March 19, 2011

March comes in like a lamb



Here are some of my other pictures. Unfortunately not my lamb ones. sheep are such friendly creatures, once you make friends with them.
This year we have eight sheep all together, last year for a short while we had sixteen sheep, until we sent four rams to the freezer. Now the boy lambs of last year are ready to be either sold or sent to the freezer. A sad thing about this set of lambs is that their brothers are their fathers, an accident really, which means that we will probably have to send the females of this year to the freezer as well. It isn't good for breeding a Strong heard because it causes defects. we have never had any, unless you count miscarriage , that happened twice in our experience so far, and we don't want to have unhealthy sheep.
Did you know that sheep always have a leader of the flock? An older ewe, ( female sheep) that has the trust of the other sheep? The sheep leader of our flock is Arabia. It is true that sheep are much easier to lead then to herd or round up. Every once in a while our sheep get into our neighbor's Pasteur's, and every once in a while his cows get into ours. He doesn't tolerate anything that has to do with our animals getting on his land ( I probably wouldn't either, with how many times it's happened, with his cows ruining our garden,) and yesterday he talked to Robin hood about it, telling him that our sheep were eating the grain he put out in his feeders for his cows,
" Now that's bad for us to, Mr., because that stuff is poisonous for our sheep."
That's what I would have said. This particular neighbor thinks we are taking advantage of his grain.
But we got our sheep leading them with a reward of corn, which is candy for them, a reason why the big meat animal factories haven't been doing sheep. The thing they feed their animals is corn, and sheep can not live on that.

2 comments:

  1. Lambs are one of the wonderful miracles of spring!! Thank you for sharing.

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  2. inbreeding is something the Royals did ans they were very very weak! the lot of them . . .having diseases and low immune systems!
    well, poop on your neighbor! you should tell him what's up! ok, maybe not . . . just be a good neighbor in return as you already are, even if his cows are wikid to your garden.
    I've never been friends with a sheepie . . . that'd be fun to grow up the way you are on the farm with all those animals and experiencing such wonderful things!! with amazing parents like the set you already have of course!

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