very small in the fall. The butcher costs remain the same, from a 10 pound animal to a 200 pound animal, it is still 40 dollars to kill it and 10 dollars to dispose of the remains and 80 cents a pound to cut and wrap it. 

Here in Alberta, all meat sold to the public must be government inspected. A farmer is permitted to butcher animals for personal use only. The option is to sell the lambs for $2.oo or so, per pound live weight, to an animal buyer. But, the buyer is only really interested in big meat lambs. They will take the others and pay less. So, if a lamb weighs 90 pounds on the hoof, it is worth $180 live. It still has to be trucked to where they buyer is, for me, not 2 hours, but 5 each way and then there is the day wasted and the profits eaten at by the transport again. 

Lamb producers have one breed of sheep and the lambs all look the same. Buyers like that the best. The lambs are fat and grain fed and again, buyers like that the best here. They do not like grass fed organic meat at all and hesitate to even consider it. 

I am hoping that these butchered lambs, who will have never seen vaccinations, antibiotics, hormones or grain, will be able to be sold as cut and wrapped sides of lamb from the freezer at the farm store. The Fat Ewe Farm does not raise animals for meat specifically, therefore our breeds are not meat breeds of sheep. The lambs are smaller and not uniform, but they are healthy and have been grass fed only. The sheep are kept for their unique wool, but when there are too many ram lambs, they become meat lambs, unfortunately. 

It is hard. I see the lambs being born, and I cuddle them as they grown. I pat them on the heads and tell them they are good boys and give them a scratch under their chins. All along, I try to sell them live to smallholders who want to start in sheep without a large outlay of cash. When they do not sell, they become meat lambs. I have 5 of them at that stage now and they have a date with the butcher for June 8. So sad really. And that is the story of lamb meat on the Fat Ewe Farm. 

Since Friday, when 4 livestock guardian dogs got porcupine quills in their muzzles at 5:30 am and I could get no help, it seems my chores were way behind. I contacted yet another shearer to see if the sheep could ever get done. Already I had been creating a handling system on paper, I just needed help. And who would I ask? The folks I had lined up twice previously when the shearer cancelled both times, are busy now. What would I do? The new shearer said he could come on Thursday. I was already exhausted from late nights nursing hurting dogs and early mornings rescuing cows on the road and did not know if I could be ready for Thursday working on my own. 

Then the answer to a prayer came in the form of God's workers. Two young missionaries came with the brother of a friend to bring a stock trailer to put Charka in. I must have seemed quite frantic and I said I needed help. They said they could help me and I teared up and nearly cried. Just when I was thinking it would not happen, help arrived unsolicited because I asked. It is wonderful how the Creator works for us. 

So, the two young missionaries and two more showed up today ready to work. We were able to set up the pens for the shearing and tomorrow they will return and we will move the sheep and do some yard clean up too. On Thursday, shearing day, they will return one more time to help. I promised them a barbeque afterwards so I will go buy some potato salad and make some burgers and we will share a meal after a hard days work. I am so grateful for their labour and time and they do it as servants in their mission work. We often think of missions in third world countries, but why not here where much help is needed too? 

We managed to even build a small handling system with a head gate, a system where a sheep's head can be locked in place to do medications or procedures. The sheep have keds, little biting wingless flies and we will treat them after shearing before releasing them. All the sheep have to be treated, but there are 5 meat lambs who cannot because the withdrawl for the pesticide is 90 days, so I am hoping they can be butchered immediately after shearing. A second application of the pesticide will be necessary 21 days after the first to ensure the pupaes that have hatched are also killed. I do not like to use pesticides, but the bugs are very bad and suck the blood from the sheep many times a day. A serious infestation, which some of these sheep have, can make the sheep anemic from loss of too much blood and it slows growth down for lambs too. The sheep itch and scratch and bite at their wool making it useless as well. After this year I will treat any and every new sheep coming onto the property! 

Thank you Creator for the small mercies you show us through simple things. Thank you for the help that came unexpectedly and is so very much appreciated. I am humbled and grateful. 

It is spring! We are having a late spring this year due to the drought. But the birds are having an early spring. The geese, ducks, chickens and turkeys have been sitting on eggs for some time now and babies are popping out everywhere. Today there are new turkey poults and new goslings. Unfortunately, I will have to take the babies from the geese and the turkeys because the ravens will eat them. They don't bother much with the chicks, likely because there is not much to eat there, but they love ducklings and goslings. The turkeys just loose their babies, then the babies get cold and go to sleep forever. 

Chickens do make the best mothers, especially in the breeds where the instincts have not been bred out. The little bantam cross bred hen that sat on her eggs in the yearling ram pen, hatched 10, but is just cavorting with 8, so two have been lost. She is fiercely protective and very watchful and likely will keep the rest of her babies. 

The goose has 7 eggs. Three have hatched and she is sitting on the others. Hopefully they wll all hatch. There are some new goslings that arrived from the hatchery on Saturday, perfect timing to add these to the incubator, which is an old livestock trough. A Khaki Campbell duck has a nest and should be coming out very soon with her babies and I gave 2 goose eggs and some Muscovy duck eggs to the Mottle Houdan hen. She has to sit for a month to hatch them and so far it is fine. I keep removing any chicken eggs, which would hatch 10 days sooner than the duck and goose eggs, so she would abandon the nest. This way she will stay until she hatches the eggs. Unfortunately for her, I will have to take them from her as well to ensure their survival. 

Now, spring on the farm is teeming with new life and that is so perfectly wonderful, isn't it?

Really, it started last night and has gone on and on. I went out socializing in Cold Lake and when I returned it was 11, not terribly late. But then I went to check on the ducklings and their heat lamp was off. I could not get it on and gave them a huddle box instead, that is a box with an opening. They can all fit in the box and their body heat will keep them warm enough to be comfortable. The box is half a very large dog house and is plastic so no wind or rain can get in either. They have a shade tarp over their coop, but it is not rain proof, though we don't have any rain forcast and the terrible drought continues. But drought is another topic. 

After trying to set the heat lamp up and then installing the huddle box, I finally got to bed at 1 am. Then at 5:30 there was a terrible ruckus in the bush out by the creek just outside the other house. I quickly got dressed and went to see what was happening. In hind sight, there are bears in the area and that might not have been a good idea, but I was thinking of my young cows that were on their own for the first time. Perhaps the dogs had cornered one. It was much much worse than that. 

As I approached the yelping and barking, I called the dogs. Ofcharka came bounding out with a muzzle full of porcupine quills and then Joe, Mike and Harley followed and they also have quills, but not as many as Ofcharka. For the rest of the day I tried to get some help. I phoned 5 vets in the vicinity. The two closest do not go to farms for dogs. The dogs have to be brought in, but I could not load Ofcharka especially or Harley into a truck or they would bite. They were hurting and over excited and not about to allow me get them where they did not think they should go. And none of those vets I phoned would prescribe a tranquilizer to dope the dogs enough to allow us to get them into the truck to get to the vets. It was a catch 22 situation. 

Several people offered suggestions, one brought a horse trailer (very kind but not going to work) and all day there were comings and goings for other reasons. I still was trying to get the chores finished and finally got the morning watering done. The feeding didn't get done until later, much later. 

Finally, the Cold Lake vet gave a dosage for a medication to sedate the dogs and another lady had that medicine and gave it to me. We got the medicine into the dogs and waited. Three of the dogs were cooperative and were well sedated and we were able to get the quills out and check their mouths and lips. I feel the quills are out of them and they will be fine. Ofcharka, on the other hand, has still not gone docile and will bite. He will have to go the vet's but how to get him there is a question yet to be answered. One more time to check before sleep….one more time….sleep….

The ram was in with the ewes for quite some time. Given that the ewes have a gestation period of 155 days for a large breed or less for a smaller breed by 4 or 5 days, the last little lamb could be born as late as June 9th. Lisa is a 2 year old coloured Cotswold. She did not lamb last year. Cotswolds take 2 years to reach maturity and often do not cycle early as most other breeds. 

I was busy today helping my son with his car, and I visited the woman who was so kind to help with the quills in the dogs yesterday. I also planted a few geraniums and petunias in the flower bed and pots, but a small thunder storm was forecast for late afternoon and I could see the clouds in the distance. I did not see the little lamb when I checked the sheep in the morning and do not know where Lisa, the coloured Cotwold chose to have her baby. But, she had cleaned the baby well and despite the tremendous coat on her, the baby was with a rounded belly and warm mouth, so she had nursed. It is a little ewe lamb, white in colour and much like the lamb of her sister, also white in colour. Unfortunately, the Cotswold matriarch was with Walter, who was too ill to breed and she is barren this year. Of all the Cotswolds, she is the most correct and has the best fleece. 

So, that leaves the Romanov ewe. She definitely appears pregnant and is round like a bowling ball. The breed is known for multiple births, even as a first time mother, so likely she will have twins. Romanov sheep are hair sheep and the off spring could be either wool or hair or shedding wool. Most likely though, the fleece will not be good enough for use other than compost, and that is a good use. Suneet, the Tunis ewe lamb from last year, does not appear bred, but it is hard to tell until she is sheared, because she does have a heavy coat. Shearing day is Thursday. Anna and Zoe, last year's Babydoll lambs, I am most sure, are not bred. Babydolls may not cycle their first year and are best to wait until they are a full year old before breeding. Anna and Zoe are my special little girls, my first Babydoll ewe lambs and my pets. I can't wait to see their little ones next year. 

That leaves Dora, the Karakul. The rams do not know how to breed that fat tailed Karakul sheep and she has never had a lamb. She is here because, well, because I love her.  It would be wonderful if she did have babies one day, but I have given up hoping for that and just keep her as a special ewe. And that she is. 

So, with the little ewe lamb born today, there are possibly 3 more ewes to lamb prior to the June 9th. Tatiana, the Romanov, definitely will be a yes, and she may be the only and last one still to go. We shall see. It was Quinn's first time breeding and althgouh he took his time, it does appear he eventually got the job done. Thanks Quinn. 

Yesterday I moved the older ducklings out of the livestock trough brooder into the hoop coop because the new Blue Swedish and Pekin ducklings and the Danish white goslings arrived. The last hatched Muscovy ducks and the three goslings were left in the brooder because they were too young to move on with the ducklings. I did move the goslings, but they nearly got trampled as the ducklings tried to pile one on the other in an effort to get away from everything. 

The ducklings went over to the new home in the wagon. They were terrified as little ducklings always are. But, when they were in their new home, they had a lid from a Rubbermaid container filled with water to play in. It was 30 degrees and the water was a welcome diversion from the fear they experience with any new situations. Unless ducklings are handled frequently, they tend to be very skittish. Some breeds are reportedly better than others, like the Blue Swedish, but we shall see how they fare compared wth the Khaki Campbell, Rouen, Saxony and Ancona ducks. Of those breeds, the Campbells are certainly the most nervous and the Saxony the quietest. 

Once the older ducklings were in their new home, they began to play and eat, both very good signs that they are comfortable. A bit of a surprise came from the geese though. They heard the babies and their mother protective instincts took over and they began to come to the shelter and hiss at anything near. That was endearing to see. I wish the Sebastopol goose would sit on eggs. Maybe next year. Only one goose is sitting this year and she has about 6 eggs only. The Sebastopol cross goslings, if there are any, should be very beautiful with coloured long flowing feathers. 

I do enjoy the waterfowl. They are so much hardier than the chicks. The chicks are best incubated and raised by their mommas and one momma just hatched 10 little ones. Tomorrow I will show them to you. Now, out to feed the duckies!

I think I am done testing out the sheep breeds, except I do have some new lambs coming this fall, Romneys. The Romney breed is an old English breed reknown for their fine wool and larger carcass, so a dual purpose sheep. They tend to be slower growing than some of the new breeds that reach 120 pounds in 100 days for market lambs. Some of my adult ewes are not 100 pounds!

Of the breeds though, I defiinitely like the unimproved, primitive ones best, particularly Jacobs. I don't know how all Jacobs are, but the ones I have had are smarter than most of the other sheep except the Icelandics, hardier, better mothers, a little wary but not skittish and have nice wool Really there is not much not to like except they are small in comparison to the meat breeds. Since my goal was never to raise sheep for meat, that should not matter. 

Today was a good example of how smart the Jacob sheep is. I let the sheep out and then opened up the bush. They love the bush. It has new leaves and tender shoots of grass and tasty weeds. It was not very well developed because we have not had any rain and little snow over winter, but they have no pasture either, so it is the best there is. Another bush area is being fenced for them this weekend. The shep were in the pasture beside the gate and divided by a fence. The sheep ran to the corner of the fence to get in the gate and baaad loudly when they could not. I can understand the young lambs not figuring out that they had to go back, but the adult sheep should have gotten the idea. 

So, who is the leader? Yes, the Jacob ewe! You can see her in the first picture leading the way. Her lambs did not follow her and were left in the corner looking for a way in. Once Jean Jacob led the way, some of the other sheep followed her, but some were just too sheepish and remained in the corner and Robbie and I had to go shoo them back to the gate to come down to the open area. Gotta love that Jacob though. Perhaps instead of keeping different varieties of sheep for their unique wool, when I decide to cut back, I will just have Jacobs and Babydolls, maybe the Romneys too, but I don't know about them at all yet. Thanks for thinking Jean Jacob. You are awesome!

I have always liked to work with furniture. One of my first redos was an eighteenth century dining room suite which I painstakingly stripped and sanded and then refinished all by hand. There were scrolls and twists and intricate carved areas. It took forever to do it and when I was done, I sold it for $1200, which was a good sum way back then. I did another set after that and another one too, plus many dressers and odd pieces, always stripping sanding and refinishing the beautiful wood. 

These days the trend is back to painted furniture. This was so in the  1950's, too and many beautiful pieces were painted. Shades of green were popular then. Today's tones are whites and off whites, pale turquoise blues, and a few vibrant tones for the ones not faint of heart. Distressing is very popular too and taking a chain, hammer and sander to a perfectly beautiful finish is how the resulting distressed old look is often created. Then a dark wood wax is often applied to the end result to highlight the project and muddy the appearance. The trend is in clothing too, with torn, ripped and clothes with holes and paint on them quite in vogue. I can't for the life of me understand why some one would pay really good money for jeans with paint and holes, but they do. Likewise with distressed painted furniture. 

So I bought some pieces for pretty cheap, 20 to 40 dollars an item usually.  The intent was to use them in the farm store, but with a price tag on them in case some one wanted to liberate them in the meanwhile. The desk was pine, quite well used with some scratches and dents in the soft wood and glossy finish. I painted it a light light mauve melamine and overpainted with a dry brush with a beautiful light blue. It is not visible in the phot except the bottom left side, because the sun was shining on that side of the garage. 

The other piece was an 80's end table, all solid wood and back in the day, expensive, no doubt. It was pretty ugly though, with a sprayed on distressed look. I actually like the yellowed white worn finish I gave it. First I painted it a very light lemon yellow and then two coats of cream over that, then sanded down to the yellow coat in some places and more in others to give it a worn look. Then handles were original for both pieces. 

But the piece I love is the chartreuse green 1950's kitchen cupboard. This was an old plywood cupboard, likely over the sink, with the beautfiully rounded edges a craftsman built right in the house. The wood was ash plywood and the finish was a high gloss shellac. This cupboard has three coats, a primer and then two coats of the chartreuse. I will put the old chrome convex dish knobs back on and wall mount it for a pop of colour in the store. 

I have about 6 more pieces to do to put in the store. These will be used to house the linens, china, knick knacks and whatever else I put in them, except the chartreuse cabinet which will be my store storage for a stapler, tape, stationary, bags, tissue wrap and so on. That is unless some one decides they cannot live with out it….Is that you?