sheep

The ewes are getting pretty tired of both the rain and of being pregnant! They are looking very large, and there is a lot of soft moaning going on in the shelters. Just two more weeks until the lambs start arriving. We are sincerely hoping for a dry March. Lambing in the rain really is […]

With all the rain we have been having lately, we were worried that it would rain over the weekend, and so made hurried preparations to bring the sheep into the barn, because there is nothing wetter than a wet sheep, and that makes for a difficult shearing. We were lucky and got a dry weekend,

With all the rain we have been having, it is going to be a great grass year. But right now, everything is saturated and we are swimming in mud, especially in the areas right around the shelters where the ewes are spending most of their time. Lisa comforts Marilyn and reminds her that all this

My select group of retired ewes (the “pets”) live by my house and always gather at the fence when I walk by for chin-scratches or a treat of corn. Bebe (7 years old), Mother (5 years old), Shorty (6 years old) and Emy (7 years old).

Not such a Happy Halloween for our boys–we took the rams out today, a couple of weeks earlier than we usually do. They have been in with the ewes just 21 days, which is just a bit longer than a ewes’ 17-day cycle. We find that most of our ewes get bred in the first

It’s breeding month, and all the ewes are in breeding groups with the rams. Most of the ewe lambs are in with our ram lamb, Pistol, and acting all grown up! Nugget (photo-bombing the first photo, taken by Melinda) still has a bit of a head-tilt, but she is a happy gal and such a

Who would have thought you could get two 200-pound ewes in the back of a Toyota 4Runner? I was skeptical when Sam Stack came to pick up Brown-Nose and Luna, the two 2-year olds he and his wife Lauren had bought from me to add to their flock at Willy Nilly Farm in Humboldt County.

I took eight ewes who are retiring from production to Soul Food Farm in Vacaville today. We had our first rain of the season, just a light drizzle, but it made the day pleasantly cool, perfect for transporting sheep. In May I had sold four ewes who turned out not to be pregnant to Alexis

Dang me! It has been a rough week for our boy, Pistol. As a matter of fact, it’s been a bit of a bumpy life, but he is coming out a winner. Unlike his namesake in the ’60’s country song, “Dang Me,” Pistol was not the seventh son, but the single son of 2072, a

Bebe is one extraordinary ewe, and one of my all-time favorites. Her name (BB) stands for Bottle Baby, because she was rejected by her mother (who we named Psycho, because of her complete lack of mothering skills) and we had to raise her on a bottle. I originally decided not to keep Bebe, because poor