Shearing Day 2012

Shearing is about to get underway. The barn is swept, the sheep are (finally) dry, and storage sheets are labeled and ordered. This will be the first year I'll be helping the shearers solo, so I had to make sure everything was in order to keep the sheep moving and the wool bagged.

We woke up this morning to temperatures hovering around zero degrees, which is not the most ideal weather for taking off the wool. Luckily the sun is out and the temperature has warmed to near 30, just warm enough to get the sheep out of their winter coats.

Pictures will come soon. (12:30 pm)

The ladies loafing before the shearers arrived.

The fleece is off! (4:30)

After 2 hours of shearing all 17 sheep were free of their wooly coats and getting reacquainted, and the fleece was bagged for skirting. The bred ewes spent most of the evening ramming each other until ear tags were bloodied while the yearling ewe lambs played ring-around-Lwaxana in their stall.

The bred ewes vie for dominance and reestablish the flock's hierarchy.

Here is the first set of lamb belly pictures:

Poa

Maggie

Wynona

Mocha

Kira

Crystal

Clover

The ewe lambs look so little and cute without their big fluffy coats.

Claire, Madeleine, and Annie

Claire without her golden locks.

Otto smiles for the camera while Buckwheat and Mac look on.

Robbie seems to be saying, "Hey! Don't forget about me."

Now the lambing date predictions begin. For the next month I'll be monitoring the ewes closely for any indication that lambs are on the way. While the first possible lambing date isn't until March 30th, I'll be taking lots of pictures and posting the usual gratuitous udder shots for record-keeping purposes.

Shearing is Postponed

On Friday we were fortunate to finally get some snow. Unfortunately this meant the sheep got covered in icy snowballs and are still too wet to shear. The damp wool, and the single-digit temperatures today, means shearing will (hopefully) happen on Wednesday afternoon. In the mean time the sheep are confined to the barn.

Here's the last wooly upload. I haven't taken pictures of the pregnant ewes so close to shearing before, so this post is in part for my own records for future years.

The non-bred ewes (yearlings and Lwaxana) with flash-blue scary eyes.

Poa looking a little grumpy.

Crystal, Mocha, and Kira hanging out in the barn.

Mocha's ready to shed her wool.

Crystal's looking a little round.

Maggie seems like she's hiding a few lambs under all that wool.

Wynona's starting to get friendlier.

I'll post photos and an update when the deed is done.

6 weeks until lambing...

The shearing date has been set and the ewes are getting fat. We have officially reached the ewes' third trimester and are now 6 weeks from the first possible lambing date. That being said, last year the first lamb came 17 days after the first possible date, probably due to Xavier missing the first heat cycle. This year I don't think we'll have to wait quite as long. If Clover is as reliable this year as she was last year, she should lamb on April 4th. Last year Mocha and Crystal lambed two and four days, respectively, after Clover. Looking at Mocha this weekend, I think she will probably again be lambing around Clover's due date. After next week's shearing (2/27), I will post pictures of the exposed ewes.

Poa, Mocha, and Maggie

Wynona

Half-Time

No, I'm not talking about the Super Bowl, I'm talking about ewe gestation. The ewes are a little over half way to lambing, and I can't wait to see what they give us just under 9 weeks! The girls are starting to show slight bulges through their thick wool, and I'm anxious to see just how big the bulges are when the wool gets removed in four weeks. Now is the time to start preparing for the new arrivals and work on animal groupings and housing logistics.

The ewes are head-deep in hay. Here are six of the seven bred ewes expected to lamb in April.
Maggie, the only first-time lamber, seems to be particularly wide compared to the other ewes.
Crystal is starting to get barrel-ish.
Mocha shows off her baby belly bulge.
Now that Cedar's completed his job, he spends most of his time hoarding his flake of hay and ignoring the girls.

The non-breeders are making it through the winter eating hay and growing wool.
Here are Claire and Edna looking rather wooly.
In a few weeks we'll have another seventeen fleeces to process! We still have over 200 skeins of bulky-weight yarn we had spun in Richmond, Vermont last summer. And although we've taken up knitting (at least casually), I don't think we'll ever get through our initial batch, at least not in my lifetime.

Here's my first hat, and the first thing I've knitted - ever. I used a combination of Kira and Poa yarn on size 7 bamboo needles.
On a related note, we got back the four sheep skins we sent to Bucks County Tannery after Thanksgiving. One skin has 8-inch plus length wool, which makes the skin especially sheep-like. I'll post pictures of the skins in a future post.

As for the goats, Grant has successfully established his dominance over the ladies without causing injury, in part due to his fantastic head-gear. Yes, he is wearing duct tape, tennis balls, and a wooden dowel on his horns. After researching integrating horned goats with dis-budded (non-horned) goats, this was the best contraption I could create. Grant shamefully wore it for about a month before it started to fall off, just long enough for the girls to learn who was boss.
Aster and Gertie seem to have adapted quite well to their new living arrangements and roommate. Aster seems absolutely smitten with Grant, while Gertie seems she'd rather do without the competition for top goat.

In an attempt to give Grant some extra special attention, we decided over Christmas break that he might want to go for a walk. He seemed to enjoy getting out of the barn and away from the girls, at least until he realized it was freezing out and he was far from any easy food! Once he got to the top of the hill he quickly turned around and lead my sister back to the barn. Gus patiently watched from my side, and the sheep even seemed amused by the ordeal.

Lastly, here's one of my favorite pictures of Gus from this winter. He loves the snow!
After the wool is removed from the ladies, I'll post pre-lambing pictures and estimated due dates.