Frozen FYM.

FYM, that's what we were taught to call it at Agricultural College, dung ,poop or sh-t was not acceptable even though it was easier to write. The Lecturers did allow us to shorten Farm Yard Manure to FYM and thus assist our poor spelling. With all animal agriculture and especially in the winter with the grazing types we seem to spend most of our time forking food in and forking FYM out. When you add in the 2 or 3 tons of barley we will feed close to lambing time, along with the hay we are feeding for the winter we will have fed approximately 200,000 lbs of feed which means that there is a fair amount of FYM out on the feeding grounds. We feed most of the winter on the fields and move the feed around so the manure is spread over a large area ,then in the Spring we harrow it to spread and break it down, a few weeks later all you can see is a lovely green pasture that has been well fed.
We have fed on the field now for 12 years and it really saves on work , both in the winter by not having to deal with barns and bedding,and in the spring or summer when you have to clean out and spread the manure. Feeding in the field eliminates two expensive operations and allows the livestock to do the work for you.
It is a pleasure to be back with sheep as it is a nice smooth ride over the frozen ground. Sheep poo you see is the size of fat smarties (they are all brown, no blue ones)and they are found in hand fulls of little round balls. Driving over them is no problem. At the old ranch in Manitoba we fed cattle out in the field and at that time we had a 50 horse power David Brown tractor and packed 1200 lb bales out to the cows. Now cows as most of you know don't deposit smarties, just lumps the size of curling rocks and about the same hardness as the Scottish granite they are made of,at least in the winter when frozen, (in the summer it just squelches up between your toes, don't ask). Negotiating the little and heavily laden tractor over a boulder field of poo was always hard on the front axles which were carrying the weight of the bale and over the years I had to replace 3 stub axles, which although annoying was cheaper than a new tractor. We finally had a new four wheel drive tractor which made feeding a breeze as it was tough enough for the bovine excrement obstacle course.
Now with a new ranch and sheep the problem only occurs when on foot. All those frozen sheep smarties are the same as trying to walk on ball bearings or marbles. Add to the picture a 5 gallon pail or two full of rolled barley in your hands and 150 ewes all pushing a shoving each other and you to get in the bucket.Its not long before the smarties underfoot do their thing and you are under the flock covered in barley and have become their dinning table.This I learned the hard way on our first ranch some 18 years ago. We now have a separate feeding area for grain, the troughs are filled minus sheep and then they are let in through a gate which is opened carefully as a woolly torrent roars through the opening to devour the goodies. Much like a firework rocket, light the blue touch paper and stand clear!

Plenty of Snow

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New Year New Bug

First of all happy new year to all readers, you will notice I wrote that in small case as I'm not to sure about what it has install for us. I am nervous to give it too much respect as I have a feeling it will not be respecting us. Yes we will get a few more wrinkles and grey hairs as is to be expected, but the whole Financial/Economic happenings are another thing,(note I gave them capital letters). There are so many predictions in the media and on the web you can take your pick depending on your mood. So I will not be making any predictions and therefore no new year resolutions, so that way it will all be some one else's fault!
We had all the kids and grandchildren home for Christmas and had a great time. The house was full of noise and a busy place unlike this morning as they have now all gone and we are faced with the empty nest until April. Towards the end of their stay we one by one came down with the Mother of all Gastric Bugs(lots of capital letters = lots of respect). If was a hard and fast 36 hour special that opened the sluices at both ends and as one daughter said "this is like getting Cholera". This was a "bug" as opposed to food poisoning as we all received it at different times over 5 days.
The only way I can tie the first paragraph with the second is to say that I would not wish this bug on any one.Except of course the greedy brain dead idiots who caused this whole Financial/Economic mess and especially those who received golden hand shakes for doing so. A double dose is reserved the the clown who worked 3 weeks and got a $25 million handshake when he was fired. Also a triple dose for the idiots that signed and agreed to his contract clause!!

N ewes

We put the rams into breed on 5th November, so we should have April Fools lambs, 1st April. As a breeding cycle is 17 days and we expose the ewes for two cycles lambing should be all over by 5th May or there abouts. Trouble is as we were breeding some Tegs (ewe lambs) I decided to hold them back a cycle, so giving them two cycles means lambing will not be over till around 22nd May. It will make for a busy spring with lambing, gardening and grazing. We split the flock into three groups and a ram for each. The Suffolks had a Suffolk ram as we hope to save some ewe lambs for breed stock and the rest went to Dorset terminal sires.
We have had a very mild fall and only just had snow so it has been great to catch up with out side work. Cooler weather is needed as it is starting to get muddy,so be careful what you ask for, next week is supposed to get down to -22c, oh well no more mud at least!
Two days ago we pulled two of the rams out from their girls and put both flocks together, that should ease the work load and give Rosa one less field to go to. Hope fully all the girls are breed, we will pregnancy scan in February and know for sure then.
One of the biggest expenses in the operation is milk powder for orphan lambs, back at our old ranch when we ran a big flock I always milked some goats as the milk was better than powdered milk and cheaper as the goats were also raising their own kids as well as a couple of lambs each. Finding milk goats in BC is another task altogether, we did find 3 bred Toggenbergs (my favorite dairy breed) about an hour away last week so we took the trusty Volvo station wagon and hauled them home. Molly,Mandy and Misty are due in March ahead of the ewes which should work out just nicely, giving their kids a good start before raising a lamb or two as well.

On the Chain Gang

As you can see by the photos Rosa our dog is back on the chain. We took it of for a while due to improved behaviour but she has now learnt to travel from field to field to check her flock while they are in different breeding groups. This in its self is good and shows the making of a good dog, but the excitement of seeing everyone brought on the chasing as well as running away by the sheep. I put the chain back on, she still travels doing her pen checking but now without the chasing and every one is fine. If you look at the chain it is not too heavy, but long enough to trip on and slow her down with out hurting her. It does not seem to bother her and we can now hear her doing her rounds as she crawls through metal gates.
Rosa is much better at guarding now as she barks as well as watches, no one is allowed to pull to the side of the road on our property line and all eagles, ravens and magpies are hounded until they leave. All of these show signs of a promising dog as she is only seven months old.

Profit Prophet

With all the doom and gloom that has followed the recent greed and gluttony in the financial markets I got a kick out of this picture. I can just image old Karl 6 feet under at High Gate cemetery shouting at the top of his lungs "I told you so." It does really make him the Prophet of Profit even if his timing was a bit off. Just goes to prove, " good things come to those who wait." Though I realise in this case that depends who's shoes you are standing in and your definition of "good".

Well Hello There!

It is now 6th November and it is snowing/sleeting/and raining in no particular order. "Nesh" as we used to say, so miserable in fact that I can't find anything I would rather be doing outside so I guess I will have to sit down and do this Blog! I see its been 9 weeks since I last posted though quite frankly I don't know where the time went.
First of all we bundled the kids off back to University, then we were busy making a 3rd cut of hay. Next we bought in another two flocks, one of 39 head the other one 3 head. The large group were Dorset and Dorset cross and the 3 amigos as we call them were Coopworths, a Romney Leicester cross which makes a lovely ewe and I just wish we had 300 instead of 3.
This Thanksgiving we flew to Kingston Ontario to see our youngest two at University, my first time there and with the Fall colours it was a great trip. Kingston is an interesting historic place with a vibrant down town and if you ever go there visit "The Sleepless Goat" cafe, my wife says their 7 layer chocolate cake is heaven!! We did a tour on a boat through the Thousand Islands which was a riot of Fall colours and is the best way to see them and oh yeah we saw the kids!
We have also completed a Farm Environmental Plan and passed with flying colours so in due course we will be given a sign for our farm gate to say that we are doing it right. Personally I am not sure what all the fuss is about as we have always farmed this way, only now it is called sustainable and green, putting us on the map. I'm not to sure if it puts us on the extra profit map yet, time will tell. Next week the same fellow is coming to do a Bio-Diversity plan on the farm, but with all the worms, bugs, birds and four legged wildlife we have around along with lots of weeds and trees as well as a river with salmon in it, I'm hoping to get another colourful sign.
More recently we sorted the flock into breeding groups and put the rams into their respective groups. This should give us lambs starting around 1st April when Spring should start to be waking up in this valley.
Rosa our dog has been growing like a weed though not without problems. The Dorset flock we brought in do not like her and run when she gets near, so Rosa runs after them to say Hi and it never ends. We hoped the ewe's would settle, no luck, and scolding Rosa was difficult as I am not there all day watching. So I found a nice length of chain for her, attached around her neck it drags along the ground to her back feet. Its not very heavy so it doesn't hurt her but when she runs she treads on the chain and stumbles, after an afternoon of getting used to it the excess running has stopped and the Dorset ewes are much calmer and happy grazing. Rosa can still run to great me but can't turn corners while on the run or else she does a lip stand. I will leave this on for a couple of weeks and then remove it, this should be long enough to break the pattern and then we will see if she has learnt to behave.