It is coming fast!

Shearing DAy, April 12, 2019. We need help, please. 

Jobs will include moving sheep into the catch pens and out after shearing, sweeping between shears, providing water for the shearers, skirting the fleece, labeling and tagging and bagging fleece, and the final clean up. 

We welcome all volunteers. Children around 12 can help under supervision please. There are accommodations for 6 in the house and 4 in the camper in their sleeping bags. Lunch of beans, homemade bread and salad is provided for all. Shearing will be in progress from 8 am to approximately  3 pm. If you can join us, please let us know. 

​Thank ewe!

I like to think that I have an indomitable spirit. Once when I was quite young, maybe a teen or early twenties, that was how I was described. It stuck in my memory for some reason, likely because I liked that idea. So, with that indomitable spirit, I formulated a plan, and set to work. Six hours later, I had done it! I managed to remove three huge rams and get them on the other side of the farm to their home, plus put medicine in all the sheep and a few goats, except one, Kara. 

Kara is a jerk! I am not sure why, because she was a triplet from Daphne, my best goat, and Daphne's kids are wonderful. Her twin sister, Kia, is sweet natured and curious and comes to me to get a little pat, but Kara heads for the other end of the pen, wildly screaming every time she sees me, as though her life is at stake should I come near her. She is on the sale list, though she is beautiful, an F1 (first generation cross) mini Nubian in a lovely fawn colour. She was bred to Wimpy the Second this year, a tri colour Nubian buck. The mini Nubians, except Marie, who decided she wanted to get bred by Stevie Wonder, not Wimpy and somehow got herself out of one pen and into the other, rather miraculously, are going to have 3/4 Nubian babies. I am hoping they will be hardy enough to this climate, since Nubians do struggle with the extreme cold. Anyhow, I will have to work on Kara today, plus the other goats in the other pen and the rest of the rams across the driveway pen. Not many, compared to the hundred or so I managed yesterday ALONE!

I broke the cuboid bone last week in an unusual way. It is the bone that the metatarsal attaches to and it is a hairline fracture, nothing much really, and does not require casting or even bandaging. But yesterday, a big ewe stepped on it, and after that I was walking like Festus from Gunsmoke (you will have to look that up if you are not very old). Today it is swollen and painful all over again. I was out to check on the critters this morning. Bob Cotswold had his big head stuck in the feeder, so I rescued him and other than that, the plethora of ravens eating the dog scraps, was dispersed because I picked up the raw bones and meat bits. Anyhow, that broken bone still makes me hobble around in pain, but I will definitely have to treat the goats and the rest of the rams. One untreated animal with lice can reinfect the entire farm and I do not want that! Fortunately, sheep lice do not live on humans, but they can bite humans. Gross! I only got one bite from yesterday, whew! 

Today is beautiful! It is warm and melting, the usual January thaw. It snowed last night, enough of a dusting, maybe 3 centimeters or for those who better understand inches, around an inch and a little bit. But the snow is squishy and soft. I am just finishing my second cup of coffee and will have a cup of bone broth with fat before going out. There is an inch of beef fat on the bone broth in the pot and in the cup, I would say the fat, melted of course, covers the broth. I am attempting to reset my leptin using the Keto diet. 

Speaking or resets, yesterday, after wrangling those sheep, my knees were so painful that I could only hobble. Couple that with the broken bone in my foot and I felt a hundred years old! I have been reading a lot about cold thermogenesis and healing, so I put ice packs on my knees and left them there an hour. The pain and swelling disappeared with no medication and lasted through the night. Today, there is little swelling and little pain. I think there is definitely something to the idea. Long ago I happened to catch a short documentary on open heart surgery in a remote area of Siberia where they had no medication for pain. They used ICE!. The person was put to sleep and then covered in ice until the skin temperature was a certain level and they operated and closed and continued the use of ice until the person was well enough to gain normal function, which was not long and the recovery was nothing short of miraculous. I tucked that tidbit away in my mind. There is an American doctor who is promoting ice therapy, cold thermogenesis, and used it on himself after surgery for a speedy, pain free recovery. I must say, it worked on my old knees! 

Have a wonderful cell phone free day! Ha! Imagine that! Let's see tomorrow if I manage to get the rest of the critters on the farm medicated today. Toodle doo!

The Fat Ewe Farm has had quite a lot of dogs since its inception. In 2010, the year of my retirement and my plan to move to Thorhild, build a monolithic dome home, live off grid and build an organic permaculture farm, there were Josie, my trusty, then 13 year old border collie, Sofi, my daughter's border collie, Mikey, a rescue border collie that I was rehabilitating for rehoming and Anna, my brand new baby Scotch collie puppy (think Lassie). All of these dogs were female and all except Anna were spayed. 

The farm where the plan was to be executed was pristine and lovely, but Waste Management bought 17 quarter sections around it to create a class 1 landfilll, so an organic permaculture farm could not be located next to a dump! I put it up for sale and went home to White Rock after a short sojourn hanging out in a large shop living in my 32 foot motorhome. I boarded my horses and sheep, sold my Canadienne dairy cows, and had to rethink my plans. Josie, Mikey, Sofi and Anna came with me. Mikey was ready to find a new home and I got the best situation any dog could ever want. She went to live with a millionairess in Langley, a widow with no children who hired a dog walker for her and brought her fresh liver when she picked her up. Mikey, after her initial life of being tied on a 6 foot chain with no reprieve, must have thought she went to Heaven. She did! only on Earth. 

We found the Fat Ewe Farm then, in Elk Point and moved in March of 2011. Soon thereafter, a little fellow named Petey joined the posse, followed by Joseph, a rough collie for Anna to marry when they grew up, even though she was a little older. Petey disappeared one day, never to be seen again. Anna was hit on the highway and the next week, I lost Joseph. I was beside myself and cried all the time. I got a fence built as soon as I could, but it was too late for my friends. This is not the place for rough collies. 

Josie was not doing well, losing control of her bladder more and more until she basically had none. It was time to say so long to my much loved companion. I swore I would not get another border collie. None could ever come close to Josie. But I missed her so very much, that I started to look at border collie litters of pups. One day, this little fellow came up to me, looked me in the eye, put his tiny paw on my leg, ran to play and came back and sat beside me, looking into my eyes. Of course, that was Robbie and he came home with me and is now my constant companion. He is not Josie, but he is my dog. 
I had been reading a lot about livestock guardian dogs and living in harmony with the predators. i did not want to get a gun. I needed a pack of dogs that would keep the predators at bay, who were born and bred for that work and who bonded to the livestock they guarded. I found Harley. 

Harley was no longer wanted and if he did not get a home, he was going to be shot. So I rescued him and brought him to the farm. I was told by his previous owner to tie him up and leave him and to be careful around him until he got to know me. He is a big dog, possibly only 2 then, but the vet said possibly 5 years old...hard to tell. Harley fought the coyotes but he needed back up. One dog is not enough for a pack of bad guys. So Charka came.
 
Charka was the only black pup out of a litter of 11, all others including the parents being white. No one could explain him. He was bigger than the other puppies and was off by himself. I really liked him and chose him. Charka was difficult as a teenager, killing ducklings as he played and Robbie and he chewing up a lamb they were playing with too. Bad Charka. He also jumped the fence to go across the highway to visit the dogs there, so I tied a pallet to him. He could jump the fence and not get hung because the pallet was 10 feet behind him, but that stopped that. He still jumps the fence and goes to the end of the driveway, but as far as I know, he does not cross that deadly highway, thank goodness. 

Then I heard of two tiny Maremma puppies, which is what Harley was. They were sisters living with sheep in Saskatchewan and 'not working out' so were going to be terminated. I met the owner after driving 2 hours in a blizzard and loaded the little girls into the truck . They were scrawny and terrified. One limped. They would pull wool from the sheep and run and hide and eat it and scarf down any grain they could find. That is how they survived. The wool had bulk to make them feel full and the grain gave them some substance, but they were starved. The one who limped, Jade, had been kicked and suffered a hip fracture which was healed incorrectly. There were not 8 weeks old as I was told, but closer to 3 months, just emaciated.  

Jade and Jenna would never be large enough to fight predators, but they are the sentinels, the watchers and first alerts. So, two more Maremmas with Pyrenees, just a quarter, were selected to join the pack. 

Mike and Joe were only 5 weeks old when they came to the farm. Their mother was hit by a car and killed and the owners wanted those who bought puppies to take them. I called the vet to see what had to be done. Fortunately they were eating and drinking on their own and though they would have greatly benefitted from being with their mother for longer, they would survive with care. They were two rolly polly little balls of white fluff with black eyes and noses. Soooo cute! Mike and Joe lived with the sheep until they were teenagers, then they were removed to keep the lambs safe from rough play. Mike stays with the sheep most of the time, though Joe is very social and is often found meandering around the farm. 

Since the dogs have been adults, with Harley to teach them the ropes and ways of the guardian dog, the pack is formidable and works together like magic. Robbie is not permitted to join the pack because he is not made to fight predators. His job is to help me gather and move the sheep and he does. He also chases the foxes. 

These livestock guardian dogs have kept the farm predator safe for years now. Harley no longer works. He retired himself this year and spends most of this days sleeping on the porch or in the winter, in the porch. Jade, Jenna, Joe, Mike and Charka do the work. Harley does stand up and bark and sometimes will join the pack, but mostly he knows his fighting days are over. He has many scars to prove it. Mike is the most fierce and if I was a coyote I would run if I saw him coming at me. He is huge, likely over 6 feet tall on his hind legs and he weighs 145 pounds. He is clever and fearless. Joe follows him and together with Charka, the three big males are enough to keep the bad things away. Jade and Jenna will join in a chase but seldom a fight. Good thing. They are just too small. But they are also pretty fierce when they have needed to be. 
​
I love my dogs. I cannot imagine life without them. I do not need a gun to feel safe, even walking at midnight in the bush, which I have done on numerous occasions. Dogs are a blessing. I am grateful for those fuzzy friends, over and over and over again. Bless them, my dogs. 

"Why do you dock the lamb's tail?"
"We have always done it. It is cleaner and less hassle."

The truth is, docking tails of sheep or dogs, both common practices, have large effects on the animals. Docking hurts, no matter how it is done. The tail is banded with a strong elastic and must be done in the first week of life or is inhumane. I have put that elastic on the babies and watched them run, jump, cry, sit, stand, basically do anything to stop the hurting. I have castrated newborn lambs and goats the same way and again witnessed that basic behaviour to quit the pain. I cannot imagine how it must feel. And yes, in a day or sometimes only hours, it hurts less and the lamb may appear normal, but if you closely observe, there is still a tendency to find a way to get the pain gone. Eventually the banded tail or scrotum falls off due to loss of blood supply. Eventually? Yes. It takes days or sometimes a week. Ouch! 

Many shepherds will tell me that they dock tails because it is cleaner and the risk of fly strike is much less. I have long wooled sheep with tails to the ground, sheep dragging their tails behind them, so to speak, and they have the cleanest britches in the flock. I have a Romney ewe with no tail at all, docked way too short exposing her vulva and rectum to biting insects, the sun, and all other elements, only she has copious amounts of fleece. The heavy wool eventually covers her butt and then the real problem starts. She soils her wool every time she defecates or urinates. It runs down her legs and causes urine scald if left there. She is the most prone to fly strike since she is always covered in feces and that is what attracts the blowfly, a fly that lays eggs in the manure tags, but whose larvae feed on the flesh of the sheep. If she had kept her tail, she would have been able to lift it when needing to. The sheep with long tails do not suffer this same problem. They lift their tails and there is little to no soiling of the rectal area. There is evidence that tails that are too short change cell behaviour and allow cancer to take hold and that ewes with short tails simply do not have the muscle tone to keep the babies in. 

I was hunting for some sort of evidence via the form or a study about tail docking and finally found what I was looking for. Tail docking, especially too short, which can cause rectal prolapse. Wouldn't you know it, feeding sheep grain causes sticky stools, which are the worst for the back end. Sheep have more than one stomach to digest cellulose from grass and weeds. Grain causes many more problems than it helps, except the quick fattening aspect to get dollars to the wallet. So, eliminating grain is one place to start managing long tails. 

This excerpt cites two studies that support leaving tails long: Other researchers found that the complete removal of the tail actually increased the incidence fly strike compared with lambs that were docked but had some tail remaining (Watts and Marchant 1977; Watts and Luff 1978). This mirrors earlier work from Australia, as reviewed in Fisher et al (2004), which reports that up to 55–60% of no-tail and short docked sheep showed signs of fly strike, compared to up to 32% of medium tail docked sheep. The same review reports that cancer of the perineal region – usually the vulva – and tail infection were far higher in short tail docked sheep and almost nonexistent in medium or long docked sheep. It is thought that the ability of a lamb to shake its (undocked) tail can help minimize fly strike by deterring flies from landing, while also helping to spread and scatter its feces. (http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/animalwelfare/TAFS-2-Management-to-Avoid-Tail-Docking-Sheep-9-22-09.pdf)

The Fat Ewe Farm neither docks tails nor castrates male babies. Both practices need to be studied and reviewed. There are short tailed breeds of sheep with rat tails that evolved naturally. Cross breeding with these sheep often brings a short tail to the crossbred babies. That might be an answer for those who must have short tails. Keeping the back end clean is necessary for any sheep or goats though. Even the best husbandry practices may result in the occasional bout of diarrhea which will adhere to fleece. Heavy fleeced animals will have that problem despite have short or no tails, though and need to be monitored during fly season. 

The only true benefit is for the shearer. I want to please my shearer so he will return the next year, but not at the cost of causing pain to the animals. I hope you understand. I value the shearer so much. Getting a shearer here in the north is not that easy so when one is willing and able to come, keeping him happy is paramount. But, still, I am not going to dock tails on my babies. Nature intended them to have those tails and they are keeping them. 

We are a throw away society here in North America. Nowhere else in the world is the situation as ludicrous as it is here. In poorer countries, people cannot afford to throw things away and that is a good sign in a roundabout way. 

I read an article this morning about microfibres polluting our world at an alarming rate. Fleece, that soft, fluffy, cozy, material is BAD! very BAD! I knew that long ago. Over a decade ago, I opened an organic lifestyle store and advocated for natural fabrics and fibres only. There are more reasons to use only natural fibres, such as the chemicals used to produce synthetics, and even fibres from recycled plastic bottles purported to be warmer and better than organic ones, are not a solution. For one, plastic bottles pollute and use exorbitant amounts of water in production and a second time in the making of fleece from the recycled bottles. That solution is simple. No plastic bottles. The transition needs to happen for the sake of our children and grandchildren. 

It seems that microfibres from fleece depart from the fabric with every wash and as the fabric is aging, even more fibres dislocate. That is why fleece clothing is very fluffy when purchased and after repeated washing, loses its volume. But where do the fibres go? 

Well, they go into the water, because they are being dislodged in the washing machine. Large amounts of the fibres are concentrated where city water supplies are discharged. Aquatic life there is changing rapidly, mutating, dying, and becoming smaller, mostly because the fibres lodge in the digestive tract and impair the ability to absorb nutrients, but also, they emit poisons from the slowly decaying particles that affect the physiology of the fish and the animals who eat the fish (humans, too). 

So, the answer to the crisis is reeducation and sheep. Sheep, wool sheep, provide a fabric that is soft, warm or cooling as it is an insulator, and is long lasting. It is freely given up by shearing the sheep, which can be a food source and a milk source. There are many ways to use the wool from sheep, from cleaning, spinning and knitting garments, to making batts to stuff sleeping bags and blankets with. The batts can be refluffed when they mat down, so essentially the years of use is phenomenal compared to synthetics, which have a short life and then are discarded. Landfills are chock full of plastics in the form of fleece, being comforter stuffing, toy stuffing, or fabric for the clothing we wear. It does not biodegrade readily and thousands of years from now, there will still be poly fibres floating around old landfill sites. Wool, on the other hand, returns to the elements from which it is made, the elements of the Earth, and even provides fertilizer for the growing things on the planet. I use fleece that is too heavily contaminated with hay and other vegetative matter as a mulch in my flower beds and a liner for hanging baskets and in between garden rows. It takes quite a while to biodegrade, but does eventually and returns to the carbon elements of the soil, with a host of other beneficial nutrients. 

In long years past, baby items were woolen and they were painstakingly made, from the raw wool to the spun and knitted garments and blankets, and then they were passed on to the next generations. Small holes were darned and the use was continuous for many generations. Finally, when there were more repairs than original garment, the item was used for a floor rug or other, until it was composted at the end of a long and loved life. Today, parents do not want to be bothered with wool. It cannot be washed and dried in the machines as readily as fleece and requires more care, which in turn means time, and they do not think they have that time. Turn off the television and find those minutes! 

Seriously, our world is in big trouble. We have a lot of people to feed and our stupidity and lack of concern is making many very ill in our own country. Diabetes, MS, obesity and such are related to autoimmune diseases and we know now, we ARE what we eat. Well, it seems, we are also becoming very contaminated with plastic molecules, fibres and beads as well, and we ARE the only ones who can change that. I urge you to find your voice and request wool clothing and blankets and to take the time to look after them for the next generation and the next. I sleep under a wool filled duvet, and on a wool filled mattress pad. I will tell you that in my entire life, I have never been so comfortable in all weather. I try to wear wool clothing and incorporate wool in my life, but then I am a sheep farmer. If we stopped eating beef, we could raise at least 7 sheep for each cow and that in turn would give us a huge supply of wool for our daily needs. See? 

We know about the harm microbeads in cosmetics cause and many countries have made laws to ban them. Now that we know about the microfibres, we need to make our cries heard. Wool and sheep, solving the crisis four legs at a time. Backyard sheep anyone?

It is that time of the year again, the time that the ewes and does and their offspring need to be readied for winter. This entails checking for worm loads via the Famacha system, hoof trimming, ear tagging and separating the ram lambs who have not already been separated. Fortunately, I had two excellent helpers, the Mormon Missionaries stationed in the St. Paul area. They choose to serve anywhere in the world and are sent to places where the host families can support them. After six months, they are moved to a new location and finally after two years, they return home either to enter the workforce or to go on to higher education. One of the young men grew up on a very large dairy farm in the USA and was very comfortable and knowledgeable with the animals. It helps that the two volunteers are strong young men too! We managed to get through all the sheep and goats, except for the rams, which we will tackle next Monday. 

I had noticed some lice on a few of the goats. Darn! I am not sure where they come from, but I did get several new to the farm young animals this year, included two young goats. All the goats were treated with Ivermectin for lice, regardless if I was able to see any on them or not, but only the sheep that showed signs of anemia were treated, and that was for worms. Not many sheep had to be treated, thank goodness. I am keeping track of the sheep who repeatedly require treatments and will move them out of the flock, keeping only those who manage their parasites on their own. 

One sheep, Tatiana, the purebred Romanov ewe with twins, has been quiet and strange for the last few days. Today I discovered the reason. She is dangerously anemic and very weak, so finally I could catch her. We brought her out from the pasture in a wheelbarrow (hey, whatever works!) and put her and her twin ewe lambs in the little goat pen where I can observe her often. She will be given 5 shots of a vitamin complex for the next 5 days, and she was dewormed for both tapeworms and barber pole worms today. Because she is so anemic she cannot manufacture enough of the vitamin B complex she will need to recover, hence the need for the daily shots. I said a prayer and shed a tear for her and am rooting for her. I picked some green oats for her and gave her some premium hay and she was eating well. She will need to continue to feed in order to keep her rumen functioning. Tomorrow I will give her some apple cider vinegar for the priobiotics too. My heart is hopeful. 

The goat pen still needs to be cleaned, but today, the last boxes of brought to the sea can were removed and the sea can is empty. It housed furniture and stored items after the flood and has been here 9 months! Last night I worked in the bed and breakfast house until midnight and was there most of the day along with 3 house cleaners who helped do the work that would have taken me another three days. The boxes that were brought in today will be unpacked very soon and then the house will be ready for photos. The grand reopening is October 1st, only 4 months behind schedule. Somewhere in there I have to fit in cleaning the goat pen...somewhere. 

​But there is light at the end of the tunnel finally. Things are coming together and life is crazy busy, but wonderful. I hope you can come to the grand reopening of Moose Hills Inn. Love to see you there!

I often have visitors here at the Fat Ewe Farm. They range from older folks who miss the mixed farm and all it has to offer, to very young ones, coming with their parents to view the animals. I was lucky the other day to show three delightful youngsters the critters on the farm. 

They came with their parents of course, and the mom is a professional master spinner with a wool company of her own. That is how we met. She had come to return some roving, now spun into a thick irregular chunky yarn. I am not sure what I will use it for as there is not much there really. I have another bag of roving I might convince her to spin too and then there would be enough for a mat. It would be perfect for that. 

We had to walk out to the pasture to see the sheep. I caught Rosy's little girl, who is as friendly as Rosy and not at all hard to catch, and they were able to pet her. Rosy and her lamb are purebred Babydoll sheep, and my favourite sheep on the farm. Karin Llama made quite the hit as she always causes some sensation when she runs over to investigate the newcomers to her pasture. She likes to smell the folks up close, so I instruct them to hold very still. Her nose tickles on the back of the neck or she will come right up to the face too, and smell the lips and breath of the people. Some are terrified of llamas only from what they have heard, that llamas are mean and spit. Any animal can behave poorly if not treated properly from young, but Karin was born here at the farm and she loves everyone. 

I think the ducks were the favourite of the little girl though. She loved their plump bellies and soft downy feathers, though the young ones are starting to feel prickly as their new adult feathers are poking out. They saw the potbelly babies and the bunnies and got an egg each to take home. It was a great afternoon and a little too short, but their drive was long to get back home. The daddy came along too and he is as gentle natured and kind as they come. We had a good time and I invited them back when they had another opportunity to come for a visit. See you then, kids!!

No farm should be without some goats. They are much different than sheep, more comical and much more mischievous and adventurous.  They get into trouble somewhat, like today when Bonnie thought the caraganas were greener on the other side of the fence, so she jumped over it. She had already climbed on it and stretched the wire down, so it was an easy jump. Fortunately, I was there watching the whole time and quickly came to the rescue, shooed her back in where she belonged and fixed the fence temporarily. I watched as she tried to pull the wire down again so she could jump out, but it held that time, so she lost interest.

I have tried Kiko meat goats, Nubian dairy goats, Cashmere, which is basically a Spanish goat that grows a heavy down coat in the winter, Angora goats and my favourites, Nigerian Dwarfs. 

Here is what I have to say about the breeds. 

If you like soft mohair, Angora goats are very dual purpose, however; I found that the mothering instincts and a few others, like where to forage for food, were bred out of them in favour of fibre. One of my Angoras was a good mother though, so I kept her and she is better at following the herd to eat with them. The kids take a long time to gain confidence to go with the herd though, so she does not go far for the first two months. Angoras need to be shorn twice yearly or the fibre will mat into a terrible useless mess and have to be cut off anyhow. They do not shed. Angora goat meat is considered a delicacy in the Middle East and is quite sought after. The animals do flesh out very well and have lots of milk. The meat, I must say, is fabulous. 

Cashmere goats are basically good hardy dual purpose goats, good mothers, have great instincts and will naturally shed the cashmere if it is not brushed or combed from them. I have not eaten cashmere goat meat, only Angora, so I cannot comment on that. 

Kiko goats are big sturdy goats originating from New Zealand. If my Kiko buck does not sell, I have a mind to breed him to the Angora to see what sort of goat is produced. It should have fibre like Pygora  (Pygmy/Angora) or Nigora (NIgerian/Angora) crosses which is very spinnable, yet sheds naturally if not harvested. There are 3 grads to the cross fibre, A, B and C according to the curl and guard hairs present. The Kiko and the Angora have good milk and the Kikos are great mothers. That cross might be worth looking into . The Kiko doe I have was sold to me as a breeding doe but she has fish teats or nipples teats that split into two nipples, which at first confused the kids, but in no time they got the hang of nursing. It is a hereditary trait and the bucklings should be sold as meat goats only. 

I did have only two Boer goats and did not find them particularly appealing for some reason. The buck was big and pushy and the doe was not very friendly having come from a commercial herd. 

The Nubians are good mothers, gentle, personable and excellent milkers, but hard for me to keep healthy. I am not sure it is just these two Nubians or all Nubians or because I live where winter is very cold. That is the time they seem to go downhill fast, though they do pick up on pasture in the summer. I would try them again if I lived somewhere warmer just for their sweet natures. 

But, my favourites are the Nigerians. They are smaller, smarter, more playful, have triplets or quads and can raise them all with their copious amounts of rich milk. My does consistently have quads and although they can raise them all, I usually sell two as bottle babies, because it is too hard on the mother to manufacture milk for four babies and it takes her body condition down. One of my does, Daphne, can easily raise 3 kids though, without losing condition. They are easy to keep, small to handle, friendly and come with blue eyes sometimes. The true Nigerian Dwarf has a long lean body that is well proportioned so that if you looked at a picture of the goat without surrounding to verify the size, you could imagine the goat to be regualar sized, unlike true Pygmy goats, which to me look like tanks on short legs. I love them too, but they are hard to find. What people call Pygmy goats are nowhere near what they really are. To the uneducated, any small goat is a Pygmy. 

I am trying to sell all the goats except the Nigerian Dwarfs to cut down my workload and feed costs. Because they are smaller, they eat less of course. They do grow a double coat for winter too, which keeps them warmer, so they eat less than a single coated animal who must eat to stay warm. The Angora may be the last to leave or maybe she will stay. Bred to a Nigerian Dwarf, her offspring may be blue eyed, but always will be white and fluffy since those genes are stronger. I also have two Nigerian/Nubian cross girls coming and I am hoping they will do better than the Nubians with the input of Nigerian Dwarf genes. 

If you are starting out and don't know which to try, Nigerians are easier to keep in because of their smaller size, and they eat less for the same reason, plus they are a true dairy goat and provide rich milk, though of course less than a large dairy goat does. Besides, they are just so darn cute! My choice for sure...maybe they will be yours too!

I have tried. 
I have tried so many different feeder styles to keep the hay out of the fleece. Alfalfa hay is terrible for getting down to the skin and sticking tight in the wool. But I have this different grass hay that seems to have some sticking power like I have not come across before. It gets so tangled in the Angora rabbit's fur that they need to be rescued. I thought some twine had gotten in and wound around the rabbit's foot, but it was just this hay. And it gets to intertwined in the sheep's long wool that it will be impossible to get out. Another year of ruined fleece. 

I tried to offer the fleece for free to a spinner's group just out of Edmonton last year, but they did not want to come and get it so I still have it here. There is a lot of very usable wool there, but lots that will need a dedicated wool cleaner or need to be discarded. 

I have been honing the keeper's list very carefully. New lambs are about to be born  starting in 2 weeks. The purebreds will be kept for sure, though some are presold.They will be shorn and then treated for keds, another reason the fleece is bad this year again. Keds are wingless flies that look and act like ticks. They live their entire lifecycles on the sheep and suck their blood at the skin. The feces from the keds contaminates the wool and gives it an off odor if there are enough of them. There are a few sheep that have way more than others. They were treated once, but the helpers did not show up for the second treatment, so now they will have to be treated when they are shorn. 

Gee, for a fibre farm, so far it is zero for four years of fleece. Terrible. The absolute only solution is sheep coats. Sigh. Maybe I will try the t shirts first and see if they last.  A coat is $45 and one long wooled sheep will need up to 4 coats in a winter as the fleece grows to prevent matting. A t shirt at the thrift shop is $2 so even if they become rags after the first use, it would only be 8 dollars in a season rather than $45 plus tax and shipping. It is worth a try.

In the meantime, I look at these happy sheep in the hay and want to cry. 

Before I  became a farmer, I did not ever even think about sheep and goats, other than to comment on a photo of a cute lamb now and again. These days, however, I think about sheep, goats, cows and birds all the time. Today, it snowed and rained all day. I went out to feed the sheep and three of the goats were out. They have been getting out all the time now, slipping through the feeder and then jumping out in search of grain and tasty things to eat, especially the pine trees. Two know the way back in as easily as they know how to get out, but the third cannot ever remember how she got out and I got frustrated with her today and threw her in the sheep pen. I won't have to chase her but she could get over stressed and get pneumonia because she won't go in the shelters. She wants to go back with her goats. Tomorrow I will put the other two escapees in the sheep pen with her and although they won't be happy, they will be safe from over eating things they should not and I won't be frustrated trying to catch them every day. 

But the sheep…well that is where I started. The sheep and goats are greedy creatures, always looking for the best food. This is a good thing if they are eating weeds and clovers and such out on the pasture, but in the pen, it means they pick through their hay and eat what they want, then cry for more. They leave behind the less palatable, but perfectly good hay and all the stems from the alfalfa. At 100 dollars a bale for second cut alfalfa, that is no acceptable. I have purchased slow feeder nets which replicate the way they have to eat in the pasture, picking out the small things, only they cannot stick their heads in and select. They can only eat what is available. That way, 95% of what they are given gets eaten which means less clean up for me. Also, the alfalfa and some forbes in the hay get into the wool of the sheep rendering it quite useless. The nets should keep the fleece clean without having to coat the sheep. One large net fits over a big round bale and the bale twines are removed after the net is on. It does not work for net wrapped bales though. For those, the netting and the first 2 feet of hay around the outside will have to be removed and the net carefully pulled over. It will be best to try to find twine wrapped bales, but every one is going to net wraps. I don't know why. The netting is terrible, hard to get off, hard to dispose of and dangerous to animals who ingest it or get caught in it. 

The sheep and goats will eat the hay, but they have been given the alfalfa for the last two months of pregnancy and now as well for the first two months of lactating. Today I fed the sheep the hay, which smells like a meadow, is green and full of tasty things and weeds that they love and have lots of nutrition and minerals in them. They began to eat the hay and still cried for feed. I know why. Alfalfa is addictive, as addictive as grain. They want nothing more and given as much alfalfa as they want, they would eat themselves sick and possibly to the death, just as they do on grain. I don't know if alfalfa is absolutely necessary. It does have more protein and calcium in it, but it makes such a mess and gets in the fleece and all over me or any other critter near by. Still, the sheep left the hay feeder and ran like greedy pigs to the alfalfa feeder and literally sucked the fine leaves down, leaving the stems and then began to cry for more. The same happened with the goats. 

After they eat the alfalfa, they will slowly munch on the hay, and if they have no choice, they will eat some of the alfalfa stems and the coarser hay. The advantage of the hay nets is they cannot pick and choose and will have to take the stems with the leaves, rather than selecting the leaves only. Way better! Way cleaner, because they don't get huge mouths full and drop half which then is wasted and hardly any clean up later. It took me hours to clean the pen and it had been done in January during a warm spell we had. There is a mountain of hay with a little manure in it too, but mostly hay, wasted and spoiled. I am so pleased to have found a solution and I am praying it is what it is said to be. 

In the meantime, I still have to deal with those greedy addicted sheep and the wayward goats. Life on the farm is never dull, I'll say that for sure. Wouldn't you agree?